I recently had a breakdown in our Fabia 4 mc after around 4000 miles.  Fortunately, I had my smart phone and was able to call for assistance.

 

 There are two buttons in the console at the top of the windscreen.  The red one is for fire, police or ambulance and will work whether or not you have a smart phone.  The one you need has a spanner symbol and unless you have fitted the car with an e-sim card this will only work if you have the car linked to a smart phone.

 

The car was about a mile into an early morning drive when I realised it had lost most of its power and wouldn’t go over 20 mph. There was soon smoke pouring from the exhaust and the dashboard screen showed an epc warning.   I continued and parked on the car park at my destination a couple of miles away.

 

The phone call went through to the AA and their van arrived about 20 minutes later.  The AA technician used a device to reset the computer system and then he escorted me to the dealership. It didn’t have the loss of power issue when we were on route.  I did not feel welcome there and there ensued an argument that the car should have been put on a low loader and brought to the garage if it was not driveable.  The service manager said they were very busy but they’d try to look at it the next day.

 

The Skoda team were not able to locate the problem because the data it was irretrievably lost when the AA technician had cleared the fault. I was pretty unhappy about the whole experience but it seems that the breakdown protocols are the same throughout the VW Group.  The service manager explained that although the car is under warranty and they had unsuccessfully done work to try and locate the epc fault they would not get paid for this. He reckons it’s unlikely that the problem will occur again.

 

My impression and that of the wife is that the electronics are very glitchy. My android phone links to the car but I've given up trying with the wife's iPhone. The dashboard display has changed itself since we got the car back. It does so fairly regularly. It’s also resorted to giving ridiculous gear change notifications.  We now know that a long run should put that right. I booked it in soon after we had the car due to this but got a phone call saying that if they couldn’t find anything wrong, I’d have to pay over £100.  I cancelled the appointment and spent ages trying to sort it for myself.

 

It seems to me that when electronic faults are cleared, and these are the most likely ones, there will be no record of an issue.  You could have umpteen breakdowns, unlikely of course, and no trace of this in the car's memory. Without the specific fault codes the Skoda technicians cannot pinpoint the issue. If these were permanently registered in the car's electronics system there would likely be repercussions in the second hand car market.

 

I'd be interested to read comments from others on the forum.

I don't know your car history but welcome to a very recent modern car and all its 'great' features to 'enjoy' and one from a German marque who love to over complicate things to be "clever".  Regardless you will be dealing with the British motor trade and at Dealership level.  But you know all this now.

 

For clearing all the error codes on your car that cause or might just be showing at time of problems, whoever does this can save a 'Report' or record which can be very detailed indeed, this can be saved on the scan tool and sent to you as a customer either as a list of the error codes which might be a short or shortish list or as a much more detailed tyre of "printout" which will be very long showing lots and lots of detail.

 

A good garage or mechanic might offer you the list of error codes that are present before he starts/started the work, this list might include old error codes that have been dealt with but someone has been unable or too lazy (usual in motor trade) to delete.

 

If selling a car yes someone could delete all the stored error codes but as a buyer you could also get those that haven't been deleted.

 

As the AA of they have the list of error codes they can send to you to show the Dealership, it should include your VIN and time details to prove its for your car and when.  I don't know if they keep the details or not but there's potential the "nice man" might have it on his machine if not left too long.

 

For your other faults, video them, every time, and present them to the Dealership, with evidence they can't deny them.

 

Also have a look at Briskoda, search for the issues, a Google search usually bring you back the threads and posts in Briskoda.  Usually the type of issues you mention won't be restricted to just a 2023 Fabia Mk4 (or just VWs Škoda brand) you will see if and how other members dealt with the issues and perhaps Dealership.

 

You must know how glitchy computer electronics can be well modern cars and the German marques particularly have been playing with them for decades and now they are very complex and intertwined, the newer the car the more so and if you think or believe the old marketing about German (car) engineering quality then you are decades behind.

 

Take the gear changes suggestions with a pinch of salt even when the systems are fully working correctly as if you know how to drive properly and experience you will know they're not best for the engine and not even mpg.  You have a 3-cylinder, 110 PS engine in a modern big heavy car if you don't give it some proper runs you will regret it sooner or later particularly if you are keeping the car long term.  If so the VWŠkoda "service" and "maintenance" schedules are very thin particularly if the car is lower mileage, short journey use.  As you can guess unusually here I am not a VW fan and have found there 4-cylinder and larger capacity engines petrol engines to sound rough so losing a cylinder and smaller capacity won't help, that's not to say they are bad engines, just that I've has 3-cylinder much lower capacity engine'd cars that had much sweeter engines (one was even a German make).  

 

Some advice, do not let you car 12v battery get too low in charge from lack of driving the car or too many short journeys and/or high use of electric items in the car as if the battery get too low it can throw up all sorts of unexpected warning messages and lights, and unseen error codes,  Too low can still have the lights seeming bright enough and the engine will still start even when the battery is far too low but by this time you've really abused the battery and it will take a lot more to recover if it ever fully does.  VWŠkoda I think say replace the expensive battery at 4 years, some don't get that far, but with the preventative use of an appropriate battery charger maintainer you should get many more trouble-free years of life out of the battery and reliability no extra warning lights and messages on top of the ones the computers put up from other stuff.

 

Also, you may already do this but read and refer to the car's 'Owner's Manual' as this can save you hassle, time and money, avoid visits to the Dealership, garages, mechanics, auto-electricians.  Yours may be the annoying virtual version that seems like some AI or non-English speaking engineering student has throw together but much information is still there, well as much as VW allow. -  https://manual.skoda-auto.com/004/en-com/Models

 

HTH a bit.

 

Edited 8 February, 20251 yr by nta16

lack of power and smoke from Exhaust does not come from glitch electronics....

 

try to find out from AA guy what were the error codes . Scantools have history logs and it should not be difficult.

 

The DLAA engine is quite good , very reliable. 

Thanks for the replies.  The AA man did give error codes to the service staff at the dealership but the feedback later was that his equipment wasn't in the same league as the technicians at the dealership and that what he provided made no sense to them. Greater compatibility of meters and work on communications would be advantageous. It's true that the car lacks long runs and the mpg is pretty poor on a day to day basis but an electric car wasn't practical for us.  

 

I have doubts whether the VW group is going to survive against the strong competition it is facing. Their various badges are competing against each other.  Buying new cars through local dealerships may also have to change.  I'd have loved to have a test track available when buying and have demonstrated the electronic gizmos.  We wouldn't have wasted 6 months waiting for the park assist package. A few large scale facilities to replace dealers would also make it possible to book a short course to get to grips with new cars incorporating unfamiliar tech and ask for advice. The pace of change doesn't let up. Traffic levels on the roads mean it is dangerous to be fiddling around with controls.

4 hours ago, bazz2004 said:

The AA man did give error codes to the service staff at the dealership but the feedback later was that his equipment wasn't in the same league as the technicians at the dealership and that what he provided made no sense to them. Greater compatibility of meters and work on communications would be advantageous.

 

That was complete Bravo Sugar from them, the AA man will have given a generic OBDII code or a VAG specific one, standardisation is the very reason that SAE J2012 and ISO 15031-6 standards were created and contain about 11 000 definitions which any auto professional will have access to and know how to interpret.

I frequent the Audi TT forum and it often mentioned that the reader has to be VAG specific as otherwise codes are often not picked up or are too general and don't identify specific problems.

40 minutes ago, VAGCF said:

the reader has to be VAG specific as otherwise codes are often not picked up or are too general and don't identify specific problems.

Doesn't have to be VAG specific just VAG appropriate, that is has the full programs for VAG and their models, those will include VW Bentleys too, also the program(s) need to cover the specific model and year (VIN) and be fully up to date before using the scanner, plus car and scanner if appropriate scanner not with a battery in a low state of charger otherwise spurious results can be given.  Some scan tool owners/users are too lazy to bother with all the updating.  You are using one set of computer programs on another and we all know these have "glitches", "patches", "updates" and original program errors and omissions.  So that's two dumb computers so you don't want a third dumb element added in.

 

This is typical of the problems that can "evolve" when being collected by AA or RAC during warranty period.

 

I had an issue with a 1984 Ford Orion 1.6 Ghia Injection, the engine cut out as I drove over a rough roundabout that had been skimmed during road resurfacing, I knew it was an ignition problem as I noticed the rev counter dropping like a stone.

 

So, as I was an RAC member,  and maybe going by my description of the problem, they sent out a contracted garage recovery truck - to transport my car either to my Ford dealership or my hone address, I chose "my home address", it was made clear to me that the RAC were being "very careful" about working on cars still under new car warranty.

 

In that case, I had caused this problem to probably occur, it turned out, I discovered once at home, to  be a badly "potted" ignition coil lead, ie the primary lead to the coil, had too much potting/moulding material in its socket and so it was making poor contact, especially after driving over a rough patch of road - I'd noticed that for some reason, someone had jammed that lead under the HT lead at the coil, and it looked wrong - obviously at the Ford factory or at my supplying Ford dealership, car was only a couple of months old, I was just on my way to visit my wife a day after she delivered our first child!

 

Anyway, in the OP's case, surely the AA is working as VW Group's "roadside support" during the car's first year or two from new - so they should always be working hand in hand with what is acceptable to VW Group dealership workshops.

 

This is where the RAC and AA's mindset of "getting you moving again" gets slightly blurred  and misses the mark when they are operating as a car marque's "new car roadside support during warranty" agent.

 

As always, customer takes the hit!

Obviously I don't know as I wasn't there but by what is reported it is clearly the Dealership at some sort of fault.  AA not at fault at least for it being driven if the car was perfectly driveable, which it must have been and still is otherwise the Dealership would have found fault(s) and wouldn't have said they can't find anything and that the problem is unlikely to happen again.  Plus of course how can the Service Manager possibly know it won't happen again if they couldn't find a cause.

 

Seeing the error codes and full report would obviously be very useful but it still might not pinpoint the cause but hopefully give some indicators for further diagnosis for those with training, knowledge and experience and with or allowed the time and inclination, which can exclude many now unfortunately,

 

Look after your battery, keep it fully charged or you will get odd things happening (as has been said already)

It's about a year later and much the same situation occured when the wife was driving to the supermarket.

The AA attended but were reluctant to touch the car. There is a silver van which provides backup for VAG Group vehicles but that would require a wait of a couple of days. After explaining the previous situation I asked the engineer to get it going which he did and I was asked to photograph the display on his computerised system in the van and send it to Johnson's Skoda. Unfortunately that's not something that can be done from Johnson's Contacts page.

The car is presently running great but the AA engineer thinks a change over is needed for the throttle assembly. The dealership have booked the car in for a fortnight's time but didn't want to receive an email from me. I ended up reading my email out over the phone. I have been assured that Johnson's Skoda have made big changes including a new workshop and a full complement of Skoda certified engineers.

I'll post back with an update but the Fabia has had so many niggles that I'm not hopeful of a full resolution. When it behaves the car is great to drive but we are constantly worrying about it letting us down.

Another update and no progress.

I arrived at 8:30am prompt and the service manager said that as no faults were being shown and the car was behaving there was nothing they could do.  I offered to pay for the replacement of the throttle body assembly which the AA engineers said was the most likely culprit.  That wasn’t well received and the situation escalated with me using a few choice words. I was aware of a burly staff member standing close by.  The manager said that my behaviour was unacceptable and the witness said that swearing wasn’t allowed.

 I was told that my car and my business were not wanted there and to leave.  I suspect that this was a set up to get rid of a demanding customer. On the way out I looked at a couple of cars and a salesman seated nearby asked if he could help.  Briefly, I explained the situation and he had a word with the service manager. That didn’t get a result but I found out that a senior manager was visiting and asked if he would come and see me. Surprisingly, he found the time to discuss my issues and read the print out of the email and AA readout from the breakdown.

He did admit that the service desk could have handled the matter better and then I was stunned to be offered a cup of coffee. So where did we get to after this?  It’s difficult to see the best way forward.  I can’t trade the Fabia in for a new one at Johnsons Skoda because we have lost confidence in Skoda and the dealership. There have been three service managers since I bought the car and none of them struck me as being up to what is a very demanding position.

The senior manager overseas two branches and said that they’d have a look at the battery in the car. He gave me a copy of the readout. It showed 45% whereas the target is over 85%.  I’d fully charged it less than two weeks before. The manager didn’t offer me his contact details but asked for my email address, said that he’d follow up the history of the car and that he’d be in touch.

I’m now going to open a new thread about the Fabia 4 battery and would appreciate any recommendations for specialist battery providers in the West Midlands that are not Skoda dealerships.