After a front shunt I now experiance excessive fuel consumption on my Fabia 1.4 8V Classic.

The car was repaired and I had to have headgasket replaced at extra charge! Since then any journey over 10miles just drinks petrol.

Any ideas before I take it to a garage and possibly get ripped off!

Not very clued up on fabias yet..... Could be a fracture in a fuel pipe somewhere.... but then you'd be smelling it often, if not all the time, when you're driving or even near the car.

If the fuel pump switches on to prime the system at ignition position 2, then I suppose you could try turning the ignition on, wait a few secconds and then off. Repeat this a few times and look under the car to see if any fuel is dripping out of anywhere.........

Although it could be a temperature thing. If something is happening after the car has warmed up i.e. after 10 miles of driving......

Other then that i dunno mate, sorry i can't help more.......

When you say "just drinks fuel", what kind of mpg are we talking?

Chris

Dont know how much mpg i am getting, I will fill tank and calculate next time car needs filling.

I travelled from Nottingham to Stoke on Trent and used £20 petrol for a 50 mile journey! I can actually see the fuel guage needle move.

I travel all over the country on business using co. car and get to North Wales and back on £40. (Toyata Avensis).

Because I use co. car so often I may not use mine for a few days but still seem to be useing £20 fuel to get to work and back each week (work 9 miles away).

Hope this helps, don't smell any petrol and no residue under car if left a couple of days, don't think I have a leak.

Twenty quid for 50 miles, that ain't right.

I have to sit in traffic for ever each morning and even then I average around 38mpg, doing a round 150 mile trip to Stafford and back, I average about 53MPG in my 1.4 MPI.

i think maybe when you smashed in the front end you may have damaged the radiator right?? if the car was overheating badly enough to need a new head gasket you might have melted or damaged the coolant temperatue sensor as well causing the ecu to put it into "i'm cold" mode all the time which uses more fuel

yes the radiator was a right of, ok now we have something to work with, this sensor is it something i could check or is it a garage job?

I would normally carry out most work on my car but the Fabia doesn't have a Haynes workshop manual, so any advice would be great.

Just filled tank to the brim, will calculate how much petrol i've used when its empty again.

Thermostat?

I have filled tank and used 3 quarters travelling just under 300 miles.

Noted that thermostat takes a while to get to half way, it appears that the temperature sensor may be faulty, can anyone give any advice on how to change?

Haynes manual due out in December.

Get your car onto a ECU reading machine, preferably at your Skoda dealer. This will show which sensor/s are not operating proerly and thus corrupting your fuel consumption.

Who did the accident repairs to you car? Skoda dealer or not? Did your insurance pay? If so you ought to contact them (your insurers) again and try and get this sorted as part of the accident repairs.

Accident repair carried out by insurance co. approved repairers, unfortunately as they are only body specialists they didnt pick up on head gasket fault, insurance co refused to pay for head gasket replacemnt so had to stump up the cost myself!

Although I tried to get compensation through financial ombudsman but the insurance co. were addermant that head gasket fault was caused by me driving vehicle after accident, this was not the case but I couldnt prove it wasn't driven and the matter was closed.

The chance of me getting any compensation from insurance co. is slim to none, I know that all the faults are related to the accident but can't prove it.

I will just have to fix this latest problem myself so don't wanna have to pay too much.