3 hours ago, Alasdair1 said:

Skoda dealer will use Skoda OEM part which will be expensive plus £100 plus and hour labour. Independent will be cheaper for part and labour and probably aftermarket bearing. Last wheel bearings I got for my Mk2 octavia was £40 APEC brand. Took about 2 hrs in total to replace by myself and that was on a mk2 08 plate so had to take my time as things were a bit corroded. Check that the warranty provider will pay for the repair before going ahead. Glad you got to the source of the droning noise.

Alasdair

Skoda labor here is £156 p/h!
See what happens, hopefully they will agree. Find out tomorrow...

32,500 miles or 7 years might be good mileage and time for a VWŠkoda to last but owners of others makes of cars would expect far, far, far, longer, same for a window winder. My wife's 2015 Fabia has made 80k-miles at 11 years and so far neither of these have failed but other parts have that I'd not expect with other makes of cars. VW /VWŠkoda seem generally more expensive to service and maintain and repair than some other makes. These brands seem to be getting like their Audi brand and best not kept out of warranty period. Plus the VWŠkoda Dealerships and VWŠkoda UK seem very reluncant to admit to knowing about these issues and sort them without charge to their customers, and then the former cons like the unrequired expensive service interval cambelt change. Unfortunately I doubt they are much worse than others in the UK motortrade.

To end on a better note, lets say they took a while but they have indentified the issue and hopefully it will be covered by the extended warranty even if only as a "goodwill" gesture.

Let's hope it's now sorted. Good luck.

Edited 13 May13 May by nta16
typos

Does seems very low millage for a wheel bearing to start playing up. Have to see what the others do.
I've never been convinced of the build quality of these newer Fabias, i had a mk2 before this one that seemed much better built.
Just typical of everything these days, they design a service life into them.
So its seems the warranty did pick up the repair bill having just taken a call.
Picking it up in a bit so see how things are, hopefully no more noises, well not that one anyway...!

Edited 12 May12 May by Gonzini

Hopefully its a one of and glad the warranty covered it. Weird how older cars like mine seem to get to 100k before wheel bearing etc goes but a new part doesnt last nearly as long. Reckon your right with older cars being better built and parts better quality. My old garage I used to use said that if they have had to use heat on wheel hubs to remove bolt its guaranteed that that bearing will be next to fail. They were spot on as they had changed front broken spring on my old Octavia and 3 months later bearing failed. They only used heat as they couldn't move bolt even with a 5 foot bar and were worried it would snap.

Alasdair

From what I've learnt previously and on the forums here a Mk1 Fabia was the sweet spot, Mk2 start of the reliability decline progressing with the Mk3.

German marques build and parts quality went down from the end of the last century for Mercs and not long after the start of this century for BMW and VAG. I had a mate who regularly bought new and near newVWs, BMWs and Mercs. That was my introduction to VW's stop start, a Golf courtesy car with the early system, never did I think we'd ever have such a system, or a VW product, expecially after my wife breifly had her mum's Golf Mk2, a boring, (then) overrwieght, typical German interoir design and VW tractor engine (1.6i) but at least it was reliable.

So, bearing noise appears to of gone but still have a hollow droning noise.
Guess its the tyres, when the fronts got replaced i got them to rotate the rears to the front.
Still have loads of tread on them, just under 6mm. Maybe they've gone a bit hard, though there's no cracking visable.
Maybe I'll get them to swop back around again and see if that shuts it up or at least reduce it..
The aircon now is also making new noises that don't sound good, but thats one for another post!
Its never ending.
I might look at a S/H mk4 Fabia later in the year, they had a few at the dealers.
Have to see what issues people are having with those.
Or jump ship to another make.....

Edited 13 May13 May by Gonzini

How old are the 6mm tyres, there will be a production date on the sidewall, four figures, first two are week number into the year, second two the year, and/or were they cheap hard wearing tyres? Generally the best tyres to rear for these cars I believe and now you know the noise you may still hear it if you move the (wheels) tyres to the rear.

I've always found lots of noises come from the engine bay as the computer systems, components and parts do their stuff I just ignore them now and don't hear them so much when the front underside is thudding and clonking, it may be now the bearing noise has gone you can hear and concerntrate more on the other noises that were there before but masked by the bearing noise. The air-con on my wife's Fabia sometimes makes nioses, as does the compressor or alternator drive but again I've got used to them (and another reason to do a few prevetative charges with the battery charger to 100% instead of the car's 80% to give the alternator a very slightly easier life).

Considering a Mk4 is like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, save yourself some hassle and money and get a 2016/17 Mk3 - or better still a different, and more reliable, make and model. Have a look in the Mk4 section for the extra fun the extra years bring. DerekU is a Mk4 fan but will give you warts and all if you ask him for them, mention my name and you'll get a negative discount. 😄