Is this rust likely to be problematic?

Afraid so mate. I'm an MOT tester and would have to fail that. Those top spring mounting cups are easily available though from this guy.

eBay UK Shop - Jorily Skoda: Estelle Rapid, Favorit, Felicia

I'm surprised the MOT tester didn't mention it at the end of April as he seemed very thorough. I guess it must only take a few months to go from looking ok to cracking etc.

Is it easy enough a job to do for someone with little experience? Is there some other preventative work I could do while doing this? Could the new cup/s be painted with underbody protector to prevent rust?

From Haynes it appears you need to -

In boot undo all the bits.

Jack and support car.

Unbolt rear suspension unit bottom mounting, and remove the unit from vehicle.

Use spring compressor so there is no pressure on top and bottom.

Unscrew piston rod nut and renew the top bit.

It's not a bad job at all. You need to make sure the spring compressers don't slip as a spring flying at you hurts! Also make sure you put all the washers,cup, rubber ect. at the top of the strut back in the same order they came off. I know that sounds obvious but it's easy to get it wrong if your concentation slips or someone disturbs you.

Hints:-

1) use 2, or even 3 compressors

2) Align them such that they are at right-angles to the wire, rather than parallel to the damper shaft.

3) Don't wind more than half a turn onto one before doing the same with the other, to keep the pressure the same both sides.

4) Stop compressing as soon as the spring comes off the seats.

easy job to do, inspected mine when i put lowering springs on, common to rust. check the bottom cup to as they can go aswell,

y not lower in whilst you there (:

Nah I think I'll keep it standard for now and if the experience is good I might consider uprating/changing the suspension later , the back looks lower than the front anyway, not sure if that's standard. I have tried asking Jorily for the bits but he seems very slow in replying to e-mails at the moment, and all I know is he doesn't have them but can order them. I think I might try the sdealers as I want to get it done before it goes *boing*, and AFAIK it's same part on the felicia so they should be available still.

£1.63 from local Sdealer.

I feel like I'm having a little run of bad luck with the car at the moment as I seem to have killed my heater matrix with Holts speedflush :( (leaking).

Just replaced the top cup today. It wasn't as bad a job as I thought it would be and the most difficult/tedious bit was using the spring compressors.

Here's what the old cup looked like next to new one

As a result spring compressors were not needed on removing the strut. I think this may have caused damage in the shock absorber rubber bit, pic below. I believe I made this worse later with the spring compressors, but I can take some comfort from knowing it was already damaged and at least I have some experience of messing with suspension now.

Is this split in the rubber likely to mean the shock absorber needs replacing? (No manicuring comments please, lol).

Thanks in advance,

Alan.

The split will allow dirt onto the shaft which will cause wear on the seals on the shock absorber. However looking at the state of the cup and the gator on the shock absorber I would guess they won't have been changed so probably are due.

Thats just a bump stop, costs a couple of quid to replace.

Looked like an integral part of the shock absorber to me?! So once everything else is off this pulls off too?

Just been to skoda dealers and all I and they could think it was was a "helper spring" part number 6U0512131 at £15.24 each. I said I thought the price was a bit steep if it is the correct part and just rubber.

I got the boots which they had in stock and were little more than £1 each and are just plastic piping like a drain pipe.

mine werent much better than that when i had to replace mine! however i had the added fun of a broken spring as well.