Hiya,

I just bought the Haynes manual for my beloved Skoda, so I would like some advice as to what to do to improve my Felicia 1998 1.9D. Being a student I don't have that much money to do all the repairs, and would really like to keep my skoda running (194k km, or 120k miles off the counter).

Over time, here are the minor fault that I somewhat solved and that I can live with:

- Traditional leaking from the front window, I went to carglass to change the seal, didn't solved the problem. So I followed the advice I've seen here of putting vaseline, it greatly improved the problem (but not totally solved) .

- When I do too much city, a thick black smoke is following me, Problem solved by doing 1h of motorway + diesel additive.

- When the car is cold, the idle rev is not constant, it goes down a bit, then make a tractor-like sound and goes up again. After 4-5 times of this behaviour (+ a little black smoke cloud), she's happy and stays at a constant idle rev.

- The Third gear is getting difficult to engage, the gearbox specialist I saw said there was nothing wrong, just the usual wearing out.

But the most annoying fault is the non linearity of the throttle. When I'm in the region of 1500 to 2000 RPM, if I slowly accelerate, the acceleration is not smooth, the car get spasms (like when you're beginning to stall, except that my car doesn't stall). I'm obliged to accelerate like a rally driver in order to avoid the spasms.

There is also a second strange behaviour whereby when i'm in a particular region of the throttle (around 2500RPM I think, 60mph actually), If I accelerate slowly, the engine makes a very loud noise, but the car doesn't gain speed, except if the particular region of the throttle is passed, then the car finally gains in speed.

My explanation is maybe confusing, but to be brief, there a region of the throttle which does not do anything to the speed or RPM of the engine, it just make the engine louder.

Do you have some quick/cheap tips for my throttle problem, taking into account that I've limited knowledge of mechanics (but a lot in electronics though), and not a lot of tools to work with ?

hi there.

in regards to your smoking problem, i would recommend changing the ngine oil and oil/air filters.

And the problem with the revs i would check all pipes on the air intake and check the vacuume pipe especially as this controls where the air into the engine comes from (cold air or warm air) the valve could be sticking while cold. Have you given it a thrash since purchasing? i always do that when i first buy a car, the previous owner may have driven like a slug and coked it all up!

The third gear thing probably isnt a huge issue, just make sure theres plenty of clean oil in the gear box and go steady with that gear.

And finally your problem with stuttering at revs i also encountered and solved with fuel additive and chainging dizzy cap, but since yours is diesel you cant do that, lol. This may be solved by oil change etc.

and i also experience a loud noise when im neither accelerating or decelerating.

From what i can tell this is either to do with timing chain that has some slack in it and is vibrating around when there is no load on the engine or the crank bearing that are slightly loose and causing the vibrating as this would also explain my flickering oil pressure light on tickover.

none of the above are expensive things to do and certainly not hard with the help of your haynes, although will obviously require some basic tools.

hope this helps.

thank you very much for the advice

I'll try to find a quiet road this week end and trash my car and have a lok at the car if it's not raining.

Regards the 3rd gear problem I would suggest you have someone check the gear linkage again, I had the exact same problem, £15.00to sort, gears are smooth and responsive now.