Talk:Škoda 1000 MB

Article references. This is an interesting article but I would question some of the claims made in the text. For example, the section that states: "All Škoda 1000 MB had corrosion problems, particularly at the door sills and the axle suspensions. The vehicles were quick to rust, even with regular cavity sealing. Another serious problem was a blown cylinder head gasket because of engine overheating. Temporarily, the cars were delivered with a spare canister of coolant water; the plastic container was in the right rear fender. The cooling problems were so bad that often in the summer it was necessary to drive with the heater switched on to prevent overheating of the engine." I have owned MBs in past decades (1965 - 69 models) and cannot recall any problem with overheating as described (in fact my cars used to maintain very good engine temperatures compared to other models I have owned) nor for that matter, rust in the areas mentioned (one of mine had rust in the doors and guards, but I never had problems in the sills or axle suspension units). Some of my cars had done 90-100,000 mls so they were not new when I owned them and I expect that if there had been such problems they would surely have shown up after such a mileage. Can the person who wrote this provide some references as I suspect it may not be correct or that it possibly relates to a certain batch of early cars. I had never heard of the extra water container unit either - this may be correct but from memory the amount of water in the cooling system was quite high for a 1000-1100cc engine so I'm not sure why extra water would be needed. If the cars were 'temporarily' provided with extra water cannisters presumably this means that the problem was solved early on because production cars certainly did not have them. I found the MB to be very reliable but limited in boot space and being lightly built at the rear was prone to tail slip in the wet. Also the equipment was fairly basic even for the era. I got a lot of driving out of them at the time but there are very few roadworthy examples around now. Maxzden Jan 2012 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maxzden (talk • contribs) 19:46, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Nice to hear that you had good experiences about your 1000 MB. In my knowledge the overheating problems appeared in the early MB models in particular. This was due to poor water circulation. The circulation was improved later for many times during the rear engined era by first adding one blade to the rotor, then by growing the blades. Also the pulley was replaced by a smaller one in order to increase the flow.

I am wondering how could you avoid the rust problems. The design of the rear wings was especially vulnerable to corrosion. There is a rubber sealing inside which keeps the moisture that comes from the air inlet ports and also from the wheels. It is amazing if a this kind of structure is not rusted within few years in normal weather conditions.

All this info must be collected from proper sources of course. --Gwafton (talk) 14:08, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for those answers. I've never seen those early MBs with the extra water container so perhaps they were pre-1965? The engine temp on my cars was always very good, even in very hot weather, so I guess they solved the problem by then. I do recall that the radiator and cooling system capacity was large for such a small car. Another car drove into the rear side of my 1965 model and I had to have it panelbeaten and there was no rust inside the rear guards when we did that. The MB was not strongly built at the rear because, as you say, the mudguards simply sit againt the innner boxed sections with rubber seals but are not in fact welded to them, which makes them very prone to damage from rear end collisions. I preferred the 1965 model to the later MB - it seemed more solid and had more stylish rear air intakes. Maxzden Apr 3 2013 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maxzden (talk • contribs) 22:07, 2 April 2013 (UTC)