So I went to   check on a skoda fabia 2005 mk1 with around 87 thousand miles. I basically want it as a car for university because I'm terribly tired of buses here in Greece. The engine bay etc is in perfect shape, nothing seems out of order but one thing that has me bothered is that the dealer said the car needed a change on the steering rack and that would be all there is to it. So I was wondering if it's going to be a good investment since I'm going to throw him down on price from 2900 euros to hopefully 2000 max. It's going to be my first car so I wanted to get a helping hand from people that know their stuff around skodas. I'm patiently going to wait for your responses.

9 minutes ago, Pkalox said:

So I went to   check on a skoda fabia 2005 mk1 with around 87 thousand miles. I basically want it as a car for university because I'm terribly tired of buses here in Greece. The engine bay etc is in perfect shape, nothing seems out of order but one thing that has me bothered is that the dealer said the car needed a change on the steering rack and that would be all there is to it. So I was wondering if it's going to be a good investment since I'm going to throw him down on price from 2900 euros to hopefully 2000 max. It's going to be my first car so I wanted to get a helping hand from people that know their stuff around skodas. I'm patiently going to wait for your responses.

Forgot to say but its the 1.2 liter petrol engine 12valve

It's unusual for the steering rack to fail, far more common for the PAS pump to fail.

 

Never believe a salesman, it should be a thousand euros with a fault like that!

The only rack issues I’ve seen are leaks (difficult to spot as it leaks inside the rack boots), and damage from the wrong bolt put in the bottom engine mounting. 

10 minutes ago, Tech1e said:

The only rack issues I’ve seen are leaks (difficult to spot as it leaks inside the rack boots), and damage from the wrong bolt put in the bottom engine mounting. 

I'll send it to my mechanic to verify all of the issues and then I'll report what he will say. Because obviously I dont want to spend a butt load of money