My perants in law are looking at buying a cheap fabia as a car.

I've found them a 1.4 8V and i know the valvers are made by Skoda before they where taken over and i was wondering what the engines are gearboxes are like?

thanks

It is great ... Never had a problem with it ... A guy here using for rallying too although he has the 1.4 V16

It is great ... Never had a problem with it ... A guy here using for rallying too although he has the 1.4 V16

Completely different engine to the 1.4 8v.

Basically the 1.4 8v is the same 1.3 engine as used in the Favorit and Felicia bored out to 1.4 and some other bits and pieces.

They are an OHV engine and chain driven. The chain doesn't have a tensioner and rattles eventually but never heard of one ever slipping or snapping. There is no advised change interval AFAIK and they are only usually changed to get rid of the annoying rattle noise or if the slack causes funny running of the engine (happened to my Felicia).

They can suffer HG failure and are prone to some water leaks here and there.

Very simple engine and if looked after nothing more to worry about really.

They're not the smoothest of engines with them being so old tech.

Phil

Apart from replacing the head gasket at about 98,000 miles, its been a great car for the 5 years we've had it ('03 plate).

It's underpowered and not especially economical, but its been very reliable and practical. It's easy to work on and has no signs of rust.

Scroll back a couple of pages to a recent thread "mpi owners-what's your mileage ?" which gives very reassuring opinions on the reliabilty of this model.It is but one of many similar threads on this forum which you can find by using the search facility.

Thanks for the info peeps! At least its reliable

Basically the 1.4 8v is the same 1.3 engine as used in the Favorit and Felicia bored out to 1.4 and some other bits and pieces.

The stroke was increase and the bore stayed the same.

I have a MK1 fabia vRS tdi and a 1.4 MPI fabia, never had any problem with either, working in a workshop at a skoda dealer also seeing many other MPI fabias coming through the workshop, the only things to look out for are the headgasket wearing, thermostat collapsing (simply a case of removing top engine cover with 2 x 10mm nuts under cap and the skoda badge on the cover, removing temperature sender and have a poke around inside) and the timing chain rattling, although never had a noisy timing chain fail, only rattle.

The stroke was increase and the bore stayed the same.

Thanks.

I had it in my head that it wasn't actually bored out but had no idea what they had done to increase to 1.4 so just said bored out

Phil

The mpi's main weakness was the HG failure on early ones, they should have all had a replacement HG done back then. After that the only weak spot is the thermostat/housing. 120k on the chains but basically you do it when you can't stand the noise, it's simple to work on and easy to fix though it is slightly less economical than a 16v and VED is slightly more.

The gearbox is VW (reverse is a push down and top left affair). The thing that seems to fail most on them is the reversing switch, which I suspect is a common VW thing. When I asked at a dealer to buy one, as soon as I saw the price (over £30), I politely declined and bought a genuine one for under £10 off ebay instead.

The self-destruct plastic housing, is one of VW's "improvements" to the Skoda designed engine. When Skoda made them they were cast alloy, and if anything failed it was just the thermostat itself which cost about £5. The plastic one fails and it's nearly £45. I suspect many are sold on because the thermostat has failed and people's fuel bills have gone up. Garages seem to have a hard time detecting the fact the thermostat has failed, as they assume interior fans getting hot = no issue.

Edited 18 February, 201313 yr by anewman