New VAG Owner

[BuildTheRobots]

Hi all!

 

I got my first VAG car last night - a 2006 Skoda Fabia estate.

For the most part I'm pretty impressed - it's supprisingly spacious for such a dinky car, and with only 100bhp seems surprisingly keen.

 

Hoping I can get a handful of niggling issues (but I'll post those in other forums).

Coming from a 2.2dci almera I'm missing a couple of its extras (turns out I like a sunroof, satnav and climate control), but am absolutely loving the >10mpg economy increase, heated seats and cruise control :)

 

Thanks :)

[penguin17]

3 minutes ago, BuildTheRobots said:

Hi all!

 

I got my first VAG car last night - a 2006 Skoda Fabia estate.

For the most part I'm pretty impressed - it's supprisingly spacious for such a dinky car, and with only 100bhp seems surprisingly keen.

 

Hoping I can get a handful of niggling issues (but I'll post those in other forums).

Coming from a 2.2dci almera I'm missing a couple of its extras (turns out I like a sunroof, satnav and climate control), but am absolutely loving the >10mpg economy increase, heated seats and cruise control

 

Thanks

In fairness, don't feel hard done by.  VW group sunroofs of this era especially are prone to blocked/disconnected drainage tubes which lead to interior leaks,  climate control starts to get problematic at 13-15 years old and the OEM satnav wasn't very good, e;g a <£100 TomTom or Garmin would be much better .  Based on my experience with a Mk1 Fabia and a Mk2 Octavia and Mk4 Golf all from 2004-06, I'd say you've dodged some bullets. 

[BuildTheRobots]

1 minute ago, penguin17 said:

In fairness, don't feel hard done by.  VW group sunroofs of this era especially are prone to blocked/disconnected drainage tubes which lead to interior leaks,  climate control starts to get problematic at 13-15 years old and the OEM satnav wasn't very good, e;g a <£100 TomTom or Garmin would be much better .  Based on my experience with a Mk1 Fabia and a Mk2 Octavia and Mk4 Golf all from 2004-06, I'd say you've dodged some bullets. 

Really good to know - thank you

 

Satnav always gets out of date extremely quickly and I tend to live using Waze on my phone. But it has been nice to have a constant map on display in the car (I now know what half of the side-streets I drive past are called) and it's lovely to have a "get me the funk out of here in the direction of home" button for when the phone is having a moment. Certainly not the end of the world.

 

Leaking sunroofs are no fun - I spent 4 months with a swimming pool in my drivers footwell before I realised it was possible to fix the drain tubes in the last one. I can live witout it, but combined with broken front windows it is slightly annoying). Same with the air-con. I can live without the climate control as long as the aircon will re-gas and actually be cold (the old one was good at warm but couldn't do cold). If it's less to electronically go wrong then all good

 

Three big issues that I've noticed since getting it:

• Electric mirrors don't work
• Electric front windows don't work (manual at the back)
• Hesitation/juddering under acceleration.

As long as the engine doesn't turn out to be too serious I can live with or bodge the first two - though I'll start some new technical topics in a bit to get proper advice on them

[penguin17]

9 minutes ago, BuildTheRobots said:

Really good to know - thank you

 

Satnav always gets out of date extremely quickly and I tend to live using Waze on my phone. But it has been nice to have a constant map on display in the car (I now know what half of the side-streets I drive past are called) and it's lovely to have a "get me the funk out of here in the direction of home" button for when the phone is having a moment. Certainly not the end of the world.

 

Leaking sunroofs are no fun - I spent 4 months with a swimming pool in my drivers footwell before I realised it was possible to fix the drain tubes in the last one. I can live witout it, but combined with broken front windows it is slightly annoying). Same with the air-con. I can live without the climate control as long as the aircon will re-gas and actually be cold (the old one was good at warm but couldn't do cold). If it's less to electronically go wrong then all good

 

Three big issues that I've noticed since getting it:

• Electric mirrors don't work
• Electric front windows don't work (manual at the back)
• Hesitation/juddering under acceleration.

As long as the engine doesn't turn out to be too serious I can live with or bodge the first two - though I'll start some new technical topics in a bit to get proper advice on them

We had a dodgy drivers side controller/switch on our Mk1 vRS which stopped the electric mirrors working it's common on the Mk1's, or so I was told as ours was replaced under used car warranty with Skoda.   The window regulators are prone to going but odd it's both at the same time, could be a fuse issue; try checking fuses 46, 58 and 68 (IIRC). Does the passenger window work from the passenger side switch? If so, could be the drivers side window module. 

 

The juddering could be a something simple/cheap e.g; fuel filter clogged, cracked hose or could be something expensive e.g; DMF. Engine mounts could also be a candidate.  What are the symptoms, in what gears, revs is it happening? 

 

@Wino is usually good with this type of thing I'm limited to knowing about the problems I've experienced with my own cars. 

 

 

 

 

[BuildTheRobots]

Previous owner said they'd replaced the window fuses but I'll double check them. Slightly worrying when I got the car home and realised that there were tonnes of spare fuses all over the place :s

Both windows don't work from the drivers side and the passenger doesn't work from their side either, so constantly broken.

It'd be lovely if the windows and mirrors were the same fix, but as they seem to be different sets of controls I didn't expect that

 

Not really sure how to describe the juddering... it does almost feel like a fuel-supply or misfire.

It seems to happen above 2000 rpm when putting your foot down, but I've also had it happen when resuming on the cruise control now as well so I'm assuming it's not just a throttle position sensor.

I'll play around more and try and narrow it down. It certainly needs a service so it'll get the fuel filter done shortly.

 

[BuildTheRobots]

Went to try and drive into town on lunch only to find the car unresponsive.

Central locking seemed fine, all the usual dash lights but when trying to start the engine nothing happened except the lights going out and the LCD going all funny.

AA have just turned up; thankfully it's only a dead battery - so this super-cheap Skoda now cost £130 more... hey ho - at least it's not something more serious

[Skobia59]

7 hours ago, BuildTheRobots said:

Hi all!

 

I got my first VAG car last night - a 2006 Skoda Fabia estate.

For the most part I'm pretty impressed - it's supprisingly spacious for such a dinky car, and with only 100bhp seems surprisingly keen.

 

Hoping I can get a handful of niggling issues (but I'll post those in other forums).

Coming from a 2.2dci almera I'm missing a couple of its extras (turns out I like a sunroof, satnav and climate control), but am absolutely loving the >10mpg economy increase, heated seats and cruise control

 

Thanks

 

Hi and Welcome to the forum

 

I've had my 2009 Fabia Estate for 11 months now and have been over the moon with it.

I did originally purchase it with the thought that I may keep it for just a couple of months as a stopgap.

 

However, like you, I was pretty impressed when I first got the car and that hasn't changed.

In fact it's turned out to be a great little motor that I really enjoy owning and driving and I won't be looking to change it any time soon.

 

Fingers crossed you'll be able to sort out those jobs on your car that need attention and then hopefully enjoy owning it as much as I do mine.

 

 

 

 

 

[BuildTheRobots]

Thanks Skobia59 - I'm hoping so too. The nice bits are lovely, but the infuriatingly broken bits are impressively annoying

 

(not) quick update (this has turned into more of a joblog):

Drove to work Friday. Took it very easy and drove like my dad on beta-blockers. Car seemed OK (torque at low revs) but absolutely painfully gutless above 2.8k, almost incapable of getting itself to 4k in any gear. Well, bugger 😞

 

Tried to go into town yesterday for my lunch. Came out to the car, unlocked on the fob, fiddled with the door electrics to see if the wires were damaged, and then it failed to start. I nearly died.

Stage 1 had all the usual lights on the dashboard, stage 2 gave me nothing from the engine, lights on the dash go out and the LCDs get corrupted (for some reason only displaying horizontal lines).

Turns out to be a dead batter (10.5v is not enough), new battery and she fired up first time. Thank funk

 

On the drive home all the acceleration problems were still there. I'll try and describe it for anyone else coming along with similar:

It has massive trouble revving above 2500 - 3200 and has massive problems getting any higher towards 4,000.

When I try and accelerate (especially above 3k) it feels like the car is juddering, loosing power. Almost like the traction control is kicking in. I didn't notice it as the passenger but I'm super-aware of it as the driver.

Doesn't matter what gear I'm in. Happens less under light acceleration and is worse when you try and put power down.

 

At this point, I'm paranoid it's the turbo and I'm ready to get some Mr Muscle. But first...

 

Saturday I decided I should show her some TLC.

New air, pollen and fuel filters filters.

The air and pollen filters were both pretty horrible, fuel filter was rusty and one of the o-rings was split.

 

And now she revs all the way to 4k without any bother at all - whole different car for the sake of a £25 fuel filter.

Half of me can't believe it ("something as simple as a filter!"), but the other half of me feels like an idiot because of course it feels just like getting rust in my carburettor and starving a bike of fuel.

 

Sunday I did an oil change. Sump plug was a bugger to get out :3

The oil coming out absolutely f'in horrible. Blacker than I've ever seen and felt almost very slightly gritty. Tasted pretty horrible too - I'm probably not gonna drink much more of it... o.0

 

I've stuck 4.5L of "Triple QX Fully Synth for PD Engines" in. It's VW-505.01 spec and also meats BMW Longlife-04, so I figure it can't be too awful.

 

I've done a few oil changes on diesel's, and I know it goes black quickly - but this stuff has gone black as sin even after just a couple of minutes of ticking over. It's really not nice. Still feels slightly gritty too.

 

With filters being super cheap, I'm planning on a fresh filter on Wednesday and then do another full oil and filter change next weekend - and a magnetic bolt for luck.

I'm semi-tempted to stick some flushing stuff in there, but youtube suggests that it might be the carbon holding the engine together and flushing it could make things worse. I'm hoping the second lot of oil will look less awful.

 

tldr: acceleration problems cured with new air and fuel filter.. oil is awful. Changed once and doing a second change next week.

 

Still to deal with:

+ Drivers and passengers windows won't open from either controls

+ Electric mirrors don't move

+ Drivers door micro-switch failure (infuriating)

+ Dodgy (corroded) 12v socket by handbrake.

+ Slight juddering under braking (warped disc?)

+ No Glowplug light on dashboard - never lights up. I'm suspicious it might have been disabled to hide a fault. How easy is this to get to?

 

And if you've actually read this far, then wow... even I didn't 😃