Hey Guys, new to the forum but im after a little information!

Im in need of my first "proper" car... iv been driving a 1.4 16v vauxhall astra (2001) for a while on my provisional licence, but have now passed my test... lost story short, i got around 35-40mpg on petrol, but insurance is around £3000 and i simply cant afford to pay that!

I then heard good things about the Skoda Fabia 1.9 sdi, so looked into it a little bit and they seem to be cheap on insurance, cheap to run around (60mpg) & fairly cheap to buy, but... seem to be VERY slow...

so guys,

Are they reliable as they sound? iv got around £1500 to buy one, around 100k mile mark id imagine.

Are they as slow as people say?

Insurance aside, are they easy/cheap to get chipped?

Can you turn the sdi into a tdi with say... the turbo and injectors and a few other bits or is it a big, costly job!

What have you guys done to get the bhp up on these?

Thanks for any replies, i HOPE! iv posted this in the correct place, apologise if i havnt.

I haven't had experience of the SDI, but welcome to Briskoda

Andrew

Slow? Yes. Reliable? Yes - barring things affecting all Fabias like suspension bushes and leaky doors. Tunable? Kinda.

In theory, the tuning box approach should net you anything up to 20% more power as a result of the way diesel motors work compared to petrol ones. But then the extra insurance for driving a modified car (even if it's STILL SLOW) would probably make it cheaper to track down a 100bhp TDi, which will be faster anyway. I'm not sure I can recommend a 1.4 16v on long-term reliability grounds, but it would certainly be a cheaper way to get a 100bhp Fabia than the TDi...

Slow? Yes. Reliable? Yes - barring things affecting all Fabias like suspension bushes and leaky doors. Tunable? Kinda.

In theory, the tuning box approach should net you anything up to 20% more power as a result of the way diesel motors work compared to petrol ones. But then the extra insurance for driving a modified car (even if it's STILL SLOW) would probably make it cheaper to track down a 100bhp TDi, which will be faster anyway. I'm not sure I can recommend a 1.4 16v on long-term reliability grounds, but it would certainly be a cheaper way to get a 100bhp Fabia than the TDi...

sorry i took so long to reply, i had the Fabia 1.9 sdi down as an insurance group 3, but since all the cars have now been regrouped, its now group 5 (used to be grouped 1 - 20 and its now 1 - 50) so its now cheaper to insure, brilliant

anyway!

so getting them chipped gives about 13bhp? i think there 64 standard = 77bhp not bad i guess, what els would you do to get a few extra bhp?

just curious as to how powerful you could get an sdi engine with only a few hundred quid!

I didn't say you WOULD get up to 77bhp; just that it's possible in theory. I don't know if anybody's tried, but it's down to the fact that diesel engines are able to run lean (which is one of the reasons they're more efficient) and so can be over-fuelled to provide more power. This is how tuning boxes work, and while they're generally aimed at turbo-diesels, they don't affect the boost provided by the turbo so the same principle should apply to a normally-aspirated diesel engine.

But as I say, it appears insurance is a big issue for you, and putting any kind of modification on the car will push the insurance way up. A quick glance on Autotrader suggests the prices of TDis and SDis are pretty similar:

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/search/used/cars/skoda/fabia/engine-size-cars/1-7l_to_1-9l

...and while the TDi is Group 6 in old money, I honestly think it will work out less to insure than a tuned SDi!

HTH

I didn't say you WOULD get up to 77bhp; just that it's possible in theory. I don't know if anybody's tried, but it's down to the fact that diesel engines are able to run lean (which is one of the reasons they're more efficient) and so can be over-fuelled to provide more power. This is how tuning boxes work, and while they're generally aimed at turbo-diesels, they don't affect the boost provided by the turbo so the same principle should apply to a normally-aspirated diesel engine.

But as I say, it appears insurance is a big issue for you, and putting any kind of modification on the car will push the insurance way up. A quick glance on Autotrader suggests the prices of TDis and SDis are pretty similar:

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/search/used/cars/skoda/fabia/engine-size-cars/1-7l_to_1-9l

...and while the TDi is Group 6 in old money, I honestly think it will work out less to insure than a tuned SDi!

HTH

The insruance groups have just changed now, the SDI is group 5 and the TDI is group 12.

Yeah, on a scale of 1-50 instead of 1-20. That's why I said 'in old money'. The amount you pay for insurance shouldn't change (although no doubt the insurance companies will take the opportunity to add a little bit extra on anyway!)