Bought a Skoda Fabia

[Chris H]

not for me I hasten add.

My old dear needed a new car, the R plate 1997 Almera is long in the tooth bodywise (as usual).

So I was told go get me a car and I did.

She looked and narrowed it down to a few things (Kia's, Hyundais, Micra, Ka) I then threw in the oddball which was Suzuki.

So we went for a look, the Swift and Splash seemed ideal, the Swift won it out of the two. Got a figure for £9300 with metallic paint, mats and full tank. Not to bad.

Looked at the micra, a/c, leccy windows etc 1.2 (non supercharged one) and worked out at 8400.

Went to Skoda, brand new Fabia 1.4 SE

red in colour, leccy windows, a/c blah blah blah

Got full tank, mats and 100 quid off with haggling as we were paying cash money.

Oh yeah 20% off too

Total on the road £8895

BARGAIN!

This is my old dear driving it



and this is how were were driving it, all the wrapping still on :lol:



Pick it up next week.

Really good price I reckon

I was in a new superb, not the cheap taxi superbs, a top of the range one, its like the safrane but nicer tbh.

18k to me the guy said (4k off list) :lol:

 

[Larry]

i reckon its a decent buy, decent price and you still have garage warranty etc, not something id buy for myself but if i had an aul one to buy it for i think id be very satisfied with that

 

[blaze]

Who'd have thought 10+ years ago that we'd all be perfectly happy to drive round in Skoda's?!

Cant grumble at VAG specs for less than Ford monies.

Clean, modern, safe, reliable & economical... perfect for the old dear. Top job.

 

[bidderman1969]

NNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

i've heard of the 1.4's being a troublesome engine fella, quite a few have gone seriously wrong at 40K

personally, i'd have gone for the Swifty

 

[Larry]

i gotta point out that these are also fantastic to watch on the rally stages, and last year there was even a diesel one began competing over here

 

[Ridgeback]

 

[mals]

Sounds like a really good buy that. Ihired one last year in Cyprus and was really impressed I had to say. Apart fron the fact it only had 5000km on the clock and dented in almost every panel!!!

Just one question.

Why has she got a plastice bag over her head in pic 1?

 

[Reno5gtt]

I like the two tone paint red and white

 

[Chris H]

its on the seat mals.

The Fabia had much better build quality and feel than the swift, the Nissan was pretty poor.

I'll be maintaining it anyway so the usual lack of maintenance issues will not arise.

The fact the Fabia had the 1.4 also swayed things a lot.

 

[blaze]

I'll be maintaining it anyway so the usual lack of maintenance issues will not arise.

What do you do? I presume you're a mechanic..

What you going to do about getting it stamped?

I've no doubt at all that you'll maintain it well and correctly, but stamps count in the end no matter what you may think.

Unless of course you think it'll be in the family til it dies.

 

[Chris H]

I have been trying for years not to be a mechanic. But it seems I can't get away from it no matter what other stuff I'm doing like trying to get a degree to piss off out this country.

This is an issue I am trying to figure out. Under block exemption anywhere can service it as long as oem stuff is used and retain warranty. However the servicing business must be VAT registered.

That rules myself out, I could just stamp it from one of my old workplaces but I don't like doing that because it means having to either sit and listen to crap for 3 hours or I get asked to go mot stuff (there is always a tester off), or do some heavy job thats been put off by the others and blah blah.

They do a service deal thing for £179 a year so might just get that for official stamps and I'll do the actual real servicing.

Being in the industry a service means an oil change at best. Independents do more than main dealers, a lot of main dealers ship cars out to independents for mot's which most people don't notice or pay attention to. One of my old work places used to do the renault dealer stuff (who got all those jobs? Yes me), we charged the dealer 20 quid dealer charged customer full whack for it.

The main dealer services are a joke, you 100 point service guff, wiper is it there? yes 1 point, does it work 2 points and so on.

Also I know all about stamps I have a stamp for my own business about somewhere and a pile of invoice paper as well.

The warranty is 3 years so the plan for the moment is get the annual service stamp from Skoda (its either 9k miles or annually) it won't do that much mileage per yer so only 3 services from the dealer. Then when thats done I'll just stamp the book with my stamp, seems the easiest approach tbh.

And it will be in the family until it dies most likely. Any new car the family has bought has generally been with us until its scrapped. Usually it gets used by the buyer for 10 years or so then its passed to whoever needs it or it will sit until its needed etc.

The Almera its replacing I just done a load of work too. Now being and Almera its body was fine until about 65 months ago when it went from 100 miles tops a month to about 6 times that and the body now looks like a general Almera, i.e. rusty. Amazing how a garaged old jap car can deteriorate so quickly when pressed into regular use again. Thats why its being replaced. I will weld in new sills etc when I get a chance and someone hit the wing (ASDA car park a month back) so its dented and rusty now.

The Almera isn't going for scrap its going to my uncle who had the the escort td from the reports section.

 

[blaze]

Sounds like you've got it figured there lad.

Most people wont/dont look too hard into the stamps past the first 3yrs anyway, they just like to see some there! And as you say, it's mainly for warranty purposes in the event of needing to make a claim.

 

[Chris H]

picking it up tomorrow afternoon.

 

[Chris H]

Well picked it up on Thursday, bit of a mess around actually.

Meant to be 14:00 then changed to 150.

Then he tried to get away with only 3/4's of a tank, we sent him off to fill it.

He fitted the mats and blah blah, took forever, bit of a joke. Not the salesmans fault though.

Some pics, not very good as we were busy chatting at the same time



This pic was meant to show the rust on the drums already



My knee was agony after rubbing against that console



mileage was about 20 miles



My sister was in my safrane, I took a pic of it, her first drive since the steering was fixed, she likes it again.



Tiny and clean engine



They all try and look like audis these days



Anyway once on the faster roads a definite pull to the left was noted. Checked the pressures all fine. Goes in tomorrow morning.

I painted the tre's and track rod so will see if they actually adjust it.

 

[Larry]

that looks quite alright, i actually like hem, three door in white looks sweet

 

[Ridgeback]

What"s the interior trim like Chris?
Looks pretty good.Just wondering where they save the money on,over something like an equivalent Polo.

 

[Chris H]

trim is pretty plain, black cloth.

Not sure where they saved.

No spare wheel only tyre foam and a wee compressor.

Anyway it was taken in apparently tracked and was not much better. Got into an argument with the service manager and we are now banned from the dealership :lol: and no I am not kidding.

Just pay for a full geometry setup then see about getting it paid for either but the tosser arnold clark or skoda themselves.

This is why I never get new cars, it makes no sense. I have yet to actually meet anyone where the car has been fine from the word go, usually broken trim or airvents are the issues not really dodgy handling or what have you.

 

[bidderman1969]

Arnold Clark, say no more

Never know a dealership with such a bad rep

 

[Chris H]

Yeah they are a joke.

The thing is we walked in with cash money which they wouldn't take (money laundering they claimed) so we had to go to the bank put the cash in the bank then pay for it!

Of course since we bought it outright and not the stupid way (a loan or finance or lease etc) they didn't make as much as they wanted.

anyway since driving the car away it pulled to the left, it went back down, I marked the track rods before it went they adjusted it which put the wheel off and it still pulled.

I went down with it and the service manager was a dick. Won't go into it but hes lucky he didn't end up in hospital and thats that.

So it went to another dealer part of the Henry's group this time.

I wasn't there I hasten add, they done the work and put it through as a warranty fix. The result is now its fixed. It gores straight, the tyres of course are damaged as they are badly feathered now, so they will never recover.

I would push for the service supervisor to be fired (the dick I dealt with) and new tyres to be fitted. But its being left as is so to not cause trouble apparently.

I have the print out from the geometry check but the writing is crap so a pic is no use, I will instead post details of the main issues.

Rear axle is outwith specs, probably not fitted right or just VAG control (yes it IS crap)

Camber left -1 deg13' right -1deg 16' SPECIFICATION -1deg 27' +-10

So yeah that has big X's beside it. The rest of the rear is within spec - just.

The front, this has plenty of issues. Funnily enough they never gave an after adjustment one for the front, I assume because it is still way outside tolerances but they got it going straight.

toe left -0deg 01' right +0deg 09' SPECIFICATION +0deg 05' +-0deg 05'

Max turn inside left 33 deg 37' right 33 deg 08', SPECIFICATION 39 deg 14'.

Toe out on turns left -1 deg 30' right -1 deg 27' SPECIFICATIONS +1 deg 30' +- 0deg 20'

So as you can see its miles out and that's why the tyres are fucked.

Oh yeah mileage of the car at this check 474 miles. Not even 500 miles.

But this is why I never buy from a dealer, even if the dealer is my best mate I refuse to buy cars from them. Cars and mates don't mix well tbh. Even if you declare everything theres always something else to whine about. Its just not worth the hassle.

Of course different if you buy a car outright and just do everything yourself from day one.

 

[craigus1977]

Can't go too far wrong with the old Skoda labia
Had mine for 2 years now and hasn't let me down yet