Just a little head scratcher that might help you all out there. I have an 07 Fabia Mk1 VRS SE. For the past six months I’ve had a problem with starting the car. Everything seemed normal, no warning lights etc, it would just randomly decide not to start hot or cold. I started carrying both keys (which both worked normally) and doing the key reset procedure, not that it worked reliably to get the car going, just couldn’t put my finger on the cause. Neither could a couple of local garages I tried. Took my daughter to school today, came back to the car and nothing, plenty of battery, all the lights did what they should but nothing at the point of turning the key. AA patrol came, used his laptop to show me all the electrics are working as they should. So he went back to basics. Bashed the starter motor and hey presto it worked. I just need a new one. Hope this might stop some of you going down the immobiliser / electrics / what the hell is it route. Always check the basics. Digging out my Haynes manual now. 

4 minutes ago, LandK said:

Just a little head scratcher that might help you all out there. I have an 07 Fabia Mk1 VRS SE. For the past six months I’ve had a problem with starting the car. Everything seemed normal, no warning lights etc, it would just randomly decide not to start hot or cold. I started carrying both keys (which both worked normally) and doing the key reset procedure, not that it worked reliably to get the car going, just couldn’t put my finger on the cause. Neither could a couple of local garages I tried. Took my daughter to school today, came back to the car and nothing, plenty of battery, all the lights did what they should but nothing at the point of turning the key. AA patrol came, used his laptop to show me all the electrics are working as they should. So he went back to basics. Bashed the starter motor and hey presto it worked. I just need a new one. Hope this might stop some of you going down the immobiliser / electrics / what the hell is it route. Always check the basics. Digging out my Haynes manual now. 

 

Before you buy anything, have a good long look at the starter solenoid cable. These tend to fail gradually just where the wire comes out of the connector's strain relief. Insulation cracks then the copper strands gradually turn to dust with atmospheric access.  May be that hitting the starter just jiggled this enough to temporarily make better contact.

1 hour ago, Breezy_Pete said:

 

Before you buy anything, have a good long look at the starter solenoid cable. These tend to fail gradually just where the wire comes out of the connector's strain relief. Insulation cracks then the copper strands gradually turn to dust with atmospheric access.  May be that hitting the starter just jiggled this enough to temporarily make better contact.

Very true, and also of course that when starting, that cable does receive a lot of extra shaking and vibration and as the cable ages the insulation on it gets hard and brittle from the heat and oil and adds its own extra pressure on the point that you mention, making that suspect number one.

Image of said 'wire of doom' with typical failure point arrowed:

 

 

@LandK, as with rear door carrier leaks, this is one of those mk1 Fabia problem areas that's more of a 'when' than an 'if'.

Edited 30 September, 20241 yr by Breezy_Pete

I just broke down with this exact issue. Happy to wait for Green Flag to come and look at it until the wait went from 15 to 90 minutes, then I started stuffing the bare wire end in but so far to no avail 😭

19 hours ago, LesCM19 said:

...then I started stuffing the bare wire end in but so far to no avail 😭

Managed to make a good enough connection and get ourselves home.

Will see about a new plug or just a spade connector.

Whats the trick to getting the plug off with the red clip?

Red clip crumbled away and pressing into one of the revealed holes with a little electrical screwdriver did it.

All sorted.