Skoda Fabia - Review by CarSingh.com

Let’s talk about a stylish, fuel efficient and of course powerful machine that is running in our bumpy roads and new 4 lanes highway, yes it’s FABIA – Skoda Fabia.





Skoda Fabia got a very classic European look and clearly land in India’s premium hatch back segment. Well shaped headlamps and elegant bonnet designs give a smart look from the front. It also has chunky looking alloy wheels and wider tyres give a sporty look and better road grip. A striking chrome front grille with well designed vertical fins, give a new striking look. High waistline gives a chubby look from the side.




Fabia got an eye catching dual tone interior. Skoda made the interiors that could last longer. New designed multi-texture fabrics on seats and doors add a classy look to the interiors. Fabia is loaded with excellent music system integrated into the dashboard with large graphical display and easy to use buttons. Next to the hand brakes it gives an auxiliary audio input to enjoy the songs from your iPod or other portable audio player. Air-conditioning also works very well and will not let you sweat while driving. In the top model of Fabia (Elegance model) you will also get some additional new features like rear parking sensors with audio and visual warning, electric sunroof, adjustable front armrest with some storage space, a sunglass holder integrated into the roof of car and new projected headlamps. Seriously you can easily see the German touch in this car.




Fabia also has multi-function information display like current time, average fuel consumption, time driven, average speed and outdoor temperature. Another good feature is remote key less entry. This car is really full of so many new features that you expect only on high end cars. Definitely I will miss some features to point out here, you will find more when you feel and drive it.



You can also keep your water bottle or beer can (Please Don’t Drink and Drive) cool inside the illuminated and climate controlled glove box. There is a switch inside glove box that you can turn off if you don’t want cooling. Along with huge leg space in front seats; it also has height adjustable fronts seats. But it works manually, it’s not electrically adjustable. There is enough leg room for the driver and front seat passenger. Sorry for the rear seat passenger, they got little less leg room but that’s what you get in all hatchbacks. Boot space is also huge (300 litres) and you can easily carry your good amount of luggage with you. Rear seat can also split (60:40) and create more space to carry large stuffs. Another good feature is height and reach adjustable of steering wheel which is little small and broad.



Gears are very smooth and for reverse gear you have to push it down and then move it. I drove this car in all road condition and want to thank Skoda for giving us a smooth ride in rough road as well. I should say Skoda understands Indian road condition very well and designed multi link rear suspension very well.

Skoda Fabia is having excellent safety features; like dual front air bags, anti-lock braking system (ABS) that actually prevents wheel lock-up during sudden braking. The best one is Fabia can’t be stolen because no one can make its duplicate key reason it include a unique VIN code.




Let’s come down to main feature that is 1.4 TDI PD Diesel engine. It’s among the one of the most reliable and efficient engines. Actually I drove the Fabia Ambiente (already done 10,000 km) that has 1.4 L, 3 cylinder engine (I don’t know why they are still with 3 cylinder) and it makes little more sounds that you can hear from inside as well. I was able to hear the nice composed sound from engine along with 94.3 FM music. But the mileage wise it’s excellent, it gives close to 16 kpl in city and 20 around in the highway.

With price tag close to 8 lakh on road, it gives you all features that should have in a premium hatchback. So definitely its worth putting that much money on it.



What Skoda can improve: They can use quality plastic material inside, Engine sounds is too much (TDI – Ambiente Variant) - Skoda should look into this issue seriously, should add curtain air-bags (as you can find in i20), steering style and look could be improve (i20 and Jazz having better steering look), and pickup is little slow, add washer for rear wiper.