If so, how do you do it?

I asked at my last service to drain any water out of the filter, and the dealer said that only replacement is possible.

Diesel storage is pretty poor out here, so I want to make sure that there isnt excessive water or other contaminants in the filter..

Thanks

Bas

there could/should be a drain at the bottom of the filter , whether it is actually accessible whilst the filter is in its mounting bracket is another matter, you may have to remove an intercooler pipe to see

IIRc if you lift the fuel filter out of its holder/casing (take care not to break the clips)

on the bottom should be a small drain. turn to open it

Although if you are going to all the effort to take it out to a point where you can get to the not easy to reach drain plug, then why not just put a new one on

Although if you are going to all the effort to take it out to a point where you can get to the not easy to reach drain plug, then why not just put a new one on

Good point

Although if you are going to all the effort to take it out to a point where you can get to the not easy to reach drain plug, then why not just put a new one on

Will do mate.

Thing is that the dealer said that 25K km was too soon to change - asked him if at least he could drain it - said it wasn't physically possible.

Now with 34K km on it - concerned about poor fuel quality, feel the urge to do summat.

Thanks

Bas

TBH there is no such thing as too early, all you are doing is costing yourself a small amount of fuel and the cost of the filter etc.

It may be there is no drain hole on the fabia one, i have seen it before. My old cars have a very obvious bleed nipple on the bottom that a small pipe could easily be put on.

My 55 plate VRS was fitted with a Bosch type filter with NO drain and as I was running Bio this was going to be an issue. When I went to the motor factors the listed filter for the engine (Fram/Sogefi) was a lot deeper and had a drain (Dealer also wanted £30 odd quid for the OEM one and the MF wanted £14). The Bosch one only seemed available from the dealer, but you can get the deaper one in most relevent places.

All I did was remove the plastic cage from the filter housing, wrapped some gaffer round the body of the larger filter to pad it out and replaced the smaller one with the larger one, just wedging it in place. Did the same job for about 40k and I was able to drain when I needed.

Should have taken photos but always forgot when I had it all out :( I replaced around every 10k and you will do no harm to the car by doing this.

You can "drain" the OEM filter by removing it and emptiying the contents out, but it's a pain (Bit like trying to get the last of the orange juice out of one of those stupid cartons). Just refill it then with clean diesel (Or as I liked to do, Forte ) and refit.

will fit the OEM filter and perhaps also a marine water filter before it that I can empty easily. May be a bit of a pain identifying a suitable place to tap into tho'....