Fanta'bulous!!!!. Review on Skoda Fabia - Petrol

I am back with one more review on Fabia 1.2 Ambiente version I test drove twice in the last 2 weeks. I should appreciate the dealer and the sales person Madhavan of Gurudev motors, chennai for his consistent follow up and patience for dealing with me.He has very good knowledge about the car and its features in depth in comparison to all other competiting cars and the points which attract you towards the fabia.

Now let me quickly get back to the fabulous experience of fabia.Ofcourse the model I drove is a petrol version and was very impressed after driving this car for the reasons penned below :

Exteriors - There is nothing to comment negative about this car.It looks cute and has very good finish due to 7 layers of paint coating. The front and rear bumpers are expendable type meaning in case of impact, there is a very less chance of dents appearing on the bumper as it will come back to its normal position by being flexible at the same time strong enough to bear the power of decent collision from the front or the rear.

This was demonstrated by the sales man by punching the bumpers and pushing them hard.Of course you cannot expect that to happen during hard impacts.Atleast it saves some peace of mind on the road.The front fog lamps add more spark to the front view.And the car looks better than most other competitors in the market. I have driven Polo twice, Swift, Ritz, Figo and Fiesta. I was extremly disappointed with the way Ford maintains its test drive cars as they are becoming more and more pathetic day by day due to lack of service.The quality of paint and interiors is dwindling day by day. Swift ofcourse has become outdated and common on the road, Polo was impressive too and u can read my review about it under Polo section.

Interiors - Simply I love the interiors for the cream and black combination. The steering is excellent.It can be adjusted in 4 ways in all the models- front and back, up and down. Isnt that great? I really appreciate the design.It is very useful when driving as the steering is large enough to help the driver comfortably handle the car even with 2 fingers.The cabin was damn chill in the mid of the day when I sat in the vehicle for the drive.It was only 15 mins since the agent called me for appointment and reached my place.I immediately had to reduce it to minimum mode.The Ambiente versions comes with front two windows Power windows.They operate on a single touch unlike in other models.All you need to do is just press the button once either to lower or raise the glass. And for your safety if you want to pop your hand out while the glass is raised, it immediately goes down on touching your hand to avoid injuries.This looked very cool.The seats are very comfortable to make my 6 ft body spoil myself in the cabin without any trouble of dashing here and there.After adjusting the driver seat to my comfort, I was able to sit with the same feel at the rear as well. The best part of the car is that there are rear AC vents provided below the front seats. They are barely visible to us and work when you adjust the AC flow to both face and legs position.Of course there is no need for the rear ac vent as the cooling is more than sufficient in the worst heat even. The front console comes with manual speedometer and tachometer while a digital display provides other information like time, fuel efficiency, trip meter, etc. Only the highest version comes with stereo with very good sound effect.The driver seat is height adjustable in Ambiente version and front passenger seat is height adjustable in higher end. There are 2 dash boards provided with decent capacity.The quality of interiors gives you the confidence in the first instance that it wont rattle like Maruti or Ford after few years.

Ritz has the best review ratings of all in MS. But I didnt feel comfortable as the water flow model prevents the driver from stretching or spreading the legs comfortably. And the rear seating position is the worst as the door seems to stick on to passengers shoulder.

Safety - The lowest model itself contains Driver airbags, while the Ambiente and Elegance version has two airbags in the front.The ABS is present in higher end only.But the Ambient model comes with Brake boosters for better performance. The cabin is designed to take more impact to the body and not the passengers much. You can refer the skoda website for the design.

Performance - The 1.2 ltr comes with 3 cylinder engine which as the agent explained is lighter than the usual 4 cylinder but still retains the same power as the latter models.I didnt feel any difference in pick up but was better than polo and similar to ritz or swift's performance.The vehicle is so stable and I zoomed in 2nd gear to 60+ speed but couldnt continue due to heavy traffic.i am sure the card would excel in the highways in higher gears too definitely reaching maximum speed of 140+ easily.Fuel efficiency was claimed to be around 13-14 kmpl in city with ac on and more in highways.

Warranty - Skoda is now providing the car with 4 years warranty, ofcourse with additional premium but its worth it.First service interval is after 1 year or completing 15k kms which is gr8.The Skoda shield also provides rework on painting and dents if any , twice a year.While the insurance company will bear majority of the cost, owners have to bear only 20-30%. Still good option to maintain your vehicle like new. They also provide road side assistance in case of break down and home pick up and drop service for servicing the car at nominal charge of INR 150 - that would be cheaper than what we spend on travelling back and forth.

After reading the fabia reviews here, I was skeptical about this car and the service part of it.But the agent promised me that the earlier engine did have problems and it has been replaced with an engine similar to Polo's and he also told me he can give it in writing about the service costs which is lesser than those pointed out in other reviews here.I love the Cappucino beige especially in Skoda and has been my favourite color for long time.

The Ambient model costs around 5, 80, 000 on road in Chennai and its definitely worth for the features and quality of the car.You can also look at the 1.6 ltr engine if you are crazy about speed and it costs around 7laks.

I made up my mind to go for this car the moment I knew it had to leave my place for another appointment.WIll be booking this soon and shall keep you all posted on the performance.

Bye for now,

Pavan