AnnoyingPentium's 2006 Fabia 1.2 12v Ambiente-ish: I Honestly Think I've Lost the Plot...

[AnnoyingPentium]

Nothing been done to the little car yet since; 1. the weather is less than stellar currently, 2. the centre caps are arriving via 'China Post' and may arrive sometime this decade with any luck.

 

In the meantime, have a photograph of it from a yesterday morning. I managed to park a few spaces down from a rather smart looking Mark II Fabia, in '2' trim I'm guessing based off of the alloys but also the lack of foglights.

 

 

Just as a teaser - I have some interior things planned, but those are a work in progress currently! 

[DieselMonte]

I ordered mine the 5th of august and they only got accepted by the carrier 4th of this month! Ah well, hopefully neither of our cars fall apart without them 

[AnnoyingPentium]

22 hours ago, DieselMonte said:

I ordered mine the 5th of august and they only got accepted by the carrier 4th of this month!

 

Ordered mine on the 28th of August and they were marked as dispatched on the 30th and accepted by China Post on the 6th. Someone is taking the proverbial surely to god! 

[AnnoyingPentium]

Not directly related to my Flamenco Fabia but I thought one of my late night purchases would interest some of you here! They are 1/87 (HO) scale in size, so just a little too small for my model railway (1/76, OO scale to others) but they do make excellent display pieces.

 

e 

 

As an additional note, I'm aware of missing photographs from here. They were connected via my website and had been removed and then re-uploaded. Some came back and some didn't. I am unable to fix this currently as I don't have the correct permissions to edit the post.

Edited 6 February, 2022 by AnnoyingPentium
Corrections.

[HeavyMetalRich]

I wouldn't be surprised if you can get a model in the Flamenco Red. They did do most of the colours. Might just be in the 1/43 scale though.

 

I am trying to get models of all the Skodas I've had. I'm yet to find any vRS specific ones yet though.

[AnnoyingPentium]

7 hours ago, HeavyMetalRich said:

I wouldn't be surprised if you can get a model in the Flamenco Red. They did do most of the colours. Might just be in the 1/43 scale though.

 

I'd even consider one in another colour and spraying it even to something along the lines of Corrida Red even, or Fantasy Green . I'd like a 1/43 scale one for a diorama I'm working on, it's just a matter of one popping up on eBay.

[AnnoyingPentium]

This bit is rather picture heavy... sorry!

 

So this month has been good and I was feeling rather flush so some bits were done to my little Fab to make it a tad more handsome.

 

First of all, I had added the alloys as you all will know by reading this thread. Last time I said I had sent away over the Internet for a new set of centre caps which were coming from China.  Well, they arrived yesterday and with the help of my Grandpa (who filed down the edges of the clasps because these things were slightly oversized) and some patience, the centre caps were on!

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

Secondly, I had always had this gouge on the passenger mirror which I can only assume was caused by the previous owner(s) slowly running it along a brick wall, or something to that degree.

 

Once again, a before:

 

 

And an after, thanks to lovely bodywork shop local enough to me:

 

 

My gearstick's gaiter had also seen better days, so it was time for it to be replaced with a leather equivalent from the 'net once more. I decided to keep the 'Sport' gearstick as I think it's very comfortable. I may look to fitting one from the Ibiza Cupra but only after I try it to see if it is better to hold.

 

 

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

I like that this has the red stitching as it ties in well with the exterior and is the start of what may be a running theme of red stitching as a "muted red" theme.

 

This is all the modifications that I have done as of yet. The gaiter is by far one of my favourites so far as it really livens up the interior.

 

Finally though, I decided to give the car a wash and used some of Auld Arnie's (Arnold Clark to anyone else ) alloy wheel cleaner to shift some of the brake dust hanging about on my lovely alloys.

 

Here is the finished product as of now...

 

 

 

It's not quite complete as there's a couple of issues I'd like to address - such as my fuel cap lacking the spring to pop it open - but that can wait as I have a system for getting fuel into the car. It's called having a passenger to pull the release from inside the car! 

[group1rs]

Looks lovely this red nugget. Well done you 

[AnnoyingPentium]

Thank you very much @group1rs!

[AnnoyingPentium]

Small update today!

 

The wee car was beginning had been feeling a bit flat when driving it at times. I had removed the air filter and held it up to the sun and... no light came through. Now, I should have replaced the air filter when I changed the oil and oil filter and I had intended to do just that. However, the company I ordered from sent the wrong one and I already had to pay for postage to send it back and honestly couldn't be bothered, plus the air filter was not bad at the time. But by now, it was more choked than someone with hay-fever mowing their garden. 

 

A new filter was necessary for my red nugget and at the totally expensive cost of £4.60 I procured a panel filter for the car from my local TMS Motor Spares. 

 

 

After fitting the filter, I took the car out a small journey (also to get petrol) and the throttle response was much sharper and the revs are now more free-flowing compared to before... so it was clearly bad...

 

So after that journey, some black magic voodoo malarkey had occurred and I was seeing a whole 57.6MPG apparently*. 

 

 

*it's not that I don't trust the trip computer but it seems a tad too optimistic.

[AnnoyingPentium]

I had an ulterior motive to replacing the air filter. Recently the car was doing behaviour that I'd regard as bizarre to say the least. I'd be sitting in neutral and it'd feel like it was about to conk out and then when running it would hold revs for longer before letting them drop at a slower pace. I put this down to the panel filter but it came back, this time I'm looking at a sticky throttle valve. I shall investigate and come back with answers... 

 

- it's still drivable, but just a bit odd to drive.

[AnnoyingPentium]

Could certainly say I've been busy adding some interior comfort touches to my wee car today...

 

So, I managed to contact a nice chap about a 2002 Elegance he was breaking as I was in search for one of those cupholder/ashtray things that all the "fancy" Skodas have and got it off him for a price which may have been a wee bit much in my eyes - but I'm a real tightwad so there's that. 

 

Before...

 

 

After...

 

 

 

Now, I had been driving this car on longer journeys and looking for somewhere to put my left arm often. So £30 or so later, I bought this:

 

A VidaXL Armrest - there's no instructions so it's complex as heck and the design is a bit odd for trying to put the rear screws in, but it feels nice enough.

 

 

 

The car is needing a clean so I'm just waiting until the weather picks up a bit so I can get out with my hoover to clean it up a bit. The armrest gets in the road of the handbrake a little and would have been better if it was an inch shorter at the most. The little storage cubby is nice. I have quite a lot of cassettes (plug a personal stereo into the head unit via 3.5mm jack and we're good to go!) and there's some I'd like to take with me so this armrest makes it a good place to keep them.

 

This is all for now. I also ordered a "new" laptop as an almost disposable item for university work so I'm holding back on the car for now until it desperately needs something.

[AnnoyingPentium]

As you all will know, Fabia headlights (and others) tend to cloud/yellow over because of their plastic material. Well today - thanks to my Grampa - the headlights got polished and now look miles better. Night-time driving is miles (pun fully intended) better!

 

The left had been completed, the right hadn't at the time of the photo.

 

 

The left-hand side light before the polishing and treatment.

 

 

The photos sadly don't do the before and afters any justice unfortunately but it looks much better! 

[AnnoyingPentium]

I don't intend to be buying anything else for this currently but thought I'd let you all know of a massive gripe I have about this car. The issue being that under hill-starts and/or rapid acceleration, the CDs come out of the little pocket thing below the stereo and attack me! 

[AnnoyingPentium]

Haven't done anything to the car besides fixing the earthing issue that was rearing its ugly head once again. This time, it led to a lot of screaming and swearing while I tried to move the damned thing around the Sainsbury's car park without any power steering. 

 

 

Additionally, the ABS light and other lights came on. Having seen this fault, I knew exactly how to repair it by taking the earth strap off of the front wing and clean the contacts. It's now running as sound as before!

 

I hadn't been able to take any photos of the car due to the abysmal weather and today it has been sunny (but chilly) so I headed out to a local car park and got some snaps of the red nugget.

 

 

 

I don't have anything especially nice bought/scavenged for the little thing yet but we'll see what the future holds as I've got some amazing (to me, at least) plans for this wee thing in the months (and hopefully years) to come.

 

I also totted up the mileage I have covered since purchasing this car in March, I'm somewhere in the region of 3,000 miles in 6 months and that is steadily increasing every single day. 

[HeavyMetalRich]

Looking decent. A set of wheel nut caps would finish off your wheel department just nicely.

[AnnoyingPentium]

1 minute ago, HeavyMetalRich said:

A set of wheel nut caps would finish off your wheel department just nicely.

 

A man after my own heart! I've got a set lurking in my eBay basket, actually. 

[HeavyMetalRich]

What colour you going for?

[AnnoyingPentium]

Just now, HeavyMetalRich said:

What colour you going for?

 

I went for a sort of grey/black nickel style since it'll compliment the black/grey plastics nicely. Came to £11.99 for the set with the little puller tools. 

[HeavyMetalRich]

1 minute ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

 

I went for a sort of grey/black nickel style since it'll compliment the black/grey plastics nicely. Came to £11.99 for the set with the little puller tools. 

 

Yeah that will look good. I was expecting you to say red to go with the car though!

[AnnoyingPentium]

1 minute ago, HeavyMetalRich said:

I was expecting you to say red to go with the car though!

 

I'm not overly keen on the idea of red on the outside in that sense but I'm aiming for a "muted red" theme in the interior as can be seen with the gearstick gaiter, the red stripe on the steering wheel etc. 

[HeavyMetalRich]

Just now, AnnoyingPentium said:

 

I'm not overly keen on the idea of red on the outside in that sense but I'm aiming for a "muted red" theme in the interior as can be seen with the gearstick gaiter, the red stripe on the steering wheel etc. 

 

We definitely think along similar lines then. Subtlety all the way!

[AnnoyingPentium]

3 minutes ago, HeavyMetalRich said:

We definitely think along similar lines then. Subtlety all the way!

 

Of course. I love a car that doesn't scream powerful - especially since I've only got 64 ponies to play with anyway! 

[AnnoyingPentium]

On 23/09/2021 at 20:35, AnnoyingPentium said:

so I'm holding back on the car for now until it desperately needs something.

 

I feel like I'm going to be eating these words soon... 

[AnnoyingPentium]

Seems to be getting chilly these days! That was taken at 08:00 yesterday morning.

 

 

In other news, the covers for my wheel bolts have arrived.

 

 

I shall get those fitted once it stops pouring down!

Edited 7 October, 2021 by AnnoyingPentium
Grammar and so on.