Picked up my new (to me) 54 plate VRS on Friday. Love it so far. Great for overtaking on the country roads I frequent and work colleague even said it was like his bike for just getting to 80mph that'll do for me especially when it still returns well over 50mpg

There are a couple of niggling faults with it aside the standard Fabia faults such as no back wiper, but nothing I cant fix.

The light that illuminates the speedo and tacho needles seem to have a mind of their own. The fault is intermittent (unless it also died today) but they dont seem to always light up, even though the temp and fuel needles work fine. All the rest of the dash lights/dims properly with the exception of these two.

Anyone got any ideas of things to check?

As an aside, left Yorkshire this morning and got to Oban in just under 8 hours (normally takes me 6hrs 30 or so). Avoided Glasgow and went over a mountain pass (Beeftubs) to Edinburgh and up the M9. Considering all the threads on here that say the Vrs is crap in snow I am amazingly happy with mine. When the temp gauge says -16 and it is happily shooting on at 60 or so, I did wonder what the hell the problem was in Glasgow and am thankful I didnt let the snow comments put me off

cheers, Sandy

Edited 7 December, 201015 yr by imull

60mph at -16 in a car you've only owned for a few days is either extremely brave, or extremely stupid

What you really need to remember is salted roads doesn't mean there is no ice. Salt lowers the freezing point of water by about 10 degrees, then if the temperature drops lower than that they need to mix it with some sort of calcium chloride. Salt alone is pretty useless below about -10deg air temp, and salt/calcium mix fails at about -30deg then most places just start using sand. So if your car is showing -16, take into account windchill and you're looking at a pretty high chance of icy roads. I don't know about you but i'm not very confident that the councils will be using a calcuim/salt mix at all, so expect there to still be ice on the roads and drive accordingly. Remember also the higher you go, (i'm assuming that "mountain pass" means altitude) the easier water freezes, so adjust the temperatures to be somewhat warmer than what i've given above.

I do quite a lot of driving through the Derbyshire and Yorkshire Moors and personally i slash my speeds by about 50%, so i rarely go over about 40mph even on a arrow straight road in this sort of weather (in my Furby or our Rav4). All cars handle the same at 60mph when you hit the sort of ice on our roads at the moment, like a brick - lets hope that your new Fabia VRbrick doesn't wipe out another car with a family in it when that enevitable spin happens (sorry, sometimes telling it straight is the only way to go :p)

60mph at -16 in a car you've only owned for a few days is either extremely brave, or extremely stupid

What you really need to remember is salted roads doesn't mean there is no ice. Salt lowers the freezing point of water by about 10 degrees, then if the temperature drops lower than that they need to mix it with some sort of calcium chloride. Salt alone is pretty useless below about -10deg air temp, and salt/calcium mix fails at about -30deg then most places just start using sand. So if your car is showing -16, take into account windchill and you're looking at a pretty high chance of icy roads. I don't know about you but i'm not very confident that the councils will be using a calcuim/salt mix at all, so expect there to still be ice on the roads and drive accordingly. Remember also the higher you go, (i'm assuming that "mountain pass" means altitude) the easier water freezes, so adjust the temperatures to be somewhat warmer than what i've given above.

I do quite a lot of driving through the Derbyshire and Yorkshire Moors and personally i slash my speeds by about 50%, so i rarely go over about 40mph even on a arrow straight road in this sort of weather (in my Furby or our Rav4). All cars handle the same at 60mph when you hit the sort of ice on our roads at the moment, like a brick - lets hope that your new Fabia VRbrick doesn't wipe out another car with a family in it when that enevitable spin happens (sorry, sometimes telling it straight is the only way to go :p)

So you don't know what's wrong with his dials then

There are a couple of niggling faults with it aside the standard Fabia faults such as no back wiper, but nothing I cant fix.[/Quote]

Every Fabia vRS left the factory with a rear wiper. If yours hasn't got one, someone has removed it. If there is no trace of one then it's been very heavily modified.

The light that illuminates the speedo and tacho needles seem to have a mind of their own. The fault is intermittent (unless it also died today) but they dont seem to always light up, even though the temp and fuel needles work fine. All the rest of the dash lights/dims properly with the exception of these two. [/Quote]

Those are all driven by LEDs on the dashpod. If one or more are failing then you'll need a new dashpod. £380 from Skoda. Used ones are available, but they can be a barsteward to fit. Have a chat with Ben Wardle at Shark Performance about a swap or Ethan Kai at Cluster Repairs UK who may be able to fix it, but you'd need to send him the dashpod or take your car to Great Yarmouth to have it repaired.

Anyone got any ideas of things to check?

As an aside, left Yorkshire this morning and got to Oban in just under 8 hours (normally takes me 6hrs 30 or so). Avoided Glasgow and went over a mountain pass (Beeftubs) to Edinburgh and up the M9. Considering all the threads on here that say the Vrs is crap in snow I am amazingly happy with mine. When the temp gauge says -16 and it is happily shooting on at 60 or so, I did wonder what the hell the problem was in Glasgow and am thankful I didnt let the snow comments put me off

Slow down! This isn't the sort of forum where people praise driving like a t**t.

So you don't know what's wrong with his dials then

Did you know what was wrong with his dials?

The light that illuminates the speedo and tacho needles seem to have a mind of their own. The fault is intermittent (unless it also died today) but they dont seem to always light up, even though the temp and fuel needles work fine. All the rest of the dash lights/dims properly with the exception of these two.

Edit - sorry - reread the original wording and notice I jumped to a too quick conclusion - posting deleted - I now agree with the previous poster re a failing LED in the dashpod and the difficulty in rectifying this without complete module replacement - though a good electrician should be able to do it I wouldn't trust my soldering skills trying to replace one (and get it in the right way!)

Edited 8 December, 201015 yr by DRJ

Did you know what was wrong with his dials?

He has fixed it ?

So you don't know what's wrong with his dials then

Yep, they're broken :p

If they're working on and off could be a bad bit of solder.. most likely can be fixed with a re-flow or similar but as said above.. it's a pod out job I'm afraid.

.... And, yeah.. I'm gonna echo he other statements, slow down... I thought my vRS was quite good in cold conditions as well until I sent it up a kerb.

Thanks. Will look into the pod thing. It is an intermittent fault so will get saving. Hey ho...

Should have been rear washer jet - not wiper. Dont know what I was thinking there saying it had no wiper.

Rest assured, I may have been pushing on, but I was far from driving like an idiot. Safe speed and all of that... I do a fair bit of competing and drive a wide variety of vehicles inc HGV's and do getting on for 20K a year. I am no McRae, but I am happy with my abilities and my track record would show that I don't push my luck! I would point to the fact that I know the road like the back of my hand and adjust my speed accordingly. The point was that whilst moderating my speed to suit, the car was great. It has managed to get around the ice bound East Ridings, up over a (relatively low altitude) pass and round by Edinburgh without encountering anything that even resembled struggling with the conditions.

Believe me, if I wanted praise for my driving I wouldn't be sitting on an owners forum, or any other forum for that matter, I would be down the back of a tesco's doing burnouts like thousands of other muppets...

Edited 9 December, 201015 yr by imull

Every Fabia vRS left the factory with a rear wiper. If yours hasn't got one, someone has removed it. If there is no trace of one then it's been very heavily modified.

Slow down! This isn't the sort of forum where people praise driving like a t**t.

Lol, you call a heavily modified car a car without a rear wiper?

Why does 60mph mean he's driving like a tw@? Depends on road conditions etc. I'm back to travelling at 60 on most roads now, and have been for the past week.

Why does 60mph mean he's driving like a tw@? Depends on road conditions etc. I'm back to travelling at 60 on most roads now, and have been for the past week.

When the temp gauge says -16 and it is happily shooting on at 60 or so

For the past week my temp gauge has been reading 0-5 deg and theres still slushy cr@p on most of the roads up over the moors. My poor lil' traction control bulb is working overtime

Edited 10 December, 201015 yr by Simonbt

Lol, you call a heavily modified car a car without a rear wiper? [/Quote]

Did you read what was actually written? To remove the rear wiper without a trace would require replacing the rear window glass, so yes, I would consider that to be very heavily modified.

Why does 60mph mean he's driving like a tw@? Depends on road conditions etc. I'm back to travelling at 60 on most roads now, and have been for the past week.

Did you read the road conditions he was describing? The road he was driving fast on in severely adverse conditions is an infamous fatal accident blackspot.

Should have been rear washer jet - not wiper. Dont know what I was thinking there saying it had no wiper. [/Quote]

They have a rear washer too. As I recall, push the stalk away so it locks to turn the rear wiper on, then push it away again and hold it to activate the washer.

yup, the stalk locks with the wiper on, but pushing on again into the sprung on/off position doesnt activate the washer. Will be attacking it this weekend and see if the advice in this (http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/93030-rear-washer-jet-issues-help/) thread if I can throw off this man flu.

There are about 2 corners that are 'infamous blackspots'. It is far from the whole road. Some people seem to be getting a little carried away with this. Do they honestly think that I sat at 60mph for the entire journey up the road :no: