Is the repair worth it?

Clauric

Looking for some advice.

Have a 2003 Skoda Fabia, with about 80k miles (130k km) on it. Recently failed the NCT, with 4 failures. These were:

• Front headlight mounting broken (needs new one).
• Brake servo vaccuum pipe leaking (needs new one).
• Front (l and r) suspension bushels worn (need to be replaced).
• Rear passenger door jammed (won't unlock).

Also just found out the alternator is not charging the battery anymore.

The overall cost I have been quoted to repair these items is €600 - €1400.

Based on the above, is it worthwhile doing the repairs to the car, or would I be better off selling it for scrapage/trade-in?

biko

Only you can say if it is worth it.
On one hand you'll get car you know back to working order, on the other hand you can use this opportunity to upgrade to a car that's less than 10 years old and might be cheaper on tax/insurance/etc

KevinCavan

I’d say scrap it and buy a car for €1600.

StereoSound

I'd probably get rid of it, sounds like Abit of a shed. Plenty of cars you can buy with a new NCT for 1k.

1 and 2: Second hand parts from scrappy for 50 and then headlamp alignment for 30. Add 50 for labour if you're not handy.
3: Probably the large bushings on wishbone. Should be about 200-250 inc labour using quality parts like lemforder. The parts are about 100, rest for the labour.
4: I don't know but guessing it should be easy enough for somebody who knows how the locks on Fabia work as you need to get the door open first to remove the door card. I didn't know the rear doors need to open for NCT.

Clauric

samih wrote: »

4: I don't know but guessing it should be easy enough for somebody who knows how the locks on Fabia work as you need to get the door open first to remove the door card. I didn't know the rear doors need to open for NCT.

Apparently they do need to open, as that was one of the fails

Clauric

Clauric wrote: »

Apparently they do need to open, as that was one of the fails

Fabia has full size window winding mechanism that needs to come out first to access anything inside the door. And to get that out the door card has to come out. And to get the door card out you need to be able to open the door.

Anyway, the best is to just drive to a garage of some kind. I'm not being racist against Irish mechanics but your best bet is to find some crowd with Eastern European staff as they tend to be very solution focussed and will probably sort out the issue for you. There will most likely be damage to the door card as that needs to be forced out but again a scrap yard will come to the help and you or the garage can source another door card from there. If you find a place that can sort out the door they will be handy enough for the rest of the work too and can themselves source all the required parts from a yard.

If you happen to be near Celbridge there is a good place called C.A.R.S. that I have personally used a few times to solve issues like bodywork and a wheel bearing.

unkel

2003 Skoda Fabia with a full years NCT in excellent condition with very low miles. Asking price EUR690. Yours for around EUR500

Linky

Insanity to spend more than EUR100 in fixing your car. Put it on DD for €150 and buy another one. That's how bangernomics works.