2004 Skoda Fabia vRS 1.9 tdi

Summary:

Carsurvey.org is the right place to look for a car!!!

Faults:

Nothing. it was only a test drive.

General Comments:

First things first.

It was on the strength's of the opinions voiced on this website, which promoted me to the local skoda dealer for a test drive of the Vrs. The dealers are so good that they will allow you to go out by yourself in the car for 3 or so hours. At present I have a lupo gti, which I love, so obvious comparisons would be made with this.

The official ratings for this car 0-60 is 9.6 seconds, which seems slow, but what I noticed quickly on this is that, this car drives more realistically quick. By that I mean, you could be pootling around a 15 or miles an hour in second gear and you decide to put your foot down. The car will take off, like not many others I've driven. The lupo seemed very sluggish in comparison once I got back into it. (same applies if your doing 25 in 3rd and so on).

All the power seems to come between 2-3000 revs, which I can see why they are so fuel efficient and that it is too. There's no way I could do 70 miles of a mixture of urban, suburban and motorway, including a lot of blasting around and frankly only use a fiver's worth of fuel approximately. (yes I filled up £5 worth before I gave it back to them). I can see this being a very economical car to run and drive.

Steering is lighter than the lupo, but both seem as precise as each other. Didn't get to take the car on country roads as only had 3 hours to play with.

A pram fits easily into the boot.

2 minor gripes with the car is that it only had 1 space for a drinks holder and secondly the passenger seat didn't have height adjust, which frees up legroom in the back and this was no an option.

What I would like to ask owners, is this, will or will it not void the warranty if one re-maps the ecu as this dealer said it would. And is there any name and address of dealer that offers re-mapping without voiding the warranty. This car is fast and fun as it is, but an extra 40bhp, from what some other owners have said would only make this car into a folk hero in years to come.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Don't Know

Review Date: 21st January, 2005

3rd Feb 2005, 17:53

ECU remap will invalidate the warranty, officially, but you can get switchable remaps from the likes of AmD, Revo or Star Performance which can restore the ECU map to standard for visits back to the dealer.

I have not done mine yet, but have been in a remapped one and it goes like stink unsurprisingly, devastating midrange performance.

2004 Skoda Fabia vRS 1.9 turbo diesel

Summary:

Smart, Economical, Stonkingly Quick!!

Faults:

Nothing to report.

General Comments:

This car is serious value for money.

The most fun part of owning this car is seeing the look on other peoples faces when they see the badge after giving them a spanking on the by-pass!

For anyone considering this car the 0-60 time is reported to be 9.6...Wrong...I can say with confidence this little rocket will surge to the magic 60 in 8.2 seconds. All you existing Vrs owners - get yourself a stopwatch and see for yourself.

For £500 quid you can have the ecu re-mapped to produce 170 bhp.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 19th December, 2004

25th Dec 2004, 14:51

I am to Fab vrs owner and have to say the comments made about 0-60 era pretty pointless. Yes the times stated from Skoda are a lot less than they really are, but who cares. Who actually charges around from a standing start! No one! The cars strength is the mid range, 30mph in 3rd pulls strongly through to 70+, 4th is similarly quick from 50mph! One car mag. actually recorded average 50-70 time in 4th gear as under 5.5secs the BMW 330d was timed at 6sec. That's where this car is great, not from standing!

Oh 170bhp after remap is a bit conservative, around the 190 mark is more like it!!!