Hi everyone.

My wife's 2007 (57) Fabia 1.4 TDI 80 bhp is used as a driving school car and has covered 75K miles. The brake warning light has come on and we are thinking of changing the pads and/or shoes ourselves.

There is no Haynes manual printed yet and I've searched this forum and cannot find a "how to guide" for carrying out this work. So I'm assuming it's easy, or no one has done it yet?

The first problem is finding the parts outside of a Skoda dealer. Any recommendations?

When changing the rear shoes, should I need any other bits? On my Volvo, when you replace the handbrake shoes they advise replacing the spring clips for example.

Any other hints or tips I should need to know?

Lastly, I'm thinking of increasing the frequency of the oil changes due to the constant use and high mileage the car gets. Any thoughts on this and oil recommendations.

Thanks in advance.

Jim.

Welcome to the site Jim. I'm sure your Skoda makes a good school car.

Regarding the extra oil changes, this won't do any harm but actually you don't need to do that. Your car is running 'hot' much more than the usual family car and this keeps the oil in much better condition and it will be cleaner than the average family saloon car oil, as will you engine internals. Diesel oil goes black almost right away after changing anyway, that's normal so don't worry about it from that point of view. But being black doesn't mean the oil is in bad condition. I appreciate you may know that anyhow.

Changing pads is very easy if you are reasonable with spannering. It's the same process as for the Mk1 or pretty much any other car with pads on the front. There are plenty of generic 'how to's' on the interweb, just google 'front pad change' or something like and you can view several processors being carried out. Get a tin of brake cleaner before you start as this is helpful for....errr...cleaning things up!! You may find your rear shoes are still in excellent condition and probably won't need changing. But I would just clean them up and deglaze them with some medium emery paper. Clean out any dust from the drums and backplates and wipe the adjusters clean. Apply a little copperslip grease to the adjusters. Again there are plenty of 'how to's' on the interweb on how to do this. The Skoda is pretty much the same as any other good car.

You can get your parts from your Skoda dealer as these are usually cheap enough, or get them from Ebay. Ebay has many dealers selling genuine Skoda parts. It's worth a look. Otherwise I would suggest buying EBC pads or Mintex. All good.

Keep in touch with us so we can hear how you are getting on. We'll all help if we can. Good Luck.