I have a 2016 65-plate 1.2 TSI SEL hatchback, purchased, Skoda approved used, in February 2022 at 40,000 miles, which is due a service and MOT come January 24th.

A couple of questions:

1. How soon for the next major service? (I'm thinking this time next year)

2. How long until I replace the cam belt? (Also thinking this time next year as it will have done 5 years and probably the best part of 40,000 miles by then)

Mileage is now 64,000 and it averages 5-7k a year.

Cam belt was replaced by Skoda main dealer from whom I bought the car, just before I bought it, so it's now done 4 years and 24,000 miles.

I always service my cars annually, but I thought I should see what your thoughts were on the frequency of a major service.

This Fabia last had a major service January 2024, at 53,000 miles, .

Major service replaced all the filters (oil, air and cabin pollen), plus oil change and new spark plugs although I can't find a record of a fuel filter replacement since I bought the car.

I therefore specified just standard service last January, at 59275 (Oil, air filter and oil filter only)

I'm thinking another major service this soon would be unnecessary given the mileage.

Not sure how old the fuel filter is though. Can't find a record of replacement while I've had it - surprised it wasn't done at the last major service.

Hello Willum, Skoda UK changed their 5-year cambelt change interval about 2 years ago - It is now recommended on mileage only (I believe 120 - 140K miles)

There is plenty of discussion on the forum regarding EA211 cambelt changes.

Skoda UK were the only manufacturer of VAG that previously mandated a 5-year interval.

I believe that the fuel filter on the EA211 series is integrated with the tank fuel pump.

If skoda did the timing belt they would have used a decent OEM one so should be perfectly ok for a long time. The belt change interval has increased a lot with lots of different explanations. The idea of 120-140k scares me especially if I dont know what make of belt was used so personally I change mine every 6 years/60,000. As I have Octavia I do the waterpump at same time.

Do you have the 'Complete record' of service and maintenance (and Recall) works for your car?

Cambelt info.- CamBeltchangechange.pdf

5-7k-miles a year, depending on the frequency of use and journey lengths is OK but in many ways more wearing on some bits of the car than say 20k-miles with lots of motorway use so look at servicing and maintenance on not just mileage but also time interval plus lots of short journeys and/or dusty environments reduce some of the service and matenance intervals.

By now you may be up to changing the spark plugs again, air-con service (up to you) engine air filter, cabin pollen filter and brake fluid change (every 2 years). Fuel filter is as Warrior193 put.

Most important things of course are brakes, steering and suspension, all three include tyres - so the brakes and tyres as regards servicing, maintenance and perhaps repairs if required to steering (not usual though) and perhaps suspension parts replacement if you can't put up with the noises some of them make.

It depends on how much longer you want to keep the car on what more you might want to do, on my wife's 2015 (65 plate) I changed the "lifetime" coolant a few years back and the 5-speed manual gearbox oil at just over 5 years old (40k-miles, and to better oil than VW put in to help the clonk boxes they make) and certainly not because I like the car or farting about on it.

Some servicing stuff for you. -

HTH.

40 minutes ago, Alasdair1 said:

If skoda did the timing belt they would have used a decent OEM one so should be perfectly ok for a long time. The belt change interval has increased a lot with lots of different explanations. The idea of 120-140k scares me especially if I dont know what make of belt was used so personally I change mine every 6 years/60,000. As I have Octavia I do the waterpump at same time.

To clarify - the water pump replacement reference is for TDIs only.

1 minute ago, Warrior193 said:

To clarify - the water pump replacement reference is for TDIs only.

The Dealership may well 'recommend' differently, especially if's your a lone woman taking and collecting the car but then they'll give a whole list of things that need attention.

7 hours ago, Warrior193 said:

Hello Willum, Skoda UK changed their 5-year cambelt change interval about 2 years ago - It is now recommended on mileage only (I believe 120 - 140K miles)

There is plenty of discussion on the forum regarding EA211 cambelt changes.

Skoda UK were the only manufacturer of VAG that previously mandated a 5-year interval.

Ah, that's interesting, on both your points!

I was aware that the cam belts were expected to last that long on the newer 1.0 TSI engines, but hadn't heard this now also applied to the 1.2 units.

Looks like I might need to see if there's any kind of consensus on here about that one.

7 hours ago, Warrior193 said:

I believe that the fuel filter on the EA211 series is integrated with the tank fuel pump.

Ah, so does the filter last for the lifetime of the pump? In other words, only replace if the pump fails?

7 hours ago, Alasdair1 said:

If skoda did the timing belt they would have used a decent OEM one so should be perfectly ok for a long time. The belt change interval has increased a lot with lots of different explanations. The idea of 120-140k scares me especially if I dont know what make of belt was used so personally I change mine every 6 years/60,000.

Yes, I would have expected it to be an authentic VAG cam belt. I managed to get the dealer to give me the internal invoice they issued for the maintenance the car had at that point, and that includes the part number: 04E 109 119 F which indicates it was made by Continental, a brand I'm sure VAG would be likely to use.

Pulley(s) and tensioner(s) also listed on the same invoice, so looks like they used a cam belt kit, as one would expect.

Water pump: Yes, on my previous 2007-57 1.9 TDI Mk2 Fabia, I had the cam belt replaced twice over the 12 years I had it, and the water pump at the same time (plus alternator belt).

However, I'm not sure if the water pump is driven by the cam belt on the EA211 engine.

Edited 13 January13 Jan by Willum

6 hours ago, nta16 said:

Do you have the 'Complete record' of service and maintenance (and Recall) works for your car?

Cambelt info.- CamBeltchangechange.pdf

5-7k-miles a year, depending on the frequency of use and journey lengths is OK but in many ways more wearing on some bits of the car than say 20k-miles with lots of motorway use so look at servicing and maintenance on not just mileage but also time interval plus lots of short journeys and/or dusty environments reduce some of the service and matenance intervals.

By now you may be up to changing the spark plugs again, air-con service (up to you) engine air filter, cabin pollen filter and brake fluid change (every 2 years). Fuel filter is as Warrior193 put.

Most important things of course are brakes, steering and suspension, all three include tyres - so the brakes and tyres as regards servicing, maintenance and perhaps repairs if required to steering (not usual though) and perhaps suspension parts replacement if you can't put up with the noises some of them make.

It depends on how much longer you want to keep the car on what more you might want to do, on my wife's 2015 (65 plate) I changed the "lifetime" coolant a few years back and the 5-speed manual gearbox oil at just over 5 years old (40k-miles, and to better oil than VW put in to help the clonk boxes they make) and certainly not because I like the car or farting about on it.

Some servicing stuff for you. -

HTH.

Thanks for this, @nta16 - very helpful.

Unfortunately, I don't have a complete record available for this car. No paperwork for service history was passed to me (beyond the internal invoice for the cam belt job) with the car.

I deliberately had the car serviced at a local Skoda main dealer after a year so I could ask them for a print out of all servicing history they have on record.

The records Skoda have on their central database has a big gap for this car, between a standard service in Jan 2018 (at 17k miles) and the service I arranged for Jan 2023 (at 47k miles), a year after I bought the car.

So I suspect the servicing wasn't done at a Skoda main dealer / somewhere with access to the Skoda database.

I have receipts of the work done by my local independent mobile mechanic, but of course there's no service logbook with modern vehicles nowadays that a mechanic can stamp with their business info into the history logbook.

A bit miffed about that as I handed over a ton of paperwork for everything I'd done with my old Fabia when I traded it in (and I take some pride in seeing from its online MOT history that it remains on the road 4 years later)

I had the air con re-gassed in June 2024. It was still working at that point, but performance had declined.

I'm not aware of any recalls affecting my car.

Just for your information, as this cam belt is not recommended to need “frequent” replacement, VW Group do not list a “cambelt kit”, only individual parts. Our local VAG Indie also replaced the belt tensioner while replacing the belt - probably as doing that makes good sense, along with changing the aux belt.

Also, the mechanical coolant pump is driven by its own small belt at the other end of a camshaft, that belt as it is not subject to any other loads should probably last the life of the coolant pump who’s life limiting factor is probably the plastic housing it lives in.

9 hours ago, Willum said:

Ah, that's interesting, on both your points!

I was aware that the cam belts were expected to last that long on the newer 1.0 TSI engines, but hadn't heard this now also applied to the 1.2 units.

Looks like I might need to see if there's any kind of consensus on here about that one.

Ah, so does the filter last for the lifetime of the pump? In other words, only replace if the pump fails?

Re. the fuel filter, AFAIK that is the case.

It does suggest that picking up a load of contaminated fuel could end up being very expensive!

For any Recalls that they admit to there is the following site, there are also "silent recalls" they don't readily admit to or their Dealerships, see the threads on this site, other than IIRC fuel rail leak there's not anything other than what they call a battery recall (more likely a VW part or programing but I've not seen a technical bulletin about it anywhere, not that I've looked. - https://www.skoda-auto.com/services/recall-campaigns

No doubt you're a believer n reading the 'Owner's Manual', in case you don't know should you need or want it there's a free pdf download of it on the website. - https://www.skoda-auto.com/apps/manuals/Models

To complete the set, the Update portal. - https://updateportal.skoda-auto.com/

About your paperwork on your previous car, as I used to run various old cars called "classics" as daily use cars I'm very used to keeping paper service, maintenance and repairs paperwork, and digital copies, plus MoT and print-offs for them and going back a bit tax discs, amazing how some are so impressed with such things when buying a car. I always keep records in reverse chronological order as this is usually most relevant. I've seen cars with lots of paperwork all mixed up with a till receipt for something of no importance many years back but missing a receipt for a major part or work that has clearly been done.

I had one car with so much paperwork that I suspect any papers without the registration to that particular car went to another car as I saw the car at a show 18 months later as was told some of the spare parts and most of the two files of paperwork I left in boot weren't there when the owner bought it - the car sold at auction to a dealer that immediately passed it on to another dealer as he could only drive one car back and had bought two. I tried my best to prevent a dealer getting the car but the auction places have the contract, and "associations" as I'll call it.

The VWŠkoda Dealership my wife bought her 2015 Fabia Mk3 from was not over trustworthy too, the car was 15 months old with 10k-miles on it and was said to have been used as one of their courtesy car, which it might partly have been but i had other thoughts about it but at the time it was in a spec and colour that was in very limited supply in the UK let alone reasonably locally (next county city). I asked, then insisted, for a print out of its service history and this seemed unusually difficult, I think the car had never been serviced and they were playing the system to get it on. See record.

This also brings me to VWŠkoda UK's record, note the error (that another member pointed out to me) which they had no explanation for when I asked, these are stuff put on computer records which should transfer without change.

14 hours ago, Willum said:

I had the air con re-gassed in June 2024. It was still working at that point, but performance had declined.

Who done the work, is it a coincidence that the performance has declined. What has declined. Is it one of these Climatronic which might just need a bit of fluff blowing out of a sensor or a system (flaps) reset or the system reacting to different conditions, where the car is parked, the driving conditions, etc.. You could do a search on here and/or start another thread for this. The Climatronic has been discussed on the Fabia Mk4 IIRC, same principles.

HTH.

I checked the cambelt change intervals for my 2016 1.2 TSI before I bought it new.

Belt is/was made by Conti with a recommendation to INSPECT it at 165 K miles.

And then to check it at every 20K miles later.

You can look at the cambelt by only removing two pipes and one 10mm bolt.

Service records / workshop invoices are not allowed to be passed on by a business if they have personal details on them because of GDPR regulations.

If only they could cover up the personal details and copy the rest. ☹️

Thanks. AG Falco

To make the above process sound even easier, you only need to clip open the mounting clamps for the 2 pipes so that they can be moved out of the way.

So getting that top cover off is really easy - oh and a couple of spring clips need easing off.