Had an opportunity to test the Fabia III today in SE 75PS guise, with the colour concept and 16" wheel options and to compare it to our Monte and Rapid Spaceback.

 

First impression having now seen it in the metal was favourable and as others have said the design looks more of a natural progression from the timeless  Fabia I than the ungainly looking MkII. However I could not see any wow factor it the styling, more a smart run of the mill super-mini, with oversized door handles like the Octy III.

 

The car appeared fairly comfortable to drive on the short test run, the non turbo 75PS engine being livelier than I expected but noticeably missing the go of our current 1.2 TSI's (86 & 105) and the cabin appeared no bigger than the Fabia II, if anything my good lady felt there was less leg room in the back than with her MC, although she found the rear seating comfortable. For me the seating was again comfortable up front but the rake of the chair base seemed a bit excessive along with being a little short.

 

The ride felt similar to our MC with the car having 16" 215/45 tyres, which being Dunlop Sport Maxx made their presence known in the cabin, particularly on surface dressed roads, although there was a hint of improved refinement with how the car dealt with poor road surfaces. However the steering felt noticeably better than the Fabia II's rubbery system but not quite as well weighted as the Spaceback and rear discs were nice to see even on the smaller engine instead of old tech drums; mind will SUK have the UK car production retrograded to drums as they did with the Fabia II FL.

 

Salesman seemed quite keen to sell us one but again as others have said its not that great a leap forward and apart from the much improved steering there is no sensible reason to abandon our Monte Carlo for the newer design.

 

Also feel Skoda/Skoda UK have made similar errors to when the Rapid was launched, in that both the SE and SEL I looked at did not have a smart colour insert in the dash, making it look rather functional/sombre, our Spaceback has a far better dash layout with the piano black inlays. Another negative for me anyway is the repositioning of the hazard switch and airbag light from the centre vent to the switch bank below the radio, for the hazard particularly it was more awkward to find in a hurry and the large airbag warning light looked untidy dropped almost haphazardly between the other switches/blanks.

 

Oh one other strange thing I couldn't get my head round was the speed limiter on the SE, which was in place of cruise; need to read up on it but a waste of time is my initial impression.

 

So to summarise the Fabia III is a step forward over the Fabia II but not dramatically so and for me falls short compared to the Rapid Spacebck in all areas.

 

 

 

TP

I have only looked round the outside of one, but underwhelmed is what I would describe my feeling, SWMBO was not impressed by it either

 

her comment was the shape of the seats looked like the old MK1 VRs seats than they wore through on both sides (metal support came through foam and fabric)

 

she didn't like the inside from what she could see through the window

 

for me, the fancy mirror link etc is too limited with only a handful of apps and does not work with my windows mobile so pointless to me

 

all the nice to haves I want are options, so make the car a long wait and costly, polo was a better bet for me except snooty sales staff did not want a fabia in exchange so offered the bare minimum part ex they could and got the hump when I produced the CAP valuation to prove it

 

hence with reluctance I have opted for Hyundai i20 which seems a far better car except for the engines (although reading all the issues with various flavours of the VAG TSi I think I can live with)

Remembered I took some external pics of the test car;

 

 

 

 

 

 

TP

I too was underwhelmed by the new Fabia and I didnt even take it for a test drive! Thats why I am picking up a Polo at the beginning of March!