How to replace the evaporator temperature sensor on your Fabia

A relatively common fault with the Fabias air con is that it may only work when you first start the car. Switch off the ignition, and it won't work again until the engine's gone cold. This is a sign that the evaporator temperature sensor's gone, and it's something that comes up on Briskoda quite often. The following how-to's based on stuff already posted by Lummox and VRStu. I just followed their lead and remembered to have my camera with me when I did the job! You will need a small screwdriver or trim removal tool, and a 3mm (I think) Torx screwdriver. The part number is 6Q0907543D, and at the time I paid 15.02 incl. VAT. 1. Remove the headlight switch, by starting at 0, pushing it in, and turning it to sidelights. It allegedly pulls out, but I needed to give it a hand with my screwdriver (use a trim removal tool if you've got one!)

2. Pull the right side of the bit of trim above the steering wheel towards you (1), and then push it up a bit to allow you access to remove the Torx screw underneath (2):

3. Now lever off the fusebox cover:

4. ...and remove the screw shown:

5. Now remove the three screws shown:

6. ...and this one, too:

7. The dash panel will drop down, and you should remove the OBDII socket from its holder (undo the three clips with a small screwdriver, and push the socket through from the other side):

8. Remove the screw shown, and pull off the footwell air duct:

9. Disconnect the clutch switch (1), turn it 90 degrees to the left (2), and pull it out of its holder (3):

10. Remove the central locking ECU and its bracket. It's really tricky, so I ended up just ripping it off and busting the bracket in the process! This is easily done, apparently, and you can always just use a cable tie to hold it in place once you're done - no-one will ever know! ):

11. The sensor is up here somewhere. It's only held in by friction, but you will need to disconnect it from its cable, which I found quite tricky... The next picture kind of shows you what you're feeling for (only the bit to the right of my thumb protrudes from the bowels of the car...)

12. One knackered evap temp sensor. I'm glad I took this photo, as I put it down next to the new one, and couldn't tell which was which! Fortunately, the old one had a blue wire running down the middle, completely surrounded by plastic, whereas the new one I got had a black wire held in a sort of groove:

13. Reassemble your dash, following the above steps in reverse order. You'll probably have a bit of trouble with the rubber tube for the can cooler, but I removed it from the top of the can cooler, and inserted the other end into the hole in the bottom of the right-hand dash vent (circled), which made it easier...

Reassembly might take a bit of "percussive adjustment", but it's fairly easy! It doesn't seem to matter if you can't reset the fault codes yourself - the air con will be back to normal regardless (if that was what was wrong!) Warn your garage, though, before THEY read the fault codes otherwise they might do the job again and charge you! HTH, Ap0gee