Could a dealer retro-fit parking sensors to a Fabia/Fabia Estate?

(I think they're standard on recent Mk1 Elegances, but I'd be surprised if you could find one within budget.)

Quick look at Autotrader tells me that Elegances should easily be within budget - there's a nice looking 2004 model, 51k, at £3250 so that would go for 3k.

Cheaper than I had assumed actually.

When did parking sensors become standard though? Was it only on the post-facelift (round foglight) Elegances? Not sure if a 2004 one would have them or not.

You can get proper Skoda sensors fitted by a dealer for not an awful lot of money, they don't need painting either just fitting.

Gents - as dad ,and now Grandad -lets look at cars from a practical point of view .

Boot space -will it hold the pram or can you hold of for a few months till Jnr can be put in pushchair ?--but till then can you manage with baby seat in one half and pram in other (as in Fabia split seats ) -might save you money .These days ,my missus comments on how much stuff modern mums tend to carry - Just in case .

So stop and think - just what is essential on a trip to the shops ,and what isn't - the "what isn't " could

stop you buying a larger car - just the opinionsof a grandad .

Parking sensors not fitted (or IMO needed) on early 52 reg Octy.

Certainly most of the base Classics are but the earlier Comforts are far better in that respect.

:iagree: The trim in SWMBO's 51-plate Comfort seems just as good as in my 54-plate vRS (not that I'm any kind of expert! ) Having air con helps, too - wouldn't want a baby lugger without on TBH!

The fabia copes very well in all circumstances and I would suggest to work backwards from the pram/travel system. Some of the lower budget travel systems are large and pretty complicated or just not very easy to fold/unfold. Obviously you get what you apy for and the higher the budget the easier and more compact the pram/travel system.

Not always true. I have the Bugaboo which is expensive, large and complicated

Seriously though, I've never tried it but I wouldn't want to have to put one in a Fabia boot on a regular basis. My car doesn't have a huge boot but its comfortably bigger than a fabia and sometimes I have to take a wheel or 2 off to do it quickly rather than standing in the street emptying the boot contents to pack it properly. Ask your wife if she has anything in mind on the baby carriage front.

Whilst I wouldn't say buy the pram first and then buy a car it fits in, I would agree about getting a good idea of the sort of prams I was looking at first.

Yeah, I think I mentioned this before, but a friend of SWMBO has a Silver Cross one, and it just wouldn't fit in the boot, whatever we tried! We have to have the parcel shelf out for our Britax one, as it only folds in two dimensions (doesn't get narrower), but this has the advantage that it can be loaded into the boot with the seat / pram still in situ.

Try out potential buggies & cars if you can before purchase

When did parking sensors become standard though? Was it only on the post-facelift (round foglight) Elegances? Not sure if a 2004 one would have them or not.

You can get retrofit systems very cheaply that are dead easy to fit - either drill or no drill versions from £30 to £70 respectively so I wouldn't let that influence you particularly.

When we had our 1st child we upgraded SWMBO's Saxo to a Sxara which we kept until child number 2 came along, at this point we had also moved house and wanted something newer that we could then keep for quite a few years so se bought a fabia and we will have had it for 3 years this year and haven't regretted it. When our 2nd child was a baby we used to get their Mothercare Urban Detour Pushchair/pram into the boot although we did have to remove the parcel shelf, nice thing with the hatchback is the shelf slides down the back of the back seat so you can put it back in to hide things in the boot when you take the pushchair out.

Swmbo has a horse and tends to keep her Saddle/back protector/wellies/hat/coat etc and also still have the kids stroller in the boot. We are lucky that I have an octavia for the longer/day out or holiday trips, if we didn't have the Octavia I think we would have still bought the Fabia but we would have probably bought the estate model or even gone for a roof box for the extra space.

We also have a dog (labrador/dalmation) and he hasn't complained from trips upto a couple of hours in each direction in the boot with his bed in it.

Edited 13 January, 200917 yr by matt@theforce