Quick one guys

Rybo89 · 20 Apr 2011 at 11:23

The mrs 306 died the other week and i have offered to buy her a run about for the time being. Few cars we will be looking at and hopefully purchasing one in next 1-2 days are Fiesta's,Punto's,Clio's and a Skoda Fabia.

Need to know the pro's and cons of each car if you could tell me please.

Fiesta's we can only find are 1.3's but i have heard you are way better off with the 1.25 engine?

Also we have come across a 2000 reg Skoda Fabia with full MOT and 80k on the clock. Anything bad about these?

Budget is £800
Cheap tax and insurance and good MPG
preferably full MOT
The car will do about 150miles a week (work miles and school runs, all in town)

Need to get her one as soon as possible as she relies on a car for work as she is a one to one support worker so has to travel around town a lot.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

ubersonic · 20 Apr 2011 at 11:55

My mother has that model of Fabia in the top trim level and its fantastic, around xmas I rented a 2010 Vauxhall Corsa 1.4 and it wasn't even in the same league, the styling was pretty flash but that's the only thing it had on the Fabia, great all round car.

Rybo89 · 20 Apr 2011 at 12:13

To be fair, she is wanting this Skoda Fabia most out of the lot of them but we just don't know anything about skoda cars and there reliability ect.

I have rang the fella but had no answer, so text him and waiting for a reply. Guess he is busy at work at the moment.

sigma · 20 Apr 2011 at 12:17

I think Skoda cars tend to be pretty damn reliable.

ubersonic · 20 Apr 2011 at 13:41

Rybo89 said:
To be fair, she is wanting this Skoda Fabia most out of the lot of them but we just don't know anything about skoda cars and there reliability ect.

I have rang the fella but had no answer, so text him and waiting for a reply. Guess he is busy at work at the moment.

Their Volkswagens with Skoda badges on, about as reliable as it can get imo

Myshra · 20 Apr 2011 at 14:43

regarding the fabia mark 1 - have owned 2 vRS over 220K so any questions just shout: Check for damp in the rear footwell - this is extremely common and a sign that the you will need to do a door carrier repair (http://www.fabia-vrs.com/technical-info/door-carrier-repair/) check the rear washer works without trickling. If it is really slow then one of the 4 seals are gone and if this is seal #3 in the C pillar it leaks into the footwell too, joy. Check the heating system works at all temps, if it seems to just blow hot and cold a flap hidden in the deepest darkest part of the dash has gone, skoda charge a few hundred to fix this (or just lump it, it's not too bad). The other common problem is brake switches going but the dash will be VERY unhappy if this happens, should be obvious. Depending on the model the brakes squeal in reverse - known issue, doesn't affect a thing.

I only have/had the vRS so I'm not sure about the other engines too much but the diesels are the PD range so built like a tank but sound a bit un-refined. Check it's had the belt change if you get the diesel (make sure it has had the water pump done at the same time), belt change is every 60k/70k iirc (i always did 60k though). In the 220k I've had one turbo and 1 bad wire go, no other issues. I'm probably under in terms of average faults but people seem to generally have little issues with them.

The problem with long term door carrier / seal leak is if it's left un-noticed on the left back footwell long enough it corrodes the wiring loom under there and that's a pretty big skoda only fix so I'd make this the first thing to check.