We have stood down our brought from new 16 year old Skoda Fabia 1.4 Classic Mark 1 as our family car, it has been a fantastic car for us and cant believe it cost us £8000 back then.

 

With 75000 miles on the clock and £6500 of work/servicing on it in the 16 years its been great! its now a little bit small for us with 2 teenage kids now and going on holiday we end up with stuff on ours laps.

 

We went for a Kia Ceed as we needed a bigger boot, more safety and long warranty.

 

Not being a sinner of Skoda we will be keeping our Fabia as well as it still runs fine and has today passed its MOT with no issues and no advisories at all for the first time ever!

 

In the summer it did have a little blip in that the coolant light come on so I didnt have much coolant left so I topped it up with some water from our dehumidifier and it was ok then.

 

Now I noticed a bit on contamination in the chamber and it was merky so we reported this to the dealer when it went in for the MOT today, same one we have always gone too.

 

It is already on its 2nd coolant chamber after a leak 10 years ago and its already on its 4th head gasket, cut a long story short gritter destroyed 1, 1 went on Motorway, replacement was wrongly fitted and that replacement was done in 2011 and being fine since

 

Last time we had it done it was £400 with a few extra's done and the dealer said its not worth doing it now as it costs more than the car and wont do a service on it unless we fix the issue with the coolant contamination which means doing the head gasket and anything else like the shim that needs to be done when they open it.

 

All we said was can they change the coolant and do all the other stuff, all we are after is to have it fully serviced and not have the head gasket done, ggggrrrr

Reading threads on the forum about the coolant chamber and the gunk that gets in it and on the cap isnt,etc doesnt nessecary mean its the head gasket and the one thats in is only 5 years old but they have said they will need to do it to diagnose the issue.

 

We will keep it until its on its last legs and its not as we had zero issues on it this MOT.

 

It is right for the dealer to refuse to do a full service on these grounds I know they do a full car check ? we think they just want us to buy a new car off them as they have suggested it but they dont know we already have the kia.

 

They said we don't have to have the service done and just run it into the ground but we would like it done but without the work on the head gasket.

Edited 12 September, 20169 yr by Boomycol

take it to another garage

^ This.

Its a trek to the closest dealer anyway which is the one we use, as im at work and my wife has to take it in and get the bus back and good hour return journey and 3 different buses the next nearest one is good 2 hours away and 3 buses LOL as we live in Solihull.

 

It is a hassle to go to another dealer and finding a decent garage in Solihull/Birmingham is tough tbh unless someone knows a reputable one    

Short trip down the M5 and I'll look after you lol

It would be somewhere close to insanity to turn down that suggestion.

It would be somewhere close to insanity to turn down that suggestion.

"Close" meaning that you're approaching Dagenham East*!

 

 

*3 stops beyond Barking.

Well I rang the dealer today and we had a "chat". I asked him about the coolant issue and how bad was it and he clarified that the coolant ingress was the worst he had seen in a long time, myself seeing it, we have had it worse as we had the head gasket changed previously.

 

We hadn't noticed any issue's with the car and it went to Yarmouth and back this in August this year and the running and temps were fine and was hitting 27 degree's outside on the way back and had no issues.

 

He said it could last 5 minutes or 2 years you just don't know, if your going to use it a lot then he suggested replacing the car to which I told he we already had a new Kia C'eed.

 

To which then bit of a tune change and they could do the work for us now. I said reading these forum's it might not be the head gasket and could be something else which he did agree.

 

He wouldn't do the top top service we was after but we agreed that it needed a reflush of the coolant and a full refill, that way I could see when we use it if it got bad again how quickly it would go merky and decide what to do then. They did the next service full down and the reflush/refill and the MOT for £250 all in which we agreed and was much better than the £600-800 they had been quoting.

 

The wife's happy now she still love the old dear and drove it back today and says it's much, much better than it was taking it over there and ran a lot better. I'll be having it soon for my 11 miles daily commute to work.

 

Thanks to all for the comments and Tech1e if I do get any issue's I will be in touch if you don't mind I'm well aware of your god like rep on the forums  and your expertise.

Good for you mate !

 

Why write off something that even 25 -50 years ago could  have been easily repaired - even if it involves a head skim.

 

And the decision as to whether its worthwhile to repair an aging vehicle is the owners not the dealers. Perhaps the only duty of the dealer is advise the owner if he/she thinks that the repair won't last sufficient length of time to warrant the spend. Once he's given that advice its up to owner whether to proceed.

 

In my experience, and as the restoration industry proves (As seen on Wheeler dealers) cars in any state can be restored to full/legal running function.

 

These dealerships are overly sales driven nowadays and in pursuit of the sales objective seem to be following an undeclared policy of ignoring minor faults in the hope that they will develop into major ones.

 

Its neglect fosterered by survival instinct/greed and goes against the fact that the design and manufacturing standards of cars have improved over the last 50 years to the such an extent that the usuable vehicle lifetime has increased substantially.

 

OK the prospects for car sales may be tailing off as the car ownership market becomes saturated viz - 2-3 million vehicles on the road post WW2, 5 Million by 1960, 12 million by 1970, 25 million by 1980, and 35 million today and the emergence of on-line car sales may be putting dealerships under pressure sales wise,and some dealer rationlisation may still be needed, but the market is still large enough to support a healthy sales level without resulting to premature condemning of older vehicles.

 

This is just driven by greed.

 

And, quite honestly, the level of  electrical/mechanical awareness amongst joe public is  such that the dealers can get away with telling 'em anything without being questioned and, if you have the temerity to question, then they pull the ultimate flanker and tell you to go elsewhere.

 

The motor industry have got "Form" for this dating back to the early years of motoring. How do you think Arthur Daley became a TV stereotype for car dealers or why Honest John is so named ?

 

As the VAG emissions scandal has proved, the whole motor industry is run by little boys who seem to have a greater disposition  than the rest of the population to lie, cheat, misrepresent and who maintain the delusion amongst their number that they are never going to be found out or held accountable for their misdemeanours. Be interesting  to see what the class actions in the U.S. yield

 

If they could engineer all services to be inspection only, they would.

 

 

Nick

Edited 14 September, 20169 yr by Clunkclick

he suggested replacing the car to which I told he we already had a new Kia C'eed.

 

To which then bit of a tune change and they could do the work for us now.

 

At that point I'd have told them to stuff it and walked away as they were clearly trying it on to get you to look at a new car and that, in my book, is not on...

 

As said above the decision re what to do on your car is yours.

Based on the dealer reaction once you told them you already have a new car I would go into the dealership when busy, complain loudly, then just walk out.    

Its a trek to the closest dealer anyway which is the one we use, as im at work and my wife has to take it in and get the bus back and good hour return journey and 3 different buses the next nearest one is good 2 hours away and 3 buses LOL as we live in Solihull.

 

It is a hassle to go to another dealer and finding a decent garage in Solihull/Birmingham is tough tbh unless someone knows a reputable one    

only one I can think of is in Bedworth and like most other decent dealers they will  give you a courtesy car. But as I say "think off " as last time I had problems ( leaking diesel return hose ) their solution was to replace the underbonnet fuel system. Cost ,including labour circa £300 . SIL found me an old bit of pipe to get me to TPS who told me it was "flexible fuel pipe ,cut to length " --cost 50p. Personally I'd sooner go the extra distance to Worcs and someone who you can trust, than that lot.