Philip Norton

I was driving home yesterday when something odd happened with the Windscreen wipers on my Fabia. I tried to use my front windscreen washer and my back windscreen wiper moved.  I soon found out that moving the wiper control up and down did nothing and trying to use the back wipers did nothing either.

After some research on the internet (Google is my best friend) I found that this was due to blowing a fuse.  This happens when you try to use your windscreen washer when it is frozen. If this happens to you then don’t worry, you can just swap the fuse and you will be fine.

Skoda Fabia Fuse Panel

Skoda Fabia Fuse Panel Ledgend

The fuse box on the Fabia is located behind the driver side door on the main dashboard panel, next to the stearing wheel. To open it just find the little notch in the bottom half, pop your key in there and twist it.  The whole thing should come off, but it is a little tricky.

To get things working again just replace fuse 21 with a 10 amp fuse.  If you don’t have a fuse handy you can swap the broken one (make sure it is broken) with fuse 32, which controls the back windscreen wiper.  This will mean that you can drive to your local fuse shop and pick up a fuse even if it is raining.

To get the fuse panel cover back on just put in the panel by lining up the three hooks on the straight edge and push it towards the front of the car.  Once you have it nearly in place you can either hit it in with your fist or just close the door on it.

To stop this fuse blowing you need to make sure that your washer fluid is not frozen before you use it.  You can always increase the concentration of the fluid to prevent this from hapening during the winter.

[Update: Images taken from Fuse Panel Layout fabia-vrs.com. If you have any Fabia problems then take a look, it's a good site with lots of information.]

Go a bit of a shock the other day when I got a letter through saying that I hadn’t paid the tax on the Fiesta and was therefore liable for a fine. Well I wasn’t going to have any of this as far as I was concerned the car is a cube of scrap. So I wrote off to the DVLA and the Glasgow DVLA fine action office just letting them know that the car was no more.

After a pensive wait I got a letter through today letting me know that, on this occasion, they were not going to take any more action.

Good news at last!

I got a call yesterday from the Police saying that they needed a witness statement. I asked why they would need such a thing and they said it was because they had caught the guy (apparently he is just a kid) who stole the Fiesta!

She said that I should have been informed when he was arrested in April and was very apologetic. I said that I didn’t mind as there was nothing I could do about the news anyway. She then said “no wonder everyone has such little confidence in the Police” to which I said “I don’t think lowly of the police at all”. Which is true, I don’t. I have the utmost respect for the Police and the Law that it is there to enforce.

So this afternoon a Police officer came over to our house to take a statement. It was basically a formality.

So what of the person who stole my car? Well he apparently has 8 separate convictions for motor theft, of which he has admitted to 6. His prints where all over the inside of the car so he really is utterly without thought.

Talking to the police man today about the crime brought it all back and now I’m nervous again. I keep looking out of the window at the Octavia just to make sure it is there. I do this about 15 times a day usually (only since the Fiesta was stolen) but now I’m doing it 15 times an hour. I just can’t settle. I wonder if I ever will? Damn that little crap to stole my car!

I thought I would do a little update on the status of the stolen Fiesta, especially after we got a letter about it yesterday.

A couple of weeks ago we had a call from an engineer, who said that the car was unrepairable, and then told me how much he thought our car was worth, which was £250. I thought this was ok, not what I was expecting, but at least a little bit. However, I found out that this was minus any excess we had on the policy. So as our excess is £200 we would only be seeing £50! It isn’t even enough to get another policy, let alone buy a new car. I phoned up a guy at Privilege, but after 10 minutes of trying to get him to give me more money for it I gave up.

The other day I got another letter. Actually for some reason Privilege seem to find the need to send me two letters for everything I do, which I find a little odd. Especially as they send the letters on different days. This means that we get a letter, Mandy spends her afternoon trying to sort it out, and then two days later we get another letter, so Mandy spends another afternoon trying to get them to understand her a second time. The really irritating thing is that they have sent us 3 renewal notices, despite the fact that they know for certain that it is in a scrap yard.

So we got another letter that had a cheque enclosed. See if you can work out what they meant from the following quote.

    Policy Excess: £200
    We write to advise you that your vehicle is beyond economical repair.
    Your vehicle has been inspected by an Independent Engineer, and the market value
    has been assessed at the figure of £00050.00.
    The Policy Excess will be deducted from this figure.
    If you disagree with the Engineer's valuation, please contact us as soon as
    possible.  You may still bank the cheque, as this will not prejudice your position.
    Should we not hear from you within the next fourteen days, arrangements will
    be made to dispose of the vehicle.
    A cheque for £00250.00 will be forwarded to you under a separate cover.

Don’t worry, it took me several attempts! From this it looks like we have a cheque for £250 and that we have to give back £50 of this, or is it that we have to pay them £250 and then… oh never mind.

Apparently the woman who typed this got the numbers mixed up, which doesn’t make sense as the numbers look like they where computer generated from a database or something. But when Mandy phoned her up she had to use a calculator to work out the complicated maths involved here.

All in all the only thing this has taught me is that if your car is worth less than £1000 then there is no point going for fully comprehensive insurance. Oh, and that insurance companies are only there to rip you off. I won’t be going for Privilege in the future, but I don’t know if any other insurance company will be any different. Are they all con artists?

What really, really annoys me about Privilege, in fact this whole thing, is that even though none of this was our fault, because Mandy has made a claim she has lost her 5 years of no claims bonus. There doesn’t exist in the English language a phrase or description, lacking corse language, that gets anywhere near identifying the idiot who stole my car.

On the way into work today I had just about the closest thing I have had to an accident with another car.

I was in Macclesfield and was just driving along a very straight road with no turns when I noticed this guy in a white van indicating to turn right on the other side of the road. I had no idea where he was meant to be going to I just continued on. The thing is so did he. I was only when I got level with him that I realised that he was trying to get to these two large billboards on the other side of the road. He just turned in while my car was level with his and only just missed me. I actually winced, expecting his little van hit my car. It was only down to luck that he didn’t and I saw in my rear view mirror that he mounted the curb on my side of the road.

How impatient can you get? I can’t really swear on this blog (I would like to keep it clean), but that guy is a rumba rumba snort rip do wally wally ding dong foonar dingbat wibble monster! And I would say it again!