Team-BHP (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/)

-   Test-Drives & Initial Ownership Reports (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-drives-initial-ownership-reports/)

-   -   Skoda Fabia reviews (petrol and diesel) (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-drives-initial-ownership-reports/36237-skoda-fabia-reviews-petrol-diesel-61.html)

I went Camping at Roha on New year's eve, with my car and for the first time, 5 friends and equipment.

Performance: Superb as usual, never a problem to overtake or brake even though everyone together weighed about 350kgs + 50 kg of luggage.

FE: used about half the tank for the 400km journey, didnt check.

Airconditioning: Its winter now.

Comfort: very comfortable even on the way back when they took turns at staying awake to keep me awake.

Boot space: This was the first time it was full, with 2 days worth of clothes, 18x1lt bottles of water, sleeping bags and mats for all and a tent.

despite being on a full load and leaving late, it never scraped anything with its underbody and behaved far better than i expected.

gatsri007: Welcome ...to our Fabia epic, as well as to the Team, though obviously not in that order :-)

rockyb: Welcome. Yeah, the yellow tone does make it look surreal, but it was the lens of a gifted lensman, so tis hardly surprising the pictures are so rivetting.

[quote=naikpranav;1115005]I went Camping at Roha on New year's eve, with my car and for the first time, 5 friends and equipment.
Airconditioning: Its winter now.
quote]

naikpranav: One day in the not very distant future, you shall have to proselytize me on some Geography, Sir. You find the most alluring places- names that are totally alien to me. Beautiful. Where is the red brick arch/portico?

Did you use the heater? I find it damned effective. Bangalore is cold, and for the first time ever, I find myself adding buffer to the sartorial getup- in the form of a Merino wool coat or similar that I don't -or rather can't- thaw for the rest of the year. On top, I light up the Fabia's hearth and warm the coccles.


In-car Olefactory Oomph: For years and thru my ownership of my Cielo, I've used a big block of pooja camphor to reduce the mustiness and add a sliver of appeal to the air inside. I love it. The other day, I bought a perfume diffuser that plugs into the AC vent: the flavour is Florida Sunshine- evocative, yet meaning anything from 'mystical sea' to 'belligerent hurricane' to 'contraband Cuban Cigar' depending on one's frame of mind I suppose. However, I find it over-powering and almost nauseating. I often have to unplug it to stop from gagging. Anyone find their car perfume is too intense? Or it it just the brand I picked up?

You are Always welcome Sir. The red Brick Arch Portico is A house Designed by Nari Gandhi, for Mr. Daya (Dawood shoes) It was an incentive offered by me for my Architectural friends to join in the Camping.

About odd Places: most of the places are not so odd, but I have been to these places too many times since I could even barely walk. The problem is a Lack of good spots around bombay, which leaves us with a range of barely 200-300km, This and being Anti-Social in Nature has forced me to go out and find off-beat locations. Also, my parents love climbing, especially mom, but she can't do much nowadays because of Arthiritis, so I drive her to these places and then we camp out. It also allows me to quickly get out and sleep under the stars whenever I like without much planning of sack and meals.
(Oh for want of a good 4x4 !)

We did use the heater, Girls are funny creatures. it was about 10 degrees outside, and i set the heater to about 24, very effective, try using the foot position, that way people at the rear also get a good amount of heat with the rear vents switched on.

About car perfumes: Refrain from using them, My Swift had something in it, and when we stopped using it the car started smelling, I had to get the AC vents cleaned out and the whoe car steamed to get rid of the perfume stuck in everything. I think camphor is better. I don't use anything yet, my car still smells new.

Yesterday I drove my friends Dzire for more than 100 KMs. I found the steering is not as responsive as Fabia. The gear change was not as slick as fabia. The seating position was high in Dzire (againt Fabia Classic) and I liked it.
To give a back ground, I first booked Dzire, waited for 2 months, cancelled it and bought Fabia. Now I'm happy that I made a good decision.


A small incident report. Yesterday I went to Pondicherry via ECR. Somewhere near Auroville, the gear rod got disconnected from gear box when the car was moving in 2nd gear. I parked the car, called a helpline number provided by Gurudev motors. With some help I found the gear box below the battery and saw a lever and a disconnected cable from the gear rod. Some rivet was missing. I tied the cable & lever with a rope and managed to continue my journey. :)


I'm not using any perfumes. The plastic smell will be there whenever i hop in to the car for a minute. A friend of mine is using a perfume called "My Shaldan" (lemon flavor). I found it very mild.

MadRash, that was an impressive display of the legendary Indian spirit for 'jugaad'. Oh-so-modern cars being fixed by good ol' rope. Hats off to you Sir.

Re: perfumes, I use a bottle of Hibiscus flavoured Grace mate Poppy. It is the least intrusive smell I could find from my jaunt through Big Bazaar. The thing is pretty ubiquitous - I've seen bottles of this brand in just about every car accessory shop and supermarket.

[quote=naikpranav;1116679]You are Always welcome Sir. The red Brick Arch Portico is A house Designed by Nari Gandhi, for Mr. Daya (Dawood shoes) It was an incentive offered by me for my Architectural friends to join in the Camping.

quote]

naikpranav: Ah, Sir. Now I know where the adventurer in you comes from. Great going.

I haven't heard of Nari Gandhi, I'm sorry to say, but from that teasing glimpse of the structure, I believe it would excite. I find the arches reminiscent of flying buttresses.

It looks like I've made a faux pas and headed off on the wrong 'scent' with that dratted perfume. Perhaps I'll ditch it soon.


MadRash: You WHAT??? Fixed the gear lever on the fly? Super. I applaud your mechanical talent and presence of mind and can easily picture you bringing in a jet aircraft to safe landing after being 'talked' thru it by the Air Traffic Controller! You have the makings.

ImmortalZ: 'Hibiscus flavoured' sounds so genteel. Wish I could lay my hands on some. This barbaric Florida Sunshine is searing my nostrils.

"MadRash, that was an impressive display of the legendary Indian spirit for 'jugaad'. Oh-so-modern cars being fixed by good ol' rope. Hats off to you Sir."
I agree. Well said.

hey guys,
i've been an avid follower of this thread as i have loved the fabia since i first set sight on it on a trip to ukraine in 2004. That was an older generation model but still was pretty impressive then. Last year when we sold our Indigo, we did consider the Fabia but as we regularly have somebody coming over from abroad (mostly my sisters) we needed a car with a large boot hence dad decided that we go for a Logan Diesel after much consideration. We have not yet been wronged by our decision. We have driven over 7k's & happy with it. So there went my dream of owning the Fabia.

Now there's a problem thats come up. We also have a Hyundai Accent Viva 2004 make. I made up my mind after a post from GTO about retaining my car for atleast 3 more years i.e. till 2012. But a few days back i had gone to the petrol pump & as usual i asked the attendant to check the oil & coolant levels. the moment he opened the bonnet there was a thud sound. i got out & saw that one of the hinges broke off & the other was about to give way. It was heavily corroded. It was just too shocking for me. So i took the car to the Hyundai ASC where upon opening we realised that the whole frame that supports the bonnet as well as the dashboard has been heavily corroded. After a lot of discussion & thought, we checked the place where we park our car in the building compound. We looked up to see 3-4 air-conditioners' water falling drop by drop at the same spot during the night. Then we realised that its not a one off thing, its been going on for more than 2 years & we did not even realise as the washer cleans the car every morning so its unnoticeable. We all have been upset. The ASC quoted me 28,000/- as the internal structure would not require proper painting. But still it was quite steep. So i have got it done at a local garage for 4k's & he even touched it up with matching paint (Passion Red). But he warned us the the entire stucture was badly corroded & anytime the dashboard could fall off. Since 2 days, we have been thinking of selling it off before we face any further issues. So we veered towards buying a small car this time as the women at home voted for a smaller car for their overall convenience & parking issues. We started off with the spark, i10 a/t, indica vista, palio, swift vdi but this time dad himself suggested why not go for the Fabia. I was like hey, you just took that out from my heart dad. Now the thing is that we don't want to spend more than 6.5L on road. The only version in that price range is the Fabia 1.4PD TDi Active. Guys whats your suggestion. Also if any of you have the comparison of the Active & the Classic could you please post it here, as the Skoda India website surprisingly does not have the trim chart on their site. Also if i contact a dealer, he will be on my case which i don't want. Please help me guys. Sorry for the long story.

Thanx,
Anil

Anil:
Not sure whether Skoda stopped the Active models. But the only extra features present in classic are the music system and power windows. Dont you prefer 1.2 petrol?


My 10+ years of experience with Amby (Father's) came in handy. :)


OK. I have two issues poping up now and then.

1. The Dance music system's FM reception is not good. It displays junk station names and there is no way you disable the RDS feature

2. Couple of times the AC, suddenly starts blowing hot air when I set the temp somewhere below 20C. I have to turn the knob to 16C and then to the desired temp to overcome it. Any of you faced these sorts of issues?

My car has clocked 9500 KMs in its ODO and I'm planning to give it for the first service.

My car has clocked 9500 KMs in its ODO and I'm planning to give it for the first service.[/quote]

Hi Madrash,When did you buy your car. I guess the first service was due around 7500 kms.

anilkalvani: hey, welcome to the fold. I sincerely hope your dream of owning a Fabia fructifies and shall keep my fingers crossed. I'm not in a position to advise you on the models you asked, so GENTS, please put in your recommendations/Dealer intelligence (which might vary from city to city).

When your baby Czechs in, please do visit us with your holistic story.


MadRash:

"My 10+ years of experience with Amby (Father's) came in handy. :)"

Seems we all went that route- also a thing of the times. Cars were fewer and new cars quite rare, so DIY sucked almost everybody in at some time or the other. I remember working on the family Buick Roadmaster (with Perkins P6 implant), both Standard 10s that came by our garage sequentially...and many more. In fact, it was all fun and taken in one's stride.

You must take the Dance to the choreographers :-). Strange behaviour. Also the AC. I haven't found anything amiss with either on my car, but shall keep a weather eye out lest they crop up.

Please write in about your First Service experience and include a list of what they twiddled and how much they charged: I'm sure many will be interested.
Hi Madrash,When did you buy your car. I guess the first service was due around 7500 kms.[/quote]

uneet: No Sir. I was advised the first was due at 10 K Kms by TAFE. Anything to the contrary from other Dealers?

More Pictures !

Had gone to Lavasa with the boss for some new building work to be done there, we had a late start, leaving at 8am to reach lavasa at 10:30, which is a 4 hour journey from Bombay, luckily there were no issues with speed and we made it to lavasa at 11 with a breakfast break too, the onboard computer giving me an average speed readout of 80km/hr, not surprising since I never kept the speed below 120 on the ghat section of the expressway and not below 150 on the plains. Didnt get too many pictures going, but got off to take a few on the way back, we also drove onto a Dam under construction all the way till the floodgates, coming back was more leisurely but I managed a top speed of 180, uphill. Average of the 500km journey + 60 kms before we left was 17km/l but my speeds were always in 3-figures. This is the first time I had to drive like this when i was seriously pressed for time, and the car didn't fail to impress !

I had my second service done last week, Rs. 11,900/- in total. I had to get some rat-resistant treatment done to the electricals which cost me 2.5k, which i didnt feel was necessary since I don't have a rat problem, but got it done nonetheless as even the wires are expensive and I travel a lot. The money quoted by the Service engg shocked me initially, but when u divide it by kms covered, it comes to 90p/km. Rs 3.35/km on the higher side with fuel. Which is not too bad.

Hey guys, just got back from the long tour and looks like I have missed a lot in action. It's good to see having few new members in the fabi family. A lot has been said and discussed, am sure am lagging behind ;)

Pranav: Thanks pranav for that DIY skoda monogram. What glue did you use to stick it?
Nice pics must say. You sure a truly hardcore adventurous person. I wonder how you happen to find these places and time.
Reaching 180 is deffinately amazing and its amazing the way the car handles that speed. So how long did it take to reach there?
I had managed to get 185 but then gave up seeing the RPM needle almost redlining at that speed.

Will be giving my car next week for the 2nd service, detailed of my hectic tour. Pranav it would be nice if you could share the detail of 2nd service as to what they changed and its cost.
Also, been facing some noise from the front suspension, not to sure if its suspension of something else.
Is anyone here facing any problem with the same?

I used "Fevite", was planning on Araldite, but araldite takes 24 hours to set, wheras this took 4-5 hours even though the box said 5 mins, seems to be just as good.

This particular trip was a business thing, had to go and visit a site. I did 180 on the way back while the road was uphill, didn't get a chance going downhill, however the car is at its best on concrete upto 150, It can even take turns at that speed, after that it needs tar, even then i think 170 should be its limit.

I'll get the details from the car and post them here soon. The noise from the suspension has cropped up for me too, at very low speed on slopes while turning very sharp, seems ok, but if no one else has it i think its a reason to worry.

naikpranav: I love your pics- but nothing new about that. Do you also design dams?

Rats!
11.9K Rupees for a service is heavy and stratospheric. I'm glad for the new owners that Skoda is offering a 3 year service holiday (do they still have to pay service charges, I wonder?)

180KMPH is very impressive. I've yet to christen my babe.



Invinsible: And you hit 185- Wow.

Please keep us posted as to your service escapade, costs and sundry. I'm beginning to get cold feet when I hear naikpranav had to shell out near 12K shekels. Man that is expensive.

naikpranav: Does Fevite come in 2 tubes like Araldite? Requires mixing?

Thank you ! I design everything under the sun, not this dam though.

11.9 did feel heavy to me, but as i said before, larger intervals and lower running costs is okay with me right now.

yes Fevitite comes in 2 tubes like araldite, needs to be mixed well and used within 5 mins.