Hi guys,

 

A friend of mine found an estate mk1 Fabia online for sale. Since we're going out of town to see it, I don't think we will have the oportunity to have it tested at a car service. Can you advise us what should be looking at about that car, to make sure it's reliable and it's not going to be a pain in the wallet ?

 

I don't think this will help much since we're not from UK, but this is the AD. Converted at the local exchange rate, the price would be about 2400 UK pounds, it's the 1.4mpi engine and it has 93000miles. 

 

 

Suspension parts,particularly bushes,are a weak spot on the fabia.
Take it for a drive and listen for anything unusual,wheel bearings fail often and create a droning sound.
£2400 seems quite pricey,do other vehicles like this sell at similar prices?

Other than that,the usual checks,cambelt service history,check for resprayed panels etc...

Yep, it's a bit expensive.

An unregistered MK1 Fabia goes from about 1500 GBP (classic, 1.4 mpi) and might go up to 2800 GBP (vRS).

Imported cars have to be taxed, in order to be registered, according to their engine size, petrol/diesel, emissions (non-Euro .. Euro 5) and their year when were 'born'. This last tax can go from about 140-150GBP (for an Euro 4 1.4mpi engine) to .. somewhere higher, I'm not really up to date with the prices. Beside this, comes the insurance (which is calculated as the registration tax, they have about the same specs, involving driver's age and experience as well), which for an 1.4 mpi is about 60GBP/year. There might be some other taxes (not so expensive, but still, which I'm not sure I've mentioned).

(I apologize for the offtopic.)

Edited 10 September, 201411 yr by Alexandru