Skoda Fabia Review
Skoda Auto’s latest product Fabia is being advertised as the feel special car. The Fabia is considered to be the first premium hatchback car available in India. Let us check out what Skoda Auto has done with this car for the Indian consumers.
The introduction of Fabia marks the creation of a new premium compact car segment between small cars and small sedans. The launch of Fabia is the biggest step taken by Skoda Auto to improve the brand awareness as well as the market share for small-to-medium sized cars in India.
The Skoda Fabia has been on the roads in Europe from 1999. The earlier European Fabia was strikingly similar to our Octavia. The Fabia is the original name given by Skoda Auto to our Octavia. Then Skoda auto modernized the old Fabia to look sportier with this new version. The Indian Skoda Fabia is this second generation of Fabia that this Czech carmaker started selling from April 2007 in various parts of Europe.
Fabia Exterior Looks
The Skoda Fabia looks extremely sporty. I think, it is sportier than Maruti Swift. This sportier look would pick up attention of any car lover. With the stylish compact design and bug shaped body, even the minute detail of the Fabia invites attention.
The design of the Fabia expresses clearly emotional characteristics. The fresh design, with its accentuated chrome radiator grille, the integrated projector headlamps and fog lamps decorate the front part. The backside has beautifully designed tail lamps with a newly designed number plate area to make the Skoda Fabia stand out clearly from the competitors.
One of the coolest design elements in Fabia would be the electrically controlled sunroof. The sunroof improves air circulation inside the car. Earlier, only i10 in India offered such a premium feature.
Skoda Fabia Interior Looks
Skoda Fabia is beautiful in the interior. Skoda auto have done an excellent job in packing this car with latest technologies and safety features.
The safety and comfort features are also high end comparing to other small cars. The Fabia comes with height adjustable Power steering and tubeless tires for better driving experience. The higher-end versions come with ABS, safety air bags, under body coating and keyless entry system.
The front panel is a typical Skoda design containing all kinds of new age meter that tells you about speed, fuel and temperature. The LCD panel gives information on outside temperature, instantaneous fuel use, time driven and average speed. The dashboard of Fabia is equipped with mp3 player that will also work as the display for parkatronic, which helps you carefully park your car in a congested parking lot. The dashboard also has controls for air conditioning. Unlike Maruti cars, these controls look similar to volume controls in your radio. (Which we think is low-tech for a car like this 
)
The gear section is compact with can holders and there you have additional controls for power window locking and unlocking.
The standard version Fabia comes with beige colored leather upholstery. The front passenger seat has a useful hand rest. The backseats have three seat belts suggesting the passenger capacity these seats can handle is three.
Skoda Fabia is roomier than other small cars in its segment. Thus, five passengers can comfortably go on a long trip in this car. It has a boot space of 300 liters that is almost comparable to WagonR. Similar to WagonR, you can fold the back seats to increase the boot space to around 1200 liters.
Other important features are:
1.Height adjustable Power Steering & Front Seats
2.Electrically Controlled Side Mirror
3.Automatic Climate Control
4.Large Screen MP3 player with a line-in to connect iPods and other mp3 players
5.Parktronic – Rear Parking Sensors
6.Rear Wiper & Windscreen De-Fogger
Design Specifications:
Length: 3992 mm
Width: 1642 mm
Height: 1513 mm
Wheelbase: 2462 mm
Ground Clearance: 146 mm
These dimensions are enough to prove Skoda Fabia is spacious than any other hatchback car available in India.
Skoda Fabia Technical Specifications
Skoda Fabia comes with two types of engines:
Diesel Version with 1422cc 3 cylinder, six valves SOHC engine
Engine Type: 1.4PD TDI
Piston Displacement: 1422cc
Maximum Power: 68BHP @ 4000 rpm
Maximum Torque: 155 Nm @ 2800 rpm
Transmission Type: 5 Speed Manual
Petrol Version with 1390cc 4 cylinder, sixteen valves DOHC engine
Engine Type: 1.4 MPI
Piston Displacement: 1390cc
Maximum Power: 85BHP @ 5000 rpm
Maximum Torque: 132 Nm @ 3800 rpm
Transmission Type: 5 Speed Manual
Skoda offers Fabia in four variants namely Active, Classic, Ambiente & Elegance. The Elegance version is the fully packed version with all premium features. These versions comes in 6 colours – candy white, cappuccino beige, magic black, brilliant silver, satin grey, and corrida red.
The only downside you may see is the price. Active version costs around 5 lakh while the Elegance version is priced at 9lakhs. We think Skoda will reduce the price in next 7-8 months once the sales volume picks up.
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Hi, You have given some great information on skoda. I have been hearing that maruti is also launching a sedan – Swift Dzire this month in a similar price range. I think it will challenge all others in this category.Do you have any more information on this car?
If you are thinking value of money. Then Swift Dzire is the best. We have a post about Dzire coming up for you this week.
Fabia is one of the hot looking car from Skoda, i was impressed when i read the review on another portal, it is a great performing vehicle. Check out the review i came across.http://www.carazoo.com/newcars/carreview/Skoda/Fabia
Bought a brand a new Fabia Elegance Petrol(Gurudev motor’s Chennai). On my first day’s drive (yesterday – 24 Apr 08) found that the brakes did not work. This is something I found happening in lower speeds(5/10 km/h). Basically the problem is that the pedal gets stuck, can’t push the brake pedal at all at times. After a while it gets released. You will realize that the car is still in motion when you can’t push the brake pedal down. Therefore the problem comes and goes away, but a dangerous thing to happen to you, especially if you are driving in a road that has a lot of traffic. In such cases, you are out of control!. I understand this might be due to air locks, but I am surprised Skoda having such issues. These issues must get out of the way as part of quality control procedures Skoda has. Have reported this to Gurudev motors, they have promised to take a look, but still – can’t believe that a car, that too a brand new one could have such issues. After yesterday’s experience, my respect level for Skoda has gone terribly down.
Also have problem with break system of fabia 1.2 active model we bought november 2008 and it is less than 10k run.Actually break is not at all effective for our car means we need to kick the break pedal till the maximum to stop the vehicle.I don’t think this not the case with any other cars but the skoda service center at bangalore vinayak motors telling that fabia has only this much break ans it is up to their standard.Does any one face the same issue ?