Hello all 👋

I’m new to Skoda but I’ve had many many cars over the years. My dad however has had many Skodas (and other VAG cars) in recent years and loves them. 

I am an engineer and have a huge interest and a small collection of classic Japanese cars and modified cars in general, but recently my commute has increased and I needed a cheap and (hopefully) reliable car that does good mpg.

While searching Facebook Marketplace 2 1/2 weeks ago I found a 2010 Fabia 1.6tdi Elegance Estate with a recently lapsed MOT, 173k and full of mud/dog/horse, up for £500! 

I went and had a look and found a few jobs needed for the MOT but nothing obviously awful and it looked pretty tidy under the mud, so I chucked him an offer of £350 and he took it!! 😁👌

In the last few weeks I have been cleaning it up and prepping it for its MOT, and I may have been adding a few mods, because why not 😉 so hopefully in the next week or so it will be on the road. 🤞

So the plan is to keep this pretty cheap while making it my own and keeping my fuel costs down. I can’t leave anything alone so I will make excuses to have a play with it 😁

So here is my cars story from the beginning………..

Pics from the advert:

Edited 26 March26 Mar by Fab-Ya

After buying the car we trailered it to my mates unit where I gave it its first going over. 😁

Hello, welcome to the forum.

Looks pretty damn good externally. How does the engine sound?

15 minutes ago, Warrior193 said:

Hello, welcome to the forum.

Looks pretty damn good externally. How does the engine sound?

Tbh it seems to sound ok. No horrible noises yet but I’ve only driven it up the lane and back so far!

I went through the paperwork when I got home and found it had a full service history with stamps every year from 2011 to 2024, then the last owner serviced it himself last year!

I was also told that most of its miles were motorway miles so that’s been a little easier on it!!

I’ll update with more pics of my progress when this forum allows me to post more than one at a time lol 😂

Absolute bargain by the look of it - you can't beat the bangernomics economy (not that this looks like a banger) 👍

Gaz

1 hour ago, Gaz said:

Absolute bargain by the look of it - you can't beat the bangernomics economy (not that this looks like a banger) 👍

Gaz

That’s exactly what I need right now, something cheap to buy and run, reliable, useful and a little bit funky! (That’s where the mods come in as you will see later 😁😂). I’m not very good at owning a stock standard “normal” car! 😂.

I just hope there’s nothing lurking when I start to drive it properly!! 🤞

Right I can now post more photos so I’ll continue with my project thread 😁

So now off the trailer I get my first proper look around my new acquisition!

Muddy ✅

Dog fur ✅

Horse feed ✅

Wheel trims missing ✅

Etc etc

………but it looks pretty straight for a cheapy!! 😁👍

Now to give it a deep clean (well most of it. I still have the front seats and footwells to do and to put it all back together! 😁).

looks like a great bargain to me!

First mechanical job….. replace front brake discs and pads as the ones on the car were down to the backing plates!! 🤦‍♂️

Edited 5 March5 Mar by Fab-Ya

Its first mod time 😁

I needed some tyres, so I used that as an excuse to buy some alloys with tyres 😉

Keeping to my budget theme, I hunted on FB marketplace and found some slightly rare VW/Borbet 17” Boavistas, which was an option wheel on the Polo 6R Highline.

They were a bargain price (and I paid less than the advert states 😁) as they were a bit kerbed but I’ll give them a referb later 👍.

Conveniently they are exactly the same size and offset as the 17s found on the Fabia Monte Carlo’s so fitment is not an issue 😎

The next thing I did was to activate my DRLs with the switch next to the fuse box plus adding the fuse! The standard bulbs weren’t great and one had blown, so I changed them for some white LEDs.

I also added some yellow LEDs for fog lights. I’ll probably upgrade more bulbs as I go! 👍

Borbet’s suit it 😎👍

I was doing the same as you two years ago but for different reasons. I needed more space in the back than I had in the GTI, for my mobility scooter. At first I was going to trade the GTI in for something larger, but couldn't bring myself to give it up (I've had it since new). For the money it'd cost me to trade, I started looking for a second car with the room I needed, and I ended up with a V70, which I still remain chuffed to bits with. I paid over the odds, but a mate in Norfolk, who's very shrewd when it comes to cars, said he would have happily paid more than I did, which I took as a great compliment. Apart from routine servicing, all I've done is put a new battery on it and repaired a broken plastic screw, which cost me the grand sum of n'owt 👍

Gaz

Edited 6 March6 Mar by Gaz
added a bit

On 06/03/2026 at 08:20, Gaz said:

Borbet’s suit it 😎👍

I was doing the same as you two years ago but for different reasons. I needed more space in the back than I had in the GTI, for my mobility scooter. At first I was going to trade the GTI in for something larger, but couldn't bring myself to give it up (I've had it since new). For the money it'd cost me to trade, I started looking for a second car with the room I needed, and I ended up with a V70, which I still remain chuffed to bits with. I paid over the odds, but a mate in Norfolk, who's very shrewd when it comes to cars, said he would have happily paid more than I did, which I took as a great compliment. Apart from routine servicing, all I've done is put a new battery on it and repaired a broken plastic screw, which cost me the grand sum of n'owt 👍

Gaz

Big fan of V70s and had one a good few years back. They were also on my list of possible sensible daily’s but hard to find a good cheap one! They hold reasonable value as they are almost indestructible 👍

Well I’m a little behind on some updates so here we go again! 😁

On further inspection, I found the car had a broken suspension spring! Well I could have just replaced the spring, but where is the fun in that! I don’t need much of an excuse to mod and upgrade! 🤣

I looked on FB Marketplace and found someone selling a full set of Prosport coilovers with mondeo drop links at a reasonable price, so I bought them 👍

On delivery, I stripped and cleaned the coilovers which were almost like new, and I sprayed the threads with motorcycle chain wax to prevent the adjusters from corrosion and seizing.

Next up was to fit the kit to the vehicle.

I’m really happy with the results. I can’t go super low as I have a steep driveway to contend with but it has certainly made a difference!! 💪

Edited 24 March24 Mar by Fab-Ya

Next job was to strip and renew the rear brakes.

There was a leaking cylinder on one side and the shoes and drums were in poor condition so everything was replaced to be sure.

I even gave the drums a paint with black Hammerite to keep them nice and prevent corrosion.

After spending 2 weeks prepping my little Fabia for its MOT it was finally booked in. However, after 99% of its journey to the test station being perfectly smooth and nice, the last 1% ended up in a cloud of smoke and an engine runaway (that thankfully stopped when I cut the ignition!!), right outside the test station!

I was gutted after all the work I had done and was worried that it was as serious as it looked, and it looked to me like turbo oil seal failure! 😢

So I bailed on the MOT and the garage took a look at the issue instead!

When I went to collect the car from the garage later that day, they said it’s definitely the turbo failed as there was lots of oil in the intake, BUT they did mention that the oil level was also slightly high (they said 1cm).

By chance I got chatting to a guy outside who turns out to be a VAG specialist and told him about my runaway issue.

He said it’s likely to be turbo seals BUT it could be the oil over full being sucked up through a breather into the intake.

So I got the car towed back to my mates unit to investigate further!

Well on further inspection it turns out the oil level was way higher than I or the garage noticed it seems. The oil was so thin it barely showed on the dip stick over the max level, but looking more closely you could just see a sheen on the stick!

Well after realising the oil level was high, I dumped all the oil out to see how much by. To my surprise there was about 8.5 litres in there!! That’s about double!! 😮.

It also smelt of diesel and was thin like water so likely cause would be long term failed Regens by driving lots of short journeys. Yes it could be a failed injector but it still drives really smoothly so is looking less likely.

I had all the turbo pipes off and drained the small amount of oil in the intercooler as best as I could.

I did find that the oil starts in the system from the crank case breather, which is BEFORE the turbo, so it was now looking less likely the turbo seals were at fault 🤞.

So it now has the correct amount of new oil and a new filter. It now runs so much smoother and quieter with no smoke at all.

So after a lot of drama and worry that my budget car was about to fail me or cost me, with no more than a good service we seem back on track!! Phew!! 😁👌

So after we seemed to have overcome the previous drama, I booked the car in for its MOT for the following week.

This gave me a bit of time to do a bit more interior cleaning and fitting some new parts like a new (unbroken) gear knob and gator and some delightful (temporary) mats that my mate gave me 🤣.

It still needs more work to be up to my standards but it’s much better and will do for now.

Then it was MOT day………. AGAIN!! 😬

But this time it made it there without any issue at all! 👍

And later that day…….. WE HAVE A PASS! 💪😁

7 hours ago, Fab-Ya said:

The mats brighten a slightly dull interior I think. Have similar carpet cut offs in one of my cars....I love them.......lets embrace floral off cuts !😆

8 hours ago, JohnMack said:

The mats brighten a slightly dull interior I think. Have similar carpet cut offs in one of my cars....I love them.......lets embrace floral off cuts !😆

I do agree, but they were made of the finest Chineseium from TEMU and folded up every time you moved!

I have now bought some nice custom mats which I’ll post later 👍

1 hour ago, Fab-Ya said:

I do agree, but they were made of the finest Chineseium from TEMU and folded up every time you moved!

I have now bought some nice custom mats which I’ll post later 👍

Ah, I see. Mine are wool carpet off-cuts. Your Fabia is worth better than TEMU !!

Liking your progress, it's sitting nice. That spring kit was a good buy.

👍

What a bargain. And it’s cleaned up really nice. The wheels and the stance certainly suit it.

2 hours ago, Binx1310 said:

What a bargain. And it’s cleaned up really nice. The wheels and the stance certainly suit it.

Thanks 😁

Yea I’m really happy with it. A few more bits to do but it’s looking good from what it was 😎

Great progress with this one! Really enjoyed reading it.