This is possibly more of a vent than anything else, but if, having read it, you feel you can offer some advice, please do.

In February 2004 I had a bad scare with my Peugeot 405, when the wheel came off on the M40 in rush hour. Despite getting the problem sorted, I never felt safe in it again, and decided for the first time in my life to treat myself to a brand new car.

I bought a Skoda Fabia 1.4 16valve, and loved it.

Nine months after I bought it, it started misfiring and stalling. It was fixed under warranty and apparently it was the tappets.

About a year later the same thing happened again. This time it broke down on the way to the garage and I had to be rescued from Handy Cross roundabout, once again in rush hour, by the AA. It was fixed, but as the garage/dealer has now shut down I’m unable to ascertain if it was tappets again that time. They never gave me any paperwork to do wit it so I don’t know.

Now, about a year after that incident, it is happening again. Only this time, it’s out of warranty.

My dealer says if it is tappets, it is two days and £600.

A local mechanic says it doesn’t sound like tappets, but obviously he needs to see it.

Skoda HQ says they *might* fix it for me, IF it is the same problem, but they can’t say for sure until AFTER I’ve had the work done by a dealer. As the second dealership’s records are lost (how can that just happen?) they will easily be able to argue it is not a recurring fault but three different faults (or two).

I’m so cross. I wanted a new car that wouldn’t go wrong at great expense. I’d have been better off with another second-hand banger like I’ve always had.

So…anyone know what tappets should cost? And why this keeps happening? Should I get it fixed and sell it? Or stick with it? Apart from this it is a great car.

those engines dont have tappets as such, they have a pressed steel rocker with a roller tip, the valve clearance is adjusted by a kind of 'post' which operates in a very similar way to a hydraulic lifter. * i might have a pic somewhere*

why do you think it's the the rocker/lifters??? is it getting noisy??

Well, it's doing exactly what it did before, and they said it was tappets.

It started missing slightly, only noticable when idling, and then the other day at a junction it cut out (I had the clutch down if that's significant).

This is what it did before. It started misfirirng, then cutting out, then juddering violently in slow traffic, then juddering and nearly cutting out while driving, until finally refusing to start again.

So far this time all it's done is miss a bit and cut out the once, but I can feel a knocking through the pedals when I brake (not while driving).

So did the dealer lie to me about it being tappets?

I get the a warning light but I don;t know which one off the top of my head! It's orange.

I just don;t want to spend £600 getting it fixed!

could it not be a coilpack/immobilizer problem???

the ornage light will be the engine management light, means theres smoething wrong and the ecu has stored the code so a garage should be able to find out what it is

Er, thanks but that wasn;t hugely helpful because while I KNOW the garage will be able to work out what is wrong, I was wondering about the recurrence issue, and also a possible cost.

I was also wondering if I should ditch teh car after getting it fixed, as £600 a year on it is what I was spending on my old bangers!

Have you got any further skintchick?

It may be worth going to somewhere that can read the fault code. I know Skoda charge about £50 for this (seems a bit much for driving car into garage, plugging computer in, hitting a few buttons, and driving it back out to me - I'm obviously in the wrong business) but at least you'll have a better idea of what the problem is likely to be.

I'm not a lawyer, but if the dealer has lost records I would say the burden of proof that the problem is not recurring is on Skoda (otherwise surely records would go missing all the time?! if you know what I mean) although it would be good if you had a receipt for the work. You may have some success in small claims court, but I would seek legal advice frst or ask trading standards for their thoughts.