How can/does a mobile phone provide power to pen drive?

Skoda Fabia problems - what would you do?

• Hi There, I have a 2002 Skoda Fabia 1.4 Petrol Automatic, I drive it daily and at the weekend I did 450 miles in it. Yesterday on my return from work 10 mins into the journey going at 30 mph I slowed right down in traffic and when I went to accelerate the car started to judder and it did not want to speed up. The fastest it would go was 20mph still juddering. My husband took it out later to drive it to our local VW specialist and he said he did manage to get it to go slightly faster by using the manual gears instead of Drive on the gearbox. The garage did a diagnostic check this afternoon and they said on the phone that there was zero compression on cylinder 2 and that probably a valve was broken or bent. The garage say they have checked the HT leads, plugs and distributor cap. I have the option of paying £140+Vat for an inspection of the cylinder by taking of the head gasket. The garage say that the likelihood is that I would have to pay a further £700 to have a new valve set, they would have a look at cylinder, replace head gasket, replace oil, filter and anti-freeze. The car is in immaculate condition inside and out, however it has done 99,400 miles. I have had a look on ebay motors and similar cars are advertised at £2,000. What would you do in my situation? By sheer co-incidence I have been keeping my eye out for a new used car in the last few weeks, a diesel estate with more power, if you want to factor the option of me trying to PX a broken car, pls feel free. Many thanks for any help you can provide. Sarah

• Answer:

  you will have a hard time selling the car that's in bad condition; i guess you could do a better deal having a third party fix [not VW-Skoda concern shops], running the car some 10000 miles more and selling it befor you would need to do the timing belt replacement. btw. the valve timing belt without proper care and replacements could be another reason for your rough running engine.