Hi,

I am looking for a bit of advice, We have a Fabia 1.4 MPI (8Valve I think) on a 51 plate. We have been having issues with the coolant levels for a while and was told by our local garage that our radiator was at fault, we changed this and the expansion tank, but still the coolant levels reduce.

We just took the car to the same garage and they told us that they think it may be the waterpump as there is some play in the shaft and water is being lost via vapour.

Does this sound right?

Is this a common issue with Fabia's?

Any advice would be appreicated.

Many thanks

Franky

It's possible that's the cause - how many miles has it done?

IIRC, there are issues with the flexible hoses abrading on the MPi (might be other models too), but you'd expect that to a) cause pretty catastrophic losses, and be picked up when they did the radiator and expansion tank. By the sounds of things, the losses aren't that bad for you, though.

How often do you need to top up, just out of interest? Replacing the waterpump isn't the cheapest job in the world so you might be better off just topping-up regularly. OTOH, it's probably less of a job on the chain-driven MPi than on a belter, so maybe it is worth a try, especially if the garage says there's a little play in it...

The car has done 78,000 miles and we need to top her up once every week without about a pint of water.

I think this is a belt driven MPI, would a bulk of the cost be due to the labour Pumps seem quite reasonably proced at about £30 -£40

Thanks

Franky

The 1.4 8v is well known for head gasket failure.

Shouldn't cost a fortune to get fixed tbh, just make sure the head gets a skim if it is needed.

Make sure you only use the correct coolant. VWs pink coloured G12+ is the best.

EDIT - your engine has a timing chain, but I believe the waterpump is belt driven, and hence a doddle to change.

The advice with belt-cam engines on here is that the waterpump should be replaced with the belt (i.e. after 4 years or 60k; the logic being you have to take the belt off to do it, so you might as well kill two bids with one stone). The MPi engine in your is most definitely NOT a belter, however (pushrod with short timing chain to be precise).

Having said this, it's past the 60k / 4 year 'rule' so it might be worth getting prices for the work at least. I don't know if it's applicable to the MPi engines, but if you can get hold of a metal pump impeller from GSF, then so much the better! I agree topping-up once a week is too much to be doing with - once a month, and I might have suggested leaving it...

Hope this helps!

Further to Tom's post, I'd discounted head gasket, as most MPi-engined cars should have got the newer, more robust gaskets by now, one way or another! The old mayo-under-the-oil-filler is the best way to see if this is the problem. Didn't know the ins-and-outs of the MPi's waterpump (one to store in the memory banks!), but if it's as simple as it sounds, it's worth investigating if there's no signs of gasket failure...

Further to Tom's post, I'd discounted head gasket, as most MPi-engined cars should have got the newer, more robust gaskets by now, one way or another!

Intresting is that because they should have all blown early on in life and were replaced or because they were re called.

Also is there a way of checking on some big skoda system somewhere if it was recalled/changed.

From looking at the service book the previous owners had it serviced at a skoda dealer every year so could a record of work carried out be stored on their system so if rung them up they could tell me.

I must admit at this point to not having first-hand experience of this issue, however my understanding is that earlier 1.4MPis had dodgy head gaskets which were replaced in-service. I don't know whether that means ALL of the early 1.4MPis, or just some. Given that your car has FSSH, it's reasonable to assume that it will at least have been checked to ensure it didn't have a bad gasket, and changed if required. A further bit of logic that I picked up (possibly spuriously) is that if you did have a dodgy gasket, it would have gone by now.

Some, all, or none of the above may be true, but it's the rationale I'm working to when I check over SWMBO's MPi-engined Fabia, if that makes you any more confident. As I've mentioned already, a bad gasket will be indicated by either mayonnaise under the oil filler cap (for water-into-oil leaks) or dirty coolant in the expansion tank (for oil-into-water leaks) - both of which are fairly simple checks.

A search on here might shed more light on the matter though...

Thanks for that the idea of ringing up the dealer who did the work was just an idea not because of the HG but just in general it would be intresting to know what has been done.

No signs as yet everything seems fine at 44k now I would call that low mileage so was worried there was still time for it to happen but like you say you would hope it had been checked.