I'm coming up to the end of my ownership of my amazing little car, so I wanted to give this post an overhaul and make sure that I have a nice little set of stuff to remember it by!

 

 

 

Mods

 

• Personal Reg 
• Sony Single DIN
• JVC Double DIN
• Pioneer Double DIN
• Clarion Double DIN DVD/Sat Nav
• Parrot Asteroid Single DIN
• Vibe Slick 6 front door speaker upgrade 
• Vibe SLR12A-V1 1200W Active Subwoofer
• OEM Upgrade Blaupunkt Boot Speakers
• Fabia vRS Seats 
• Polo 9n3 Seats 
• Standard Facelift Fabia Seats 
• Golf Mk3 VR6 Alloys
• Audi TT Comp Alloys
• 15" Steel Wheels
• LED Interior/Plate/Side Lights 
• Carbon Wrapped Grille
• PastyBoy Black/Silver Classic Badges 
• Debadged Rear
• "FABIA" Facelift Rear Badge Moved to Rear Light (one of my personal favourite mods)

 

 

Jobs Done

 

• New Exhaust Sleeve  
• New Timing Chain 
• New OSR Window
• New OSF Window 
• Replaced Radiator 
• Replaced Passenger Vent
• Replaced Oil Pressure Sensor 
• Replaced Coolant Temperature Sensor
• Replaced Expansion Tank
• Replaced NSR Light cluster 

I've owned this car for coming up 2 years now, and seeing as ive done a fair bit of work and have a fair few stories, i thought it would be a good time to start up a journal!

 

Going right back to the start,

 

March 2012: I'm about 3 weeks off taking my driving test and have been looking for a car for a while, i went through all of the usual options out there, corsas, saxos, puntos and (aside from the awful insurance premiums) none of them were for me, they were either too small, not interesting or i just couldnt afford a decent one and didnt want to go for a rotbox!

 

I had been looking at Fabias for a while and it was one of the cars i seriously loved the idea of for a first car, for me it was the whole package; practical, largest small car in my price range, low insurance, nice sized engines, the list goes on.

 

And - like it was meant to be - a garage about 2 miles away from my house advertised a black mk1 Fabia 1.4 for sale!

 

Cut a long story short, I placed a deposit that day, and a week later, i drove my new, first car off the forecourt L plates and all!

 

At the time i was learning in a diesel so i must've stalled about 6 times on the way home but i had the biggest grin on my face the whole way back!

 

The first thing i did as soon as i got home was give her a wash 

 

I am in the same boat as you my friend! Passed my test in October and got the 1.4 mpi. Insurance also was a killer for me at £2200! And that's only third party, fire and theft! Are coilovers on the cards?

I am in the same boat as you my friend! Passed my test in October and got the 1.4 mpi. Insurance also was a killer for me at £2200! And that's only third party, fire and theft! Are coilovers on the cards?

 

Thats not as bas as mine was 2 years ago! mine came up to £3500 first year, 2nd year was £899 IIRC ( there will be a post about it down the line somewhere) and my next renewal is end of april so hoping to have it down to about £500

 

I will probably end up going down the shocks & springs but it will be lowered at some point! Id love to get an air ride kit on this thing at some point!

Wowser - those are big sums of money to pay for insurance!!! 

Wowser - those are big sums of money to pay for insurance!!! 

My first year with a 1.4 16V Fabia (W reg, year 2000) cost £3500 to insure for a year!

Should have tried a broker company, mine on a 1.4 16v was due to be 2500 for the first year, which after ringing a broker went to 900! 1300 with EVERYTHING added on !

Should have tried a broker company, mine on a 1.4 16v was due to be 2500 for the first year, which after ringing a broker went to 900! 1300 with EVERYTHING added on !

Was still no different for me, went to swintons and they couldnt help me on price at the time

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You should all feel sorry for me having a black box as part of my insurance! -.-

haha black box, good luck removing it when u change insurers from what I read they won't take it off

Ah that's just brilliant! The only good thing about it is there's a built in theft tracker in the black box...

i removed the blackbox from my car luckily for me i remembered how he did it PITA though tbh 

I simply refused to have a black box first year as i didnt agree with them at all. I payed about double the amount i would with the box but it was worth it in the long run in my opinion

After starting a new job recently i haven't had much time for writing anything up, and im still 2 years behind myself in this thread so i have some catching up to do! 

 

Next came the stereo, like i said, the usual things were happening! 

 

 

After this not many things changed, cleaned at least once a week, fuel went in the tank, got blown out of the back in great succession, you know the drill!

 

Was still relatively skint after having to fork out so much for insurance but cest la vie! 

While im on the topic of car cleaning, my next couple of months were spent hunting through my dads shed and garage for products he doesnt use anymore, along with letting temptation get the better of me and buying a hell of a load of stock from my old work (Halfords) the 25% discount was a bit of a scale tipper too!

 

I wanted to teach myself how to look after my car properly, I must admit I went into it as a complete novice and didn't have a completely blank canvas from which i was to learn from, and all in all i think over time and experimenting, I may have made it worse... its for other people to decide!