Skoda Felicias?

Merry_Gentry

Hello again :hello:

Thanks again for all the helpful advice given regarding my Rover. I plan to put it through it's MOT in January, and hopefully run it either until something goes drastically wrong or I have the money for a runaround.

Anyway, in the interests of research, I have been looking at Skodas on ebay, autotrader, etc and seeing quite a few of Felicias going for £300 - £600, aged around 1997 to 2000. Now I remember reading that from 1999 they were basically VW so am assuming there is an element of VW reliability.

Is this the sort of car that would need lots of TLC - i.e. would I have to be mechanically minded? Or is the sort of car that I could put through a service and just top up the oil, etc every now and then?

An example of the cars I have been looking at is:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1998-Skoda-Felicia-Blue-1-3-LOW-TAX_W0QQitemZ260320825355QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAutomobiles_UK?hash=item260320825355&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2|65%3A2|39%3A1|240%3A1318

It's a bit far for me to travel, but just to give you an idea of what I have been looking at.

What sort of thing should I be looking for? So far I have been trying to look at ones with either full or plenty of service history, but what else do I need to consider?

For the price i am looking to pay, is it worth getting an AA or RAC vehicle inspection?

Basically I need a 5 door car, suitable for me and my three tall girls. I need something cheap (less than £750 max), cheerful, that's not going to be a huge financial drain on me (a la the Rover) - low tax would be great.
Any advice gratefully received - thanks :beer:

goldspanners

all felecias are vw's, well engines at least.
anewman will be along to advise of any pitfalls regarding the felicia as he is a proud owner of one.
he seems to rate it highly as a cheap run around. they will probably be cheaper and easier to fix than your rover. i would rather have the felicia than any rover.

but always remember things will go wrong with any car,please dont think that it will never fail you,it will at some point. just hope its cheap to repair. it should be with the felicia.

blue_haddock

Effectively underneath the Felicia is a polo and it comes from the era when volkswagens were pretty sturdy. The mechanicals are fairly robust and you should have minimal trouble with one.

Merry_Gentry

goldspanners wrote: »

but always remember things will go wrong with any car,please dont think that it will never fail you,it will at some point. just hope its cheap to repair. it should be with the felicia.

Thanks Goldspanners - am not expecting never to be let down, just hoping for a slightly less worrying time!

Merry_Gentry

blue_haddock wrote: »

Effectively underneath the Felicia is a polo and it comes from the era when volkswagens were pretty sturdy. The mechanicals are fairly robust and you should have minimal trouble with one.

My ex husband has a polo but only a 3 door, so may ask him if I can jump inside and have a nose!!

ampersand

I have one - utterly forgiving and a tremendous workhorse.
It wins no beauty prizes but I load trailer with hefty cargo often enough, including many rtns to deep SW France(until lamented and beloved Speedferries went belly-up last month; journeys may be less frequent now).
Fuel economy is good and the tax is an attraction.
Highly recommended.

anewman

blue_haddock wrote: »

Effectively underneath the Felicia is a polo

Wrong! One of the biggest misconceptions of the car ever (no doubt used to increase sales) It is based on the Skoda Favorit chassis, and shares many of the same parts. Although it was available with the polo engines 1.6 (AEE engine code which is apparently bullet proof) and 1.9d, and they did use some bits from the VW parts bin like the steering wheel and switches etc. The Felicia was the first new car made under VW ownership, the first based on a VW was the Octavia. But this is not to say the Felicia is not worth considering. I think VW had some ownership of Skoda since 1994.

The 1.3 engine is a Skoda engine. It is chain driven - so no cam belt to change. Although there is no pre-tensioner so they can get noisy with mileage. The model pointed to appears to be the low compression version (54bhp), there is a more powerful high compression version (67bhp) and that with the later MPI system would be the one I'd go for.

Look out for rust around rear wheel arches, rust in the tailgate (notably inside underneath window), rust in suspension strut coil spring supports (a common problem is these corrode then give way and new shocks are needed). Look out for any signs of water in fusebox (under dash passenger side, there's a knob to unscrew and it flips down) and feel the soundproofing material for signs of dampness while there (this points to the windscreen seal). Check for a pool in the wheel well, usually silicone grease on the tailgate seal would stop further water getting in. Same for sunroof leaks. Headlight adjusters rarely work as the hydraulic liquid leaks out, but to be honest it's not really an issue as you don't need them. And don't forget to check all the stuff you'd check with any other car, check all electrics work etc etc.

The beauty with these cars is there's a good few of them around all cheap so you can be fussy and keep looking till you find a good one. One with only 111 miles on the clock that had been sat in a garage since purchased sold on ebay recently for £1000. Rear seats are easily removable rather than just folding forward, so the estate is particularly practical. As for your tall girls, my opinion is they have quite a bit of legroom compared with other cars of similar exterior size.

Agree with goldspanners things can go wrong with any car but parts are relatively cheap.

Also check out www.briskoda.net forums

Merry_Gentry

Wow!!!! :iloveyou: Thanks for taking the time to write all of that - I will print it off and use it when tis time to start looking for my runaround!! :T

JMC39

blue_haddock wrote: »

Effectively underneath the Felicia is a polo

It's the Fabia that has a Polo chassis

Merry_Gentry

JMC39 wrote: »

It's the Fabia that has a Polo chassis

Out of my league price-wise, although I wouldn't mind one!