2 minutes ago, TMB said:

 

Doing a lot of writing were you? 😛

 

A lot of wrongs to write...

5 hours ago, enocha*******off said:

Hi JR sure i.ll shorten it a bit i.m doing this off a phone so its awkward. 

I have a 2006 skoda fabia estate only had it 2 months. only done 600 miles in it so far. 

Clutch went last sunday its done 147.000 miles with 3 prev owners. 

As you will see from some of the replies i guess its not too bad for a car this age. 

 

My question now is do i scrap it or try get it done at a garage is it worth it. ? 

I only gave £250 so a new clutch and a mechanic to put it on will be more than that i.m sure. 

Other question was if i go for another make of car what do i go for. audi. kia. honda. nissan or what. ?   😕  Dave h

 

 

I think the answer there is stand back and have an honest talk to yourself about what else it needs, or is likely to need. Or get someone who's not emotionally attached to the car to do that. 

 

£250's scrap money if you do it right, so if you weigh it in, you've lost nothing if you've got the means to get it there with the cat, battery and alloy wheels (if it has them) taken off, so you've lost nothing. But at the same time, if that's really all it needs.... cheap motoring.. 

lol these replies from you all are ace. 😉👍 so honest and so true.😁  see like nta says cars now these days have far too much to go wrong on them. 

 

garages must be laughing all the way to the bank cos they know people can.t work on them themselves as they once could. 

 

All this digital crap on em etc. anyone owned or still owns one of those old volvos or saabs from the 80s and 90s. the volvo with the big dodgem bumper at the front and little wipers on the headlights lol i always wanted one of them. cracking cars and lasted ages too. and solid in a crash or a prang 

 

Yes i agree now standards have really slipped a lot especially on fords i would never have another ford flimsy and too erratic.  yeah toyota seem the cars to have eh or kia.s. 

 

But a mate of mine still has the old shape mk1 nissan micra i think it is. only done 35.000 genuine miles he has it serviced every year without fail and its mint its blue and it looks like its come out of a showroom brand new lol. 

 

I like cars you can work on like the old escorts and vauxhall chevettes. my first ever car was a chevette. cracking car with that weber carb on it that sometimes had to be topped up and primed lol. those really were the days. 

 

But now all this digital rubbish has ruined everything and as cars go electric even more problems will occur as there is so much to go wrong on them. i doubt i will have an electric i.ll have to see but the price needs drop drastically if i do.

 

This fabia estate i will get the clutch done on it at some point i.ll let it do another m.o.t and then as i said on the last post my lovely adorable girlfriend says she wants to get me new or near new car and i will have to make sure i get my choice right cos it needs to last me a long time.   Dave h.    

I'm not sure your girlfriend should waste money on a new or nearly new car as without warranties you'll probably be paying out a lot for service, maintenance and repairs.  The newer you get the more new complicated systems and more plastic and less metal, I'd research what systems are coming in over the next couple of years, I've no idea as I couldn't afford or want a new car.  Given the Taiwan situation chips might be in even shorter supply, but as I understand it cars use cheap old design chips that were a low priority for the chip manufacturers as they want massive amount of chips very cheaply and pay for them very belatedly.

 

Electric is the diesel future of the late 90s, wot could possibly go wrong.  I like the idea of electric engines, instant acceleration, the torque and best of all no getting filthy farting about with oil and such stuff, who knows had electric cars been allowed to develop in the 60s and 70s things might have been further along now, subject to the power and infrastructure also having been developed.

 

Nurse your Fabia clutch and engine and see how long it takes to get much worse and see what the future has bought, or brought. 🙃  

yes nta16 exactly and definately eh you are spot on. well i think what she really means is to get a car thats newer than the last 3 or 4 i have had and make sure its lasting. she.s a carer and doesn.t drive so she may get asked to do shifts out of the area so i think this is important to us that we get a reliable car. yeah i.ll get this clutch done and run it until next m.o.t next march and see whats what after that. 

 

Yes we have had such muppet governments and electric cars should have come in before mobile phones did no excuses now for moaning about the climate change.  its past governments pratting about and arsing about all over the world from say 50 years ago that we are all suffering and paying the price for now with our health and financial circumstances. 

 

Electric cars like you say ought to be better and less hassle and easier to use and work on especially with the price they are at the mo. 

 

I think car makers ought to concentrate far more on the actual mechanical aspects of the cars instead of all this needless gadget crap. such as when the car talks to you and is telling you this is needed and that is needed and this needs filling or that needs setting or washer bottle is empty etc etc. makes people lazy only takes 2 ticks lift up the damn bonnet and check the damn thing. and cars that tell you that tyres are low in pressure. i check mine every week i always have takes barely 5 minutes. so i don.t need a car to tell me about tyres its ludicrously laughable i have got mates who have all that stuff and i just laugh at them.  😂

 

Never have been a gadget man and whenever i have bought a car i always get a workshop manual. service it straightaway and put a new battery on it.  though i haven.t put a new battery on this one thats the first time i have ever not changed the battery on a car.     

14 minutes ago, enocha*******off said:

I think car makers ought to concentrate far more on the actual mechanical aspects of the cars instead of all this needless gadget crap.

 

👍

And another thing - whatever happened to soft-riding suspension? Most ordinary modern cars seem to have a stiff suspension set-up. I don't care about a bit of body-roll, bring back soft-riding suspension. Also, the interiors on a lot of modern cars are dull & drab.

Edited 6 August, 20223 yr by TMB

🤣

 

Servicing, battery, too hard suspension. 👍

 

I would invite you gentlemen to the MOB* meetings held every third Thursday of the month but none of us can be arsed to turn up.

 

 

 

* MOB - moaning old buggers

11 hours ago, enocha*******off said:

garages must be laughing all the way to the bank cos they know people can.t work on them themselves as they once could. 

 

I do all my own repair work, a model year 2006 Octavia was no challenge and neither is my model year 2015 Yeti, you just have to keep up with the changing technology but its incorrect to say that a DIY owner cannot work on his modern car, yours is a 2004 and a clutch change on that would be a breeze compared to the one I did on my Yeti with the integrated 4x4 transmission, the crossmember had to be removed and the transmission unit weighed 68kg but if I can do it without a ramp at 63 years of age anybody can.

 

The problem for me is that at least initially Skodas were just too darn reliable that you never needed to work on them and never got to keep your hand in and keep up with the changing technology, my MK1 Octavia did me no favours, nothing went wrong with it in 13 years and 325000 miles of ownership, I did not even know that it had a Canbus network, I really had some catching up to with the MK2 Octavia.

29 minutes ago, TMB said:

And another thing - whatever happened to soft-riding suspension? Most ordinary modern cars seem to have a stiff suspension set-up. I don't care about a bit of body-roll, bring back soft-riding suspension. Also, the interiors on a lot of modern cars are dull & drab.

 

Get a Dacia Duster, Lee. I honestly thought I was going to roll ours the first time I took a corner like I would in the Fabia...

11 minutes ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

 

Get a Dacia Duster, Lee. I honestly thought I was going to roll ours the first time I took a corner like I would in the Fabia...

 

I don't think I could drive around in something named after a cleaning cloth

13 hours ago, enocha*******off said:

lol these replies from you all are ace. 😉👍 so honest and so true.😁  see like nta says cars now these days have far too much to go wrong on them. 

 

garages must be laughing all the way to the bank cos they know people can.t work on them themselves as they once could. 

 

All this digital crap on em etc. anyone owned or still owns one of those old volvos or saabs from the 80s and 90s. the volvo with the big dodgem bumper at the front and little wipers on the headlights lol i always wanted one of them. cracking cars and lasted ages too. and solid in a crash or a prang 

 

Yes i agree now standards have really slipped a lot especially on fords i would never have another ford flimsy and too erratic.  yeah toyota seem the cars to have eh or kia.s. 

 

But a mate of mine still has the old shape mk1 nissan micra i think it is. only done 35.000 genuine miles he has it serviced every year without fail and its mint its blue and it looks like its come out of a showroom brand new lol. 

 

I like cars you can work on like the old escorts and vauxhall chevettes. my first ever car was a chevette. cracking car with that weber carb on it that sometimes had to be topped up and primed lol. those really were the days. 

 

But now all this digital rubbish has ruined everything and as cars go electric even more problems will occur as there is so much to go wrong on them. i doubt i will have an electric i.ll have to see but the price needs drop drastically if i do.

 

This fabia estate i will get the clutch done on it at some point i.ll let it do another m.o.t and then as i said on the last post my lovely adorable girlfriend says she wants to get me new or near new car and i will have to make sure i get my choice right cos it needs to last me a long time.   Dave h.    

 

To be fair, I'd rather change the clutch on a 1.2 Fabia than a Volvo 740.

12 hours ago, enocha*******off said:

Electric cars like you say ought to be better and less hassle and easier to use and work on especially with the price they are at the mo. 

 

  i haven.t put a new battery on this one thats the first time i have ever not changed the battery on a car.     

At the age of your Fabia, with an electric car you may need a 1st or 2nd replacement battery pack requiring a 2nd mortgage to pay for it, while it would still have the same brake, suspension, tyres and all the other consumables of any motor car. How that compares to yearly routine servicing, I would like to see the numbers. When something does go wrong on the milk floats electrical side - why should they be any more reliable or un-reliable that modern ICE car electrics - you are going to get you hat nailed on trying to find someone trained and with the equipment to analyse/repair or even swap parts out that will not have the same availability on Ebay or similar.

 You say you haven't yet put a £50 battery on the Fabia, but my understanding is the electric cars also have a "normal" battery for the ancillaries that will require replacement.

 Electric cars are not old enough yet to gauge reliability or real running costs for most of us - if you are posting in this Mk1 forum your car is at least 15 years old which is twice the battery pack guarantee (8 years ish) that I keep hearing.

My 1.4 BBZ powered estate cost me £250. It had 100k mikes on the clock and for the money was good value and as I can do lots of jobs it has not cost too much overall since. 
The major expense was having a clutch fitted and on mine the rear main oil seal needed changing as I had an oil leak. 
I highly recommend Midland VW in Cannock. A perfect job and the clutch feels great. 
From memory as essential jobs , I have had a refurbished steering rack, refurbished alternator, new discs and pads all round. 
Anything else has just been to get absolutely everything working so could have been ignored. 
 

So I have spent more than the car cost me on the clutch alone but I have travelled over 12,000 miles since I had it and as I have to go to some of the less desirable parts of Birmingham for work, I am confident it will still be there when I go back to it!!

I think it has been a bargain overall and next week we will use it to go on holiday to the Lake District. Every confidence it will cope. 
So get the clutch fixed and as I said, try Midland VW then enjoy driving it.