HELP!! service warning!!

[damienVRS]

service light came on at 18500miles. is this normal? thought it should come on at 20,000? please someone advise. cheers

[stopan1j]

service light came on at 18500miles. is this normal? thought it should come on at 20,000? please someone advise. cheers

Assuming its Petrol Octavia 1.8 RS you are talking and its on a variable service program its up to 20,000miles, coming up at 18500 is quite normal. How the car is used depends on what actual milage the service indicator apears it checks condition of oil etc.

Also see this post service warning post at 17100

[damienVRS]

its a fabiavRS does this change anything?

[Tech1e]

Did you have it serviced bang on 10,000 miles?

[stopan1j]

Should have noticed its in the Fabia Forum The Fabia RS's are on fixed servicing unlike other 1.9PDI 130bhp installations IRC, I not sure on the milage though think its 10K but one of the Fabia RS owners will soon post- on fixed you still get a countdown before the fixed service mileage

[damienVRS]

i brought the car at 12000 miles. n i havent looked at the service book!

[stopan1j]

i brought the car at 12000 miles. n i havent looked at the service book!

The handbook and service book car identification sticker therin should enable you to see the servicing schedules for the vehicle - at least it does for Superbs and Octavias

[Tech1e]

18.5k isnt out of the ordinary.

[bryand]

I think the service indicator comes on 1000 miles before the actual service, so it isn't that far out for 20K miles.

[Tech1e]

It could of wel had its 10k a little early aswell.

[mcbunny]

mines not on at 19618

[DRJ]

service light came on at 18500miles. is this normal? thought it should come on at 20,000? please someone advise. cheers

I'm getting really confused by this thread - since on a previous thread you posted (http://www.briskoda.net/forums/showthread.php?p=269945):

just got in my car, and on the dash, just underneath the milage counter. it says OIL with a spanner next to it! does anyone know wot this means. the car has done 15,000 miles! anybody please help!

What is going on with your car - perhaps it's not had any services yet - beats me!

[Mil]

LOOK HERE!!!!

Ok...your car is set to warn you of service 1500kms before the actual date. It is PERFECTLY normal. I was told this by the service manager who does my car, except that mine pops up 1500KMS before the actual date.

There is nothing to worry about. You car will be fine

[spottydog]

What date was the last service as the indicator works off mileage or date. eg. 10,000 miles or 12 months whichever is sooner.

[HellFire]

If it's a Fabia isnt the service interval every 10k? My car is now at 10,900 miles and it booked in for its service next friday, by which time it'll have 11,200 on it - the problem is my service warning light hasnt appeared yet.

[a14nsh]

Mine came on at the weekend also. I bought the car second hand and part of the deal was a full service. The Arnold Clark dealer whom I bought the car from was getting rid of the skoda sales franchise although claimed they were continuing the service facility. The signs out the front still indicate this. However they refused to look at the car even though I stated my suspicion that they just forgot to reset it when they serviced as part of the sale. And told me to go to another skoda dealer. They were extremely patronising into the bargain.

On a possitive note I took the car along to Star Performance who took the required 5 seconds out of their busy day to reset it for me.

With this and my previous car (Prelude VTec) I now have a long a checkered history with Arnold Clark including sratching my car when in for service and refusing to do anything about it.

Skoda owners dispaly a great deal of gumtion in buying the car they did. Display this a little more and avoid these clowns. "Peace of Mind" my A*S

[DRJ]

If it's a Fabia isnt the service interval every 10k? My car is now at 10,900 miles and it booked in for its service next friday, by which time it'll have 11,200 on it - the problem is my service warning light hasnt appeared yet.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to discourse about servicing...

Hellfire - check out your Service book - technically you could be said now to have voided your warranty since you've not had the car serviced in accordance with the stated servicing schedule. Whereas Land Rover give a 2,000 mile tolerance factor on their schedule - meaning the standard 12,000 interval can be stretched to 14,000 miles - there is nothing I can find within the Skoda documentation allowing ANY overrun. The warranty document states "... essential that the vehicle is properly serviced in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions".

The Fabia has an absurdly stupid servicing regime.

"Every 10,000 miles carry out an Oil Change Service.

After one year carry out an Annual Inspection, the Annual Inspection always then includes an Oil Change Service.

If the car is driven 10,000 miles before one year has elapsed, carry out an Oil Change Service

If the car is driven more than 20,000 miles in a year, the Inspection Service should be carried out every 20,000 miles and not once a year."

There are then various additions at 20,000 (lots), 40,000 (lots), 60,000 70,000, 80,000, 100,000, and 120,000 mile intervals (not all relevant to every model) - and various additions at 2 year, 3 year, 4 year, 5 year and 15 year invervals (again not all relevant to every model)!!!

So let's example various scenarios:

For a car doing 5,000 miles per year:

An Annual Inspection including oil change every year - with a major service every four years - excepting brake fluid being changed every two years...

For a car doing 10,000 miles per year:

An Annual Inspection including oil change every year - with a major service every two years.

For a car doing 15,000 miles per year:

This is the tricky one - and potentially the one I fall into. In theory you'd have an Oil Change service at 8 months - then an Annual Inspection at 12 months; but an Annual Inspection is defined as including an Oil Change so the oil would only have been in the car for 5,000 miles... Then FOUR months later when the odometer hits 20,000 you have to have ANOTHER service!!! Now if this was only to inspect things due at the 20,000 service and not an Oil Change you'd then FOUR months later have to have an Oil Change since it will then have been in the car for 10,000 miles... And then the second Annual Inspection FOUR months later... This just doesn't make sense and I'd appreciate anyone who can interpret what I've suggested differently sticking within Skoda's stated regime.

Another interpretation would be to have an Oil Change service at 8 months/ 10,000 miles, then an Annual Service at 15,000/ 12 months - and then an Annual Service every 8 months/10,000 miles. Though this then doesn't fall into the 20,000/40,000 scenario so can't be the way forward.

As Hellfire suggests the "simple" way of looking at this conundrum is to simply take the Annual Inspection at 8 months/10,000 miles and work simply up from that point with an Inspection Service every 10,000 miles/ 8 months.

In fact that appears to be what the Service Record is suggesting because in mine it says "Next Inspection Service at 10,000 miles" which technically is INCORRECT! It should say "Next Oil Change..."

For a car doing 20,000 miles per year:

After 6 months an Oil Change service, then an Annual Inspection at 12 months (being a big service) , then an Oil Change service only at 30,000 miles/18 months with another big Annual Inspection at 40,000/2 years.

The result must be a certain degree of confusion when it comes to booking a car in for servicing - and it also presumably means fixed price servicing is impossible owing to the variety of things which might need doing at a service depending on the annual mileage.

[HellFire]

Wow I am under the impression it's 10,000 miles or 1 year, whichever comes first.

As for the dealer, I have already ok'd the warranty issue when I booked the car in, can't believe they are actually booked up 2-3 weeks in advance and I seem to have done an unsually large amount of miles just of late :confused:

Chris.

[classicheads]

My question is - how do I get rid of the little spanner and OIL warning on the dash? My wife's Skoda has just come up with this at a random time. It was serviced at the right mileage (not by a Skoda dealer) less than 5000 miles ago, and he reset it at the time. He has now had alook at it again, and can't reset the warning. My wife doesn't want to take it to a dealer just to reset the warning. They will charge an arm and a leg. I know the last service was not done by a dealer, but it was done by a competent garage. All previous services were dnoe by a dealership. It seems these warnings are only there to frighten people into getting services done at dealerships instead of at cheaper places who are just as competent. If I can find out how to reset it, I can do it myself. Any help appreciated. Car is Fabia- can't exactly remember the model number, but it is the most basic model and just out of its 3 year warranty period. Thanks.

[ap0gee1978]

My question is - how do I get rid of the little spanner and OIL warning on the dash?

It involves doing various things with the key whilst pressing in the trip reset button on the speedo - the exact procedure varies from model-to-model, but it's in the manual...

[Sy.]

Yeh its quite simple to do. I wouldnt worry too much and just give it a service either yourself or a dealer who will rob you kindly

[Clive618]

Although they round up the service intervals to 10,000 miles for us imperial measure users, the Fabia's computer is set for 15,000 kms and warns about 1,500 kms before that, which equates to approx 8,400 miles since the last reset. There should be plenty of life left in the oil for a good few hundred more miles. I hope so as my oil service light came on just before a 700 mile round trip to Cornwall, swiftly followed by a 300 mile trip into Dorset! Will book it for it's service in the next couple of weeks though.

[classicheads]

Thanks. Which manual, please?

[DRJ]

Although they round up the service intervals to 10,000 miles for us imperial measure users, the Fabia's computer is set for 15,000 kms and warns about 1,500 kms before that, which equates to approx 8,400 miles since the last reset.

Yours might be like that but mine's definitely not - the spanner didn't appear on my car at the 10,000 miles service at all - I mentioned it to the dealer as a potential warranty fix but they couldn't say why not. It appeared just before 20,000 miles. It then didn't appear at the 30,000 service until I was halfway to the garage just at the point where I had to turn off my usual route to work. I was impressed the car knew it needed to turn left for a service that morning!!!!!

[ric04vrs]

Thanks. Which manual, please?

the handbook that came with the car , but basically it involves pressing in the trip button on the dash , turn the ignition on , keep holding the button in for 10 seconds at least , then release , it should be reset now unless it was also due an inspection or annual , then you may have to do the same reset procedure again