what is the maximum mileage i can hope to achieve out of a 2001 fabia 1.4 mpi.

I am wondering whether or not it is going to finacially advantageous to use my 119,000 mile inherited car which has not been regularly maintained, for a year or two and spend money doing the repairs which come to a total of around 400 quid and include a replacment clutch or simply selling up and putting the money i would get for it into a better car.

my funds are limited and i have been given the car by an uncle.

your experteese is really appreciated as my cash flow is limited and this will be my first car.

many thanks.

Leaving the engine and gearbox out of the equation at the moment, has this car had most of the usual expensive fixes done already? ie ARB replaced and TCA rear bushes replaced, if not then you could be looking at another lump of cost needing spent on it - usual comment here, if it needs TCA bushes changed then consider the solid Cupra ones, have a look at other posts for info into ARB issues.

cheers for the reply

the bushes were replaced a while back.

anything else i should consider?

if it were yours, what would you do?????

how many more miles do you think il get out of the engine and gear box???

Its always a difficult call, ie when to let go, especially when you are on a limited budget. If it runs okay and you treat it "well" - ie no thrashing especially when cold and service it frequently it should keep you going until funds allow you to move on - that sounds like an empty or worthless statement, but why dump it if its okay. I don't think that anyone knows when to let their first car go - just enjoy your new found responsabilty.

119,000 miles eh? is that the record milage of an MPi on here? Anyone out there with one with even more milage on it that this one? I think most of the high milage Fabias ive read about have been diesels , it would be intersting to find out if the petrol models can put in the same type of milages!

£400 for a quality motor sounds cheap to me.

The engine should run and run as long as you keep it maintained from here on.

Just use your common sense, as long as the engine starts smoothly and performs sweetly then I doubt there'll be any major mechanical faults with it. However, the Mpi is lumpy at idle/tick over so don't mistake that for a fault.

Good Luck, and happy motoring.

Sold my mpi with nearly 100,000 on recently.

engine was as good as when I bought it with 6,000 mls.

in fact better.

It was always lumpy on tick over, and in the last year I had it, it needed a new thermostat (cheap and fixed myself in 10 mins)

Never put a drop of oil in it between services but the crappy plastic radiator leaked around temp sensor and skoda garage wouldn't attempt fix. Would only sell me new rad. Bodged it myself in the end but a bit if a pain.

New rad is pricey from memory.

I'm sure the engine had miles more life left in it which is pretty good as it got quite a bit of punishment from a few hundred learners over 4 years.

It'll probably do another 100,000!

thanks for the replies.

what is an ARB or a TCA??

CHEERS, i am really greatful for the replies.

:iagree: The MPi might not be too good for power or fuel consumption, but it's pretty durable IME (I reckon the cast iron cylinder liners might have a lot to do with this )

FYI ( ), ARB = Anti-Roll Bar, and TCA = Track Control Arm - HTH ( again!)

No idea what TCA is in relation to bushes but: Rubber bushings - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia explains bushes

ARB - anti roll bar: Sway bar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Martin

As far as I know NEITHER of these parts have been done so far.

How much should I pay for the Anti-roll bar and also the Track Control arm??

Are these items expensive and how long do these normally take to fit??

p.s - thanks again for the replies, they are genuinely helping me to draw up the pro's and con's.

Cheers.

Sorry the below should read,

As far as I know NEITHER of these parts have been done so far.

How much should I pay for the Anti-roll bar and also the Track CONTROL arm??

Are these items expensive and how long do these normally take to fit??

p.s - thanks again for the replies, they are genuinely helping me to draw up the pro's and con's.

Cheers

As far as I know NEITHER of these parts have been done so far.

How much should I pay for the Anti-roll bar and also the Track Control arm??

Are these items expensive and how long do these normally take to fit?? Cheers.

There will be no need just to change the ARB are the sake of changing it, if the car still has the original ARB and has the crappy plastic stops and they are okay - well that's a miracle and good luck, if they are/have split - see previous threads on this, then eventually they will fail an MOT. Similarly the TCA rear bushes and "what they feel like if torn" has been covered in previous threads, so they only need changed if u/s - if your ones are original then that's another miracle - once again good luck. If you can not see some the threads that I am refering to, you will need to join "FREEDOM" to gain access to other forums - its worth it if you want to learn/save a lot more.

cheers for the reply

the bushes were replaced a while back.

If not the ARB or TCA, which bushes were you refering to?

I have no idea about 'bushes' if I am being compleely honest, lol.

I have just been told by my uncle that he changed ''the bushes'' around 6 months ago, front and back.

Obviously you know more than me, so what could these replaced items be???

Also how much is it to join freedom and what can I gain from it??

Cheers for the help.

Click on Freedom to see latest price, I'm not being evasive here, also one extra forum you will gain access to allows you to ask Techs questions and get more in depth answers, as they say "there is no thing as a free lunch" but after you've read/searched/asked on a few topics you should be left happy in the knowledge that you know a lot more about these cars and it didn't cost very much. Plus in general Briskoda is a very active and well structured forum.

Ive discovered that this is a very worth while forum so far as I have been using it now for many months.

But a forum is only as good as its users and I have found all of the people on this forum to be extremely helpful, so I will go on now and see how much this freedom type thing might cost.

So, a huge thank you to your self as well every one else for helping me with my motoring dilemas.

Cheers .

Just remebered something else i want to ask you.

There is a knocking that seems to come from front drivers side wheel.

It goes away in the wet for some reason.

Any ideas???

Knocking is usually the drop links for the ARB. It's certainly the first thing you should look at - it may be less noticeable in the wet because the moisture is helping the different parts slide past each other...?

How much should i expect to pay for these and how long will they take to fit??

Cheers

How much should i expect to pay for these and how long will they take to fit??

Cheers

:ne_nau: Don't know, sorry - I suggest finding the nearest site sponsoring garage to you and PM-ing them for a quote...

Cheers any way for your help.

Thanks again to every body, including yourself, for your help.

If you were talking about the price of ARB drop links, I think that they cost £15 or so each and they are very each to fit yourself no special tools needed just ring spanners and Torx bits - but you would need to be sure that they are faulty before spending money changing them. In garage time I would think that 0.5 hour would cover changing both sides.

Cheers rum4mo.

I might have a wee go at it myself tbh if its going to be an easy job.

I have ZERO mechanical experience but what the hell, i gotta learn sumwhere lol.

Can I just note here that I recently got a high-mileage 1.4 MPi (85K miles) and mpg was horrible.

I changed the oxygen sensor (even though there was no other indication that it needed changing) and mileage has gone back to what it is meant to be. Almost twice the range out of a tank, not trivial!

So if you have no evidence that the oxygen sensor has been changed, it is worth changing it anyway, they start expiring after 50K miles even under ideal conditions...