Hallo fellow Skoda owners. This is my first Skoda - a Fabia 1.4 - and I'm impressed by the car . There have been a few niggling and one big thing - which I'll come to - however the overall quality of the car and the friendliness and advice from this forum which I've regularly visited before signing has been great. FIrst post then and first question - I've had steering rack failure and would like to know if this is a known failure point. Car mileage was about 53K, it's a W reg and dealer serviced from new. Dealer tells me because it's out of warranty Skoda have only charged me half the bill - some 235 squibs. This still seems like a nono to me in light of low mileage, safety implications and cost involved to the owner. I 'd like to have some feedback please before proceeding further so any advice appreciated.

out of warranty means out of warranty... i know its harsh but thats why your car was cheaper than a newer one with warranty.. them doing it for half price seems like a reasonable deal to me...

For what it's worth, I'd agree with Paul. I've never heard of a failure like this before, and paying 50% when way out of warranty seems fair enough to me.

Edit: Doesn't make it any less annoying, though

cheers for these replies guys, what makes it galling is that it was almost new with warranty when I bought it couple of years ago. Then when it's not long out it does this! This doesn't seem to be a fault with this model though. Arghhh...

Thirteen year old LT28 van was going strong...never had a problem.

Almost any

Then the >3 yrs marker comes...

Primera GT - Drive boots other bits and bobs.

Xantia TDi - Suspected gasket failure+skim

Xantia TDi - Heater relay: read cash cow. ouch

BX - Sphere's, BX's do not like hump backs each day.

BX - Clutch on drive home - Replaced at 50% costs, re-occured, traced to 50p bracket, orig clutch binned so got refund Cynical says still had first clutch on and never binned, but hey ho.

The exception is the recently departed 4x4. Which after sale, I was told needed a new clutch and gearbox...approx 11months early by the above schedule. It should be noted the 4x4 had the hardest life of all my cars thus far and the clutch is a known weakness running chipped, especially I guess with no wheelspin for 14 months. But it felt fine when I left it there

So all that said the out of warranty failure is perhaps to be expected on some part of the car, although I'd say that this is a rare one, hence only 50%, good garage there. Any idea/suggestions as to cause? I suspect that's why Skoda paid half, they will check it over.

Local dealer hasn't been forthcoming about why failed - just ' it's v.unusual'. I'll be finding out more as I have gone back and said not happy chappie with scenario of