Great premium hatchback, gives that exclusive feeling
A Review by Suryanarayan Ganesh on Skoda Fabia Classic 1.4 PD TDI
20 January, 2008
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I finally made it to the Autograph Andheri showroom today for a test
drive - they had a Classic Diesel model - and have the following
observations. - Superb car, feels luxurious inside, very spacious inside and in the boot
- Boot
has "high lip" - a design stupidity affecting many cars these days,
which makes it difficult placing large suitcases inside and results in
feeling of smaller boot space.
- We are not a diesel family -
so when the car was stationary and at low speeds, you can notice the
"put-putting" and slight vibration that goes with diesels. At higher
speeds, this doesnt become noticable - The diesel engine is superbly responsive and accelerates fantastically - better than you might find even in petrols.
- The petrol engine will be even more peppy and faster - will be a real quiet, performance, luxury hatchback.
- Diesel
models have special filters which apparantly mean even if you leave the
fabia without running for a couple of weeks you wont have trouble, and
this also means you dont necessarily need to drive 50 kms/day to get
the best returns out of this car - but the diesel is 80k more expensive
than the petrol. I have yet to technically verify this claim.
- Inside the car gadgets and cubbyholes are all very good
- Since
this was the classic model, we could not adjust the seat height
position. In this model we found that we couldnt see the front lip of
the car bonnet - in the ambient and elegance models the car seat height
is adjustable, so this would help having a higher sitting position - Skoda
is out of production capacity until its new production line at
Aurangabad comes online n March. So they are only able to produce 21
cars per month according to the dealer. - The dealer is not even confirming delivery period for the available models immediately, will "get back to you".
- Dealers
have bought the early cars themselves, customizing them and selling it
for 1-1.5 lacs on top of the ex-showroom prices - off the shelf - and
these are being gobbled up by the noveau-rich - we saw 2 being sold
today - Other petrol variants will be available only after March - currently only Elegance model is quoted in Petrol
- Ground
clearance issue - the spec says _minimum" ground clearance is 146 mm -
and this is in the FRONT, not between the wheels - here the clearance
is a more normal 160 mm or so. The chassis is at normal height, but
the way the bonnet and the bumper is designed - results in 'low minimum
clearance" - so this is really not an issue.
- If one wants even more clearance, can go for 15 inch alloy wheels, standard is 14 inch.
So
while overall this is a fantastic car - indias only premium luxury
hatchback, you will have delivery problems until March when things will
start smoothening out.
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