I bought my White Mk3 Fabia Estate SE because it had 6 gears and 4 cylinder 110 engine not to mention £20 road tax and stop start facility. However, over the Christmas period it proved a little small in the back (I should have tried daughter's racing bike before buying) and some passengers found the rear seats uncomfortable. No big deals the number of times it is needed but when the car failed to start on return from a garden centre (car 4years old and Moll battery)  the RAC tested the battery and stated that a cell had gone but the car got us home fine another negative was forged. Why does a 4yr old battery fail and why does Skoda want more tha £200 to replace or on enquiring £120+vat to do a diagnostic check. I sold a reliable and spacious 2003 Laguna Estate to have a modern car but now rue the day. Having said all that, a click and collect visit to Screwfix saw 3m of guttering carried without a need to cut any off so theer are so many positives but ....

So to sum up, you have gone from a much older Octavia sized car to a more modern smaller Fabia and found less boot space, occasional passengers don’t like the back seats, you have saved a minimum of £185 VED per year and the only thing to fail on it is a consumable item that is widely reported to have had issues in the past and the dealer wants the going rate for the replacement part that is optimised specifically for the car?

 

I’d say the passengers can keep quiet, as  it’s not theirs. In one year of ownership, you already have saved enough to cover most of the cost of the dealer battery in VED tax alone over the Laguna. An aftermarket battery will be cheaper and still work. Next years savings will cover the cost of roofbars and a carrier for the bike!
 

 A change of car to the same age or newer will cost more than the asset you have and it’s current maintenance costs but if you just don’t like it and want something better, time to change anyway.

BigEjit - your logic is faultless - I had high hopes having researched carefully and decided that the Fabia offered the best cost/value relationship featuring a 4 cylinder engine, 100+ BHP and 6 gears, a great spec.  Certainly the larger cars such as Octavia are a quantum leap in cost for the same year and I would need to shell out more or accept an older model or equivalent in Toyota Avensis, Mazda 6. Despite my research I was not aware of '...consumable item that is widely reported to have had issues in the past...' and simply it caught me completely by surprise - my wife's Suzuki Splash is 10 years old and on its first battery. So, has Skoda adopted the business model of say computer printers - sell em cheap and get the money back on consumable or having identified a problem just ignored it - logic or not it has soured my impression of Skoda for having chosen a faulty consumable and not rectified it - assuming mine is in that bracket. I will go to an aftermarket dealer for a test and if necessary supply for the appropriate battery - but my next car will not have a stop start feature.

@AvroSteve  What era of car will your next one be, Euro 4 or 5?

 

Welcome to the forum.  Skoda gets what VW buys in or allows them to have. That is as plain as plain can be.

Suzuki are just a better manufacturer of vehicles in Central Europe than Skoda is. It is as Simply Clever as that. Hungary vs Czech Republic.

Hyundai build better European cars as well.

They know more about small capacity petrol engines and low volumes and not being bothered about low emissions until recently.

I had over 10 year old Suzuki's as well with original batteries, but then i have not had a 10 year old one built since the introduction of Euro 6 emissions, 

if you get my drift.

Edited 31 May, 20206 yr by Roottootemblowinootsoot

Blimey...   getting rid of a car for the sake of a new battery???   Ive heard so e thing but that takes the biscuit...   have you got money to burn

skomaz - in my several decades of motoring I have replaced only a few batteries and I do not have money to burn - hence previous motor was a 53 reg Renault Laguna Estate turbo 2L which I bought from a guy who was having to give up driving - but still wanted a sensible price for the car.  Looking at the ads I will not lose a horrendous amount as the 1.2L cars seem to hold their value. The phrase takes the biscuit reminded me of dinghy racing and what the helm used to say to me when I was not crewing well. There are other issues as well, not just the battery, which are no fault of the car it was primarily the shock of the costs and 'special' nature of the battery and teh fact that I have now found that a known problem was not sorted. I will probably get over it when I get an after market battery although the car will still go on the market.

i think youre going to find that most cars, unless you go old again, are going to have pretty similar "maintenance" costs. 

 

I think saying the dead battery is a tipping point reason to send it away honestly sounds as if youve just decided you dont like it because its not actually big enough for your needs (a fabia from a laguna is a big step down the size brackets, even as an estate...) and youre justifying the moving on as being the car's fault.

 

on a side note, theres thousands of cars going to be suffering the same battery issues over the last few weeks, and into the months ahead, esp start/stop ones, from being parked up and doing short journeys, just like im guessing yours has been doing.

 

Anyway, good luck with your hunt for "cheaper to run", bigger car. come back and let us you know what you get 👍

mac11irl - I know it is not the 'car's fault' merely the consumable but you are right it is a tipping point. I will see how it goes just in case it was a case of being parked up. If I sell then I will go older. An Octavia 1.6 diesel may be the solution although petrol may be better as I live in a large conurbation.

id avoid a diesel completely if your not doing nominal trips more than 25miles. below that, imo, a petrol is better for overall efficiency and engine health. short trips kill diesels. even if you manage to find one without a dpf...

Edited 1 June, 20206 yr by mac11irl

mac11irl-Many thanks - you have confirmed what I suspected - petrol it will be

AvroSteve,

 

if as I suspect your Fabia has stop start function this increases the cost of the required replacement battery by a considerable margin ( to be honest the day of a £40-60 off the shelf multi-fit battery will for many be a distant memory ) and to state this as the ‘tipping point’ to replace your car is unrealistic 

in reality even considering you have compared two different manufacturers cars ( Renault renowned for comfort Skoda more so for practically ) essentially you have compared a Clio sized car with an Octavia sized car if that comparison makes sense 

David White. Yes, I acknowldeged in an earlier post that my 'rant' did not satisfy the logic process - more it was something to nudge me to rethink that the downsize was too big a step from the Laguna Estate and that I should have gone for the Ocatavia. It also woke me to the reality of modern main dealer maintenance costs - so another reason to go for an older car (Fabia is 2016) and then use non main dealer maintenance. In the research that led me to the Fabia, I did not discover the battery issues or the snags with stop start so now my only extra criteria is rear parking sensors and blue tooth with desiracles as  satnav and cruise control so an Octavia that is petrol and has those is the target.

Octavia is quite a long car esp in estate so bare that in mind. With smartlink head unit and parking sensors, you will be looking at mid spec models which will probably have stop/start in mk3 versions. Stop/start will be on every conventional ice engine now anyway.
 

To use your phone as nav you will need smartlink enabled head units. If the feature is present but not enabled on pre facelift mk3, dealers charge £135 to activate the licence for it. Cheaper back street options may exist.

 

Our Fabia hasn’t got factory nav but the previous owner had smartlink enabled so we use Waze app in that. I thought it was so good I got it activated in the Octavia too and now use it instead of the factory nav.

BigEjit Thanks for info on Octavia models - I havent researched fully yet. I have Smartlink on the Fabia and used Google maps which worked fine although data usage was high so if I used it a lot I just switched on for the bits of jorney that were difficult. I like the instrument layout and especially the roller controls on the steering wheel and the bluetooth which is plus for going for an Octavia. I am used to long cars and that wont be a problem.