This thread is a simple idea.

Inspired by evo magazine's monthly fast fleet reports and the illuminating cost information afforded to me by Fuelly I aim to keep a daily diary of the adventures of me and my Fabia; with occasional guest appearances from Mrs Pasty's black Fabia.

Lets start with some background information.

My red Fabia was purchased from a Ford dealership in Bristol in Oct 2008.

Since then it has led a hard life of dual carriage way commuting at the hands of Mrs Pasty and track abuse by me.

It has been in my hands full time since April 2012 when we purchased Mrs Pasty's black Fabia, thus reducing adding 300 miles a week to more like 50 and hopefully extending it's life.

It had a PD160 intake, Jabba custom remap and Jabba RARB withina week of being colleted.

Audi TT 312mm brakes followed in the March of 2009

SEAT Cupra console bushes and strut brace in summer of 2010

and that's the way it has stayed for a long time.

Apart from wheels which has change from standard

to silver spiders

to black spiders

to gold Golf mk4 Montreal2 wheels.

The car has done 80,000 miles in our hands including trips to Wales, the lakes, Scotland, multiple trips home to the motherland of Cornwall, and regular trips down to Castle Combe.

It has also attended Briskoda Club stands at the circuit as well as taking part in the track time and doing 2 airfield track days with fellow members.

it has quite simply been brilliant and has never spent a day off the road - its performance good enough to prompt us to buy another when the time came.

However of late I have taken it upon myself to renew and refresh where possible to further extend its life.

It has had new second hand suspension halving its age and improving the ride no end, along with a new EGR valve, and new non-yellowing headlights, as well as required new discs and pads all round.

Let the fun begin but a disclaimer before we start.

This could be (and probably will be) incredibly dull.

A lot of days go by with a drive to work, a drive home, and that's it.

Hopefully though the daily grind will be punctuated with some exciting stuff along the way.

posts will be anecdotal if necessary although short and dull if that's the kind of car day I've had

Expenditure shall be put in at the end of each post as necessary.

Colour coded and bold for those only wishing to pick up the essentials

Red for "Essential", Green for "Extras", Blue for "Fuel"

then a monthly summary at the end of each month

January 1st

first job - replace a blown bulb

Went just before Christmas but the car has been garaged and not used since.

ordered these from Powerbulbs

and after 10 minutes both new bulbs were fitted replacing a blown Lucas one and a still going Osram Nightbreaker (now "the spare")

I was going to change the sidelight bulbs as well but quite frankly couldn't be arsed

Also noticed as i headed back indoors that some twunt has stolen my aerial.

Not a great hardship as i rarely listen to the radio but now it does look crap

Essential - Bulbs - £17.99

January 2nd

So the dullness begins.

A commute in to work and a commute home from work.

Both made easier by the lack of school run traffic.

Exciting no.

Of note during those journeys were a trip to tescos to inflate my rear tyre which leaks air only to find a broken air hose, and a do I don't I cliff hanger about buying fuel (wait until tomorrow won out.)

On a much more interesting note a trackday at Cadwell was booked for later in the month thanks to a gift voucher from Mrs Pasty for Christmas.

Extra - Track Day @ Cadwell - £79

January 3rd

Commute to work.

Commute home from work via petrol station for fuel and air.

£1.35 a litre and just over 37 litres and £50 later and the dreaded pump light was gone.

Fuelly says a 47.3 mpg for that tank and 48.2 overall.

Tyres pressures were worse than expected with my leaky rear wheel down to a slightly scary 12psi!!

I must top it up more often!!

Of more interest to most will be yet another set of pasty wheels

A big thanks to mr trebormint for delivering a set of Toledo wheels to my door complete with rubber ready for the track day later in the month

They've got 55 profile rubber with minimal tread on but should be ok for a day tooling about at Cadwell

Although I will phone round some local tyre shops to see if I can find some 45 profile part worns for a decent price

Essential - Air - 30p

Extra - Toledo Wheels - £50

Fuel - £50.58 - MPG - 47.3

January 4th

Commute to work.

Short trip at lunch time round the corner to a new part worn tyre shop.

Luckily he had just stripped some Seat Ibiza pd130 wheels so had 4 on the shelf.

A couple of Bridgestone Turanzas with decent tread have been "put back" for me pending me rocking up with the dozen 55 profiles I've amassed and will act as collateral against the deal.

Just need to try and find another matching pair, rather than the mismatched other 2 he had.

Commute home from work.

Costs £0

January 5th

The car remained locked in the garage all day.

It did not move. I did not even see it.

Costs £0

January 6th

Trip to tescos for the weekly shop then the joke like question of "how do you fit a dozen tyres in a Fabia?"

Answer actually really easily.

Take out the parcel shelf and rear seats completely and simply put the wheels in!

4 across the back and 4 behind each front seat. Much much simpler than I ever expected.

Rear visibility and ability to carry rear passengers is some what compromised though.

All ready now for a trip to the part worn tyre place where hopefully this little lot will equal black gold!

Or at least earn me enough to get some correct 45 profile tyres in exchange.

Costs £0

January 7th

Decided to go in early and drop off the tyres/wheels with the tyre man before work.

Tyre man doesn't open until half 9 so me being there at half 8 was a little pointless :(

Went back at lunchtime to be greeted by a very surprised face that I'd managed to get all 12 tyres in and comments about the fact I should set up my own tyre business

After picking though them we reached agreement that of the 12 only 7 were actually any good with the rest either being too worn or having bald shoulders or one which had a nail in!

Those 7 were bartered again the 2 part worn 45 profiles I was buying and a deal was struck that at £5 each and £1 each cost to dispose of the 5 useless ones.

A nice round total of £30 off then meaning i essentially get one free tyre!

Not bad for essentially clearing out the garage.

Back tomorrow to pick them up

The hunt for another pair of part worn 205/45/16s begins now.

I have a week and a bit otherwise I'll be doing a track day on mismatched rubber which may not be ideal.

Costs £0

January 8th

Commute to work testing out a very kindly lent bullet cam on the way.

Suction cupped to the front drivers side wing worked well

(no footage cos the commute is dull enough )

Shall test tomorrow somewhere else maybe. We'll see.

Commute home took twice as long as normal due to a new set of traffic lights.

Mpg average of 30 sucks ass!

Costs £0

January 9th

Again decided to play with the bullet cam to get some footage of my commute so i know what works for when we are at Cadwell next week.

Was going for something cool and dynamic to show the wheel travel/turn/rotation in shot.

However where i wanted to put the cam it wouldn't stick as the car is too dirty :hide: so i had to go high with a downward angle.

Cool effect but incredibly dull 10 minutes here (and this was only the final 3rd of the video!)

http://youtu.be/L4_Z3x-HB0Q

Shall give the car a wash over the weekend and attempt again next week.

Lunchtime included trips to 3 new part worn tyre places but no one has any 205/45/16s in at the moment.

Apparently 2 are waiting for "shipments from Germany at the end of the week" though

Fingers crossed.

Commute home = uneventful.

Costs £0

January 10th

Another dull day

Commute to work

Park up

Commute home.

Only things of note were the arrival of a spare pair of night breakers ready for when a dip beam goes pop and an incredibly long time sat waiting for the windscreen to demist.

It would appear that since my air con packed up the moisture just sits in the car waiting to cling to cold glass.

Might invest in some silica packs to try to reduce it a bit.

I promise people there will be some exciting days in here somewhere but think about your own ownership.

How often is it that you actually DO something with your car!!

Essential well preparation at least - Bulbs - £12

January 11th

Commute to work

Work

Distract oneself by covetting new seats a lot!

Commute home

Costs £0

January 12th

A mile round trip to tescos then back in the garage

Don't even think the oil got warm.

Seriously I promise there'll be some interesting stuff soon!

(please note....there may not be )

Costs £0

January 13th

The excitement has arrived - a double car wash!

Apparently I had to clean Mrs Pasty's car, although i can't see why

Seriously I can't see the difference between clean and dirty, can you?

It does come up nice though

so then on to the main event which wasn't actually too bad :S

Does always look better when clean though

Not bad for a pair of 8 years olds having covered almost 180,000 miles between then!

Once it was clean it was amazing the stuff that i could find to write about here!

Result of being in Year of the Scrote - i will sort it out one day but listening to my iPod to and from work isn't a hardship.#

The metal exposed following an unwitnessed car park incident is now starting to rust which is of minor concern

Gold alloys have taken a bit of a pounding

and here is the reason I've been looking at new interior options

i can't imagine who at Skoda went "are you sure? I mean they are REALLY light?" "yeah why not they'll be fine!"

I then decided to undo the clean by going to test out the camera equipment and take some videos of some of the good local roads

However Sunday afternoon is not the time to be getting any kind of speed up so they aren't that interesting and my internet is sooo slow it'd take 3 days to upload them. I do it at work tomorrow if i remember.

In the end i settled for some scenery (although it was cloudier than i hoped for up there!)

Costs £0

video 1 - "wheel cam"

Video 2 - "Interrupted rally stage"

This road is awesome in either direction and is tricky and challenging but can be quick and fun if empty.

Today however other people out enjoying their days (how very dare they!) meant for slow progress.

It's also massively pot holed which probably made for even slower progress!!

Play spot the jack russell if you get bored

January 14th

Commute to work with some more cam testing

http://youtu.be/4q1L4e_jJvA

then relocated to the front wing

http://youtu.be/4z8TqaeDQx0

Commute home via tyre depot to pay for a pair of Bridgestones ready for Friday.

Extra - £30 - pair of part worns

January 15th

Commute to work

Continue teasing myself by looking and discussing new seats.

Track down a new (well second hand but new to me) aerial wand.

Commute home.

Costs £0

January 16th

Commute to work, left home late so was a spirited commute.

how spirited you ask? 34mpg spirited

Commute home.

Prepped my box of stuff for Fridays trackday (should it go ahead)

Socket set, screwdriver set, half a litre of oil, jack, impact wrench.

Not a lot more I have or am likely to find a use for

Costs £0

January 17th

Sad news that tomorrow's track day at Cadwell has been cancelled due to the icy snowy cold weather currently sweeping the nation.

Shame as I was really looking forward to it but as much fun as a super low grip trackday would be its probably wisest to cancel.

That said it did save me some cash by not having to buy another pair of part worns!

So instead I used the monety to by my next project for the car, which I shall hopefully collect tomorrow (weather permitting)

On a completely separate and entirely unrelated matter does anybody fancy/need a Fabia VRS interior?

Extra - £19 - wasted TravelLodge room

Extra - +£75 - trackday refund

January 18th

Today was due to be a Cadwell trackday but due to the weather it was cancelled.

I decided to keep the day off and collect my new interior instead however I awoke to find a lawn like this

a snow drift against the rear gate like this

and Mrs Pasty's car looking like this

so my car stayed tucked up dry in the garage

Costs £0

January 19th

see Jan 18th although we did dig out Mrs Pasty's car and go do the weekly shop

I know! the excitement cup overfloweth!

Costs £0

January 20th

see the past 2 days.

preparing myself for a snowy commute tomorrow morning though

Costs £0

January 21st

Boring commute followed by a nice 3 hour round trip....to collect my new interior!!

You never know what you're going to get from an eBay seller but was a top lad.

Had a couple of VAG cars on the drive and a Vito van full of bits & pieces

Was more than happy to stand in the snow and talk cars including stories of building an estate VRS Fabia for his Mrs and dog

I slithered my way off his driveway with a car full of ***drum roll*** a mk4 Golf Recaro interior in black and red

Result!

Admittedly they're not in factory condition with a slightly soft base bolster, a few small holes, and what look like repairs to the drivers seat base and needing a damn good clean but for the price i don't think i can complain.

All that's left now is clean the hell out of them, find a donor set of Fabia seats for some front subframes; and a donor set of rears so i can get them retrimmed with the Recaro cloth (and maybe foam)

Only slight concern for the day was what looked like a low mpg.

A cruise on a flat road at 70mph in 6th with lovely cold crisp air was only resulting in around 50mpg which seems a bit short of target. still pretty good though!

Extra - £55 - Recaro interior

January 22nd

Snowy commute to and from work.

Followed by half an bout of tinkering with the Recaros, plastic trim stripped off one, now I need more tools to separate back rest from base.

I kind of took a slow and steady approach before I realised that the plastic trim and Golf subframe are going in the bin so I could afford to be a bit more heavy handed

There'll be a full guide put together as I go through the process to hopefully help guide anyone else who takes the plunge

Costs £0