Hello to anyone reading this!

This is going to be where I document anything I do on my Fabia - currently it is my daily, so I'm looking to maximize comfort, efficiency, and fun.

My Fabia is a 2016 1.2L TSi with 5-speed manual, as far as I know with stock trim, and I'm the 3rd owner.

I bought it with 16" non-alloy wheels, originally made for a Seat Ibiza, but with a Skoda badge taped on 😆

 

As of time of writing, I don't have a garage where I can freely work on modifications, so everything I do is shadetree mechanic'ed.
For reference, I am an electronics engineer by profession, and a hobbyist only in mechanics.

 

  Off the bat, something very conducive to quality of life is, IMO, a HUD. I know this isn't specific to Fabias or Skodas at all, but it's very handy on the Fabia where I sit relatively high above the gauge cluster.

I bought specifically the "M7" version, as the Chinese retailers call it - not too tacky or obtrusive, good features, and relatively good reviews all around. I've been using it for a few months, got it about 3 months ago.

This specific HUD model can pull speed information from the CAN bus/OBD2 port, or from a built-in GPS receiver. Because of the GPS jamming in my area and because I have no quarrels with the speedometer, I opted to "set and forget" for OBD2 data.

It also displays RPM, and it can show temperature and battery voltage. It should display warnings for these, but (thankfully!) I've yet to see any of them. The provided "non-slip mat" also works much better than expected.

Display response is delayed by roughly half a second. Perfectly acceptable, in my opinion - it's not like you're staring at your speedometer while emergency-braking or accelerating hard. And to be fair, this Fabia isn't exactly one where you could overshoot your desired speed by too much 😆

 

It does have a double reflection, but it's not obtrusive in person and does not hinder the legibility.

 

An issue I feared I'd have is it's minimum brightness, since a lot of my longer drives are done on a dark road. Although I'm picky, I'm not completely satisfied with the brightness ranges - It doesn't go down as dark as I'd like, although it does get respectably close, and in direct sunlight it's just barely visible.

On darker nights I sometimes contemplate pulling it out, but the convenience of seeing my speed via my peripheral vision is very nice and I never do. In this picture it looks very bright, but I assure you it is darker in person, and automatically adjusts to your surroundings.

It has a glare shield, which is very nice, since it's resting on the dash where it would blind me if it hadn't.

 

Keep in mind that your passengers can also see your speed - if you're driving with your mother, take that into consideration 😄

I must mention - the lowest brightness of the HUD is as dim as the gauge cluster itself.

 

Second things second, I got a dashcam.

Mine is specifically a Viofo A119 V2, and I'm capturing in 1080p 30fps, and I'm getting excellent visibility.

A disclaimer: this is far below what the camera can output, because I only need to capture the situation rather than exact plate numbers. Local law does not convict based on footage, but it is enough to prove blame in an insurance claim. Whether they find and sue the other guy is the insurance's problem, I just need to prove it's not my fault 😁

Check your laws when debating which dashcam to buy - maybe something cheap is good enough for you.

 

I got the A119 because it's robust against heat (no battery), it has a screen on which you can review footage directly, a microphone, and a good quality sensor that captures well in the dark.

It also has GPS, which might come in handy because it overlays time and date, physical location, and speed (to prove lawful driving). With the way mine is aimed, it also captures the HUD reflection, which is nice as GPS is flaky currently (see above).

I have it mounted high on the windscreen and on the passenger side of the mirror, so it doesn't block out my view. It doesn't capture inside as well as I'd like, but it's still decipherable - I could read off a number plate or commentate if I wanted.

 

YouTube has wrecked the quality (DM me for actual footage if you're contemplating buying one), but it's also handy for showing my friends anything neat I encounter during my drives.

Now, for the reason I was inspired to open the thread. This will be a post in at least two parts, because I don't know how this story ends yet!

 

When I bought the car, it had four parking/reverse/backup sensors on the rear bumper. Fair enough, parking sensors have been required by local law in all new cars since ~2012. Not exactly surprising to see them. Or is it?

Looking inside the car, the radio doesn't have a display that is capable of displaying Skoda's ParkPilot program, as this is the lowest "S" trim option, but there's no little LED display and no buzzer either. Switching into reverse gives no indication. Strange.

 

Continuing the inside tour, one might've spotted a little JST-XH type connector sticking out of the luggage compartment left-side wall trim. I measured the voltage on it - no dice, no voltage. Also strange.

 

This Friday I had the assistance of a friend and a few hours free, so we pledged to track down that silly connector, and if time allows, figure out what is going on with the sensors.

We started off by prying out the C-pillar trim, located just above the luggage compartment wall. We figured it was for taking out the luggage wall trim anyway, so we might save ourselves a lot of work if we found out it goes up the pillar instead of the expected down.

A mere six clips.

 

Nope, the wire routes down, and so out the wall trim had to come.

 

This included removing the rear seat and the backrests. The torque wrench we had didn't mate with the spline socket screw that holds down the middle seatbelt, so upon re-assembly, it was tightened according to the Gudentite specification rather than the Skoda one.

 

A bit of a lengthier process, but eventually we got the wall trim out.

 

Upon removing the trim, we found that we had hit two birds with one stone - well, one of the birds was killed and the other was gravely injured: we found the parking sensor module.

 

 

The JST connector is supposed to go to a buzzer. Switching the car into reverse gear and standing in front of the sensors indeed triggers pulses of voltage on the connector, exactly as you'd expect the buzzer to beep while reversing. However - where one would expect the buzzer, under the C-pillar, none was to be found.

Crawling under the car confirmed that the parking sensors indeed go up into the module as they're labelled.

 

Which leaves us with a question - why would anyone go through the trouble of removing the trim, just to take the display, and buzzer, which come with every kit?

Or, alternately, why would a dealership go through the trouble of installing the module, without installing a display and buzzer?

And, without installing a new kit, how does one find the correct display?  

 

I am simply baffled.

More to come though, I've ordered the first display and buzzer I could find on AliExpress and I intend to wire them to the module.

Edited 9 November, 20241 yr by OakSh

On 10/11/2024 at 00:23, OakSh said:

More to come though, I've ordered the first display and buzzer I could find on AliExpress and I intend to wire them to the module.

 

The buzzer has arrived, the wiring was made, and a test was run - no bueno. It made clicking or popping noises, but no real beeps. I immediately suspected that the buzzer I ordered was an AC one (like a speaker), while the system calls for a DC one (different mechanism).

I decided that instead of wiring up a DC buzzer and making another shot I'd check out the signal first, and put my oscilloscope in the trunk. The CRT was struggling a bit, but it was more visible in-person, the signal was clearly DC beep-beep-beeps

 I've shopped the 2nd pic in powerpoint to make it clearer, so the scope also looks grosser. I've tried cleaning it to no avail 😆 We see 3 beeps 50msec wide, roughly one beep each 200msec.
 

I promptly soldered a DC buzzer to a fitting connector, and 3D-printed a small housing to protect the wiring and allow me to tape it in place using Scotch double-sided tape under the C-pillar trim. And... it works! I haven't yet figured out the display, but that'll happen... some day.

 

P.S. The scope is an HP 54504A I bought for ~120$ (400NIS) off of facebook marketplace, so it's not exactly new, but it works great and has some very nice specs and features.

 

Edited 2 December, 20241 yr by OakSh
Fixed line break between video and buzzer pic

Haven't seen this mentioned anywhere here or on Google -
 

Skoda Fabia Mk3 (NJ) 2015-2020 carpet/mat sizes

Driver (LHD): 50cm long by 47cm wide
Passenger: 57cm long by 41cm wide

Rear: 48cm long by 48cm wide

The trunk is 72cm long by 95cm wide

After putting through about 850 L of fuel (95 octane) for roughly 14,200 km -
I'm doing 16.62 km/L, which are 6L/100 km or 39.1 MPG.

 

That's pretty good considering it's my daily and I have about a 200m of elevation to cover one way and 70m the other way.

Seeing as this is not the first hit on Google either -

Skoda Fabia Mk3 (NJ) 2015-2020 headlight adjustment

Your car has a dial next to the light switch, which dips the headlights - It looks something like this:

Leave it set to '1'!

This is not how you properly adjust your headlights.

When you are carrying heavy loads in the back, for example passengers and baggage, there is more weight on your rear suspension.
The rear goes down, so the car turns slightly upwards. In this case, your headlights are aimed higher than they normally are - this is when you turn the dial past '1'.

To adjust the headlights correctly, each headlight module has two screws with a phillips and hex head, hidden under the bonnet.
Turning these screws moves the headlight, note that the directions are flipped between the driver side module and passenger side module.

Up/down is adjusted by a screw on the "inboard" side of the module:

And left/right is adjusted by a screw on the "outboard" side of the module:

The screws are a little hidden, so since this job is naturally done during night-time, and since it involves closing the bonnet quite a lot, a headlamp is recommended.

Someone scraped my driver-side front bumper and cracked my headlight, so it was replaced. The new module has a white screw, but the old one is black - not sure if it's the plastic itself or just 8 years of engine bay grime, so YMMV. Apologies for the poor cleanliness state of the car, regardless.

The documentation shows the screws as such:

(Maintenance - Edition 04.20 - Page 158)

Edited 1 November, 20251 Nov by OakSh
Added manual excerpt