I am looking for a 1. car for my daughter and told her that it had to have ESP amongst other things.

Fabia I Elegance is one of the choices.

What do I have to look out for? Are there any typical failure parts? It could be a petrol or diesel.

 

Another strange thing is the pricing. No matter how old - 2002 to 2007 - or what kind of mileage they have, they are all priced the same. Is this Mr. Davies' demanded imaginative thinking????

Hi,

not sure how to read your post to be fair,

yes the Fabia in elegance form is a nice well spec' place to be albeit a bit dated now due to the fact that technology has obviously moved on in leaps and bounds

I've had a couple of mk1 Fabias the later face lift model looks a little bit more modern, in the overall scheme of things of course

 

what to look for

history history history ( rust on rear of sills by rear wheel arch ) 

take your time there will be a low milage FSH car out there they just ain't on every street corner 

( I recently sold my wife's one owner 07 1.9tdi hatch 64k FSH for £2100 it was and hopefully still is a great car and a credit to the way my wife looked after it )

good luck with your search

Edited 13 September, 20178 yr by davidwhite
can't speel !!

@26DIPP - Why ESP? Even without it, an Elegance will still have ASR which kills the power completely if it detects wheel slip and 4-channel ABS.

If you need it to have ESP you'll struggle to find one I think as very few were fitted back then. Ive got it fitted to my VRS and have not had it kick in yet even pushing it to the limit on wet roads, so id consider whether its really necessary. Plus if its a small petrol car again its not going to be doing much unless your in a very unlucky situation at high speed. If its a must then I would go for a newer car which is likely to have it fitted as standard.

I think the elegance models had rear electric windows and if they are anything like the fronts they will need attention at some point as the regulators go on them and to have to do all 4 is quite expensive.

Diesels are best for reliability if not bothered about speed then the SDI engine is very economical and reliable but obviously very slow (64 bhp)

The old 1.4 mpi is pretty reliable but heavy on fuel. Not sure on the newer 16v petrols. I would guess most elegance spec would be 1.9 tdi which are great engines but being diesel they are best suited for longer journeys rather than town driving, plus youve got a turbo to consider if it ever decides to go.

 

Thanks for the replies.

I was after the pitfalls.

I am looking and are not in too much of a rush. I am also looking at the Fabia II.

I would not buy a car without ESP - without rear electric windows, fine, no parking sensors, o.k..... Search on Youtube for ESP and A-class or on its own. ESP kicks in and you do not even know it was there and if you have to think about ESP it was probably over anyway.

Ok fair enough, but If thats a 'must' then what about automatic braking and lane keeping assist etc etc. Because all that stuff does it 'without you thinking'

2 hours ago, KenONeill said:

@26DIPP - Why ESP? Even without it, an Elegance will still have ASR which kills the power completely if it detects wheel slip and 4-channel ABS.

 

I have ASR on mine and it's HORRIBLE, luckily I can switch it off otherwise it feels like the cars stalling when you're trying to pull out smartish. I loath the ABS as well but can't turn it off.

ASR would not be the 1st option I was looking for, ABS maybe...

The handling of the FABIA is more than competent unless you are going for the higher power versions, which I am assuming you won't be for insurance reasons.

The pitfalls are well documented in terms of steering pumps , console bushes and footwells filling with water.

In general the day of the MK1 is nearly over, unless you can find a well maintained example that has been garaged its whole life your money is better spent on something newer especially if you want loads of flash electronic stuff.

 

ABS is fitted to all uk spec fabia's. ASR is standard on the elegance I think

13 minutes ago, clarendon462 said:

ABS is fitted to all uk spec fabia's.

 

Some UK MK1 Fabias didn't have it.

Really? were they very early models then because the w reg 'classic' spec cars ive seen in scrapyards all seem to have it

Yeah not sure which ones didn't have it but I've seen people on here saying that their Fabias didn't have it.

 

 

 

I seem to remember the A series with its "Elk avoidance test" failure - was that blamed on it not having ESP fitted?

@rum4mo - Being high and short-wheelbase had a fair bit to do with that too.

Oh yes!  I seem that there was mention of "Brake Boost" as well, which was deleted from that model after that test went not quite to plan, which was more why I remembered that test as my wife's Polo was spec'd up to include some form of brake boost - if panic braking was detected, I never did get round to checking that function out, maybe because I didn't notice any Elks jumping out in front of me, well more like Roe Deer down here!