Yahoo News 2019 Skoda Fabia review: a mild facelift struggles to boost desirability
Not a single one. That’s how many Skoda Fabias I saw on my three-hour journey to the launch of the facelifted version; not one. Plenty of Ford Fiestas, of course, Volkswagen Polos were in evidence, Honda Jazzes, even a brace of Vauxhall Corsas and a few Mazda3s as I drove past new towns with attached retail outlets and different masonry paint to delineate the identical architectures. I even saw two late-Eighties “wedge” TVR 420 SEACs (wow, how are they still running?) but no Fabias.
Considering that Skoda has sold 4.18 million of the things in the last 19 years, one tenth of them in Britain, this is strange indeed. It’s almost as if the Fabia gave evidence in a mob trial, went into the FBI’s witness protection programme and after plastic surgery is now running a small post office in Saskatchewan. What else explains what has happened to the 19,000 to 20,000 Fabias Skoda UK sells every year?
Actually the Fabia has got a lot harder to spot partly as a result of a gradual programme of blandification through three generations. It replaced the Favorit, which was the first Skoda produced under the auspices of Volkswagen, but for my money the best one was the Mk2, which aslo became a super-successful rally car, the S2000; launched in 2009, it went on to win 18 European rallies. It was the Mk2’s heavy roof line, which has subsequently become a design “thing”, which marked out that car. Shame that the Mk3 of 2014 wasn’t as good looking or distinctive.
So here we are with a mid-life facelift, or what us hacks call a “bumper launch”. Since we haven’t driven the Fabia for a while we braved the traffic. In fact it’s what’s been lost that is most notable: diesel derivatives, which never sold well, have now been dropped - they’ve also been dropped from Skoda’s Rapid small saloon.
The major change is the front, where the grille, lights and valance get a thinner, sharper mien billed as “more youthful” to the press - which is total horse feathers. Most of the other stuff is optional: 18-inch wheels, and LED lighting. You’ll still lose it in the car park, which is why red paint is a sensible option.
Climb in and you can see that the materials budget wouldn’t have upholstered a Strictly girl’s samba frock. Crow-black plastic with speckly finishes predominates. It’s well put together but not desperately attractive, even if the Spartan, black-on-white instrument binnacle is a refreshing change from the over-adorned nonsense in some rivals.
What’s more, Skoda, for so long the smoking beagle for Volkswagen’s gruesome experiments at the far frontiers of infotainment, has finally got a half-decent touchscreen. Small it might be, but there are big dials for the radio volume and sat-nav zoom, with large buttons around the perimeter to navigate the system quickly without taking your eyes off the road for too long.
The seats are as soft and bouncy as an old sofa, but with no noticeable support. There’s respectable amount of storage space, including a 330-litre boot, which is up there with the best in class. The rear seats aren’t exactly capacious, however; a couple of adults have enough head room, even if their knees are buried in the backs of the front seats.
A 1.0-litre three-cylinder petrol engine is now the only unit offered in the Fabia, with a choice of three outputs. The mid-range 94bhp/118lb ft version I tried thrums into life with a mighty whirr, with the five-speed manual gearbox slotting easily enough, albeit with long throws. It’s surprisingly quick off the mark, with a 0-62mph time of 10.8sec and a top speed of114mph, but the engine’s delivery becomes very flat by 4,000rpm and there’s little point in wringing it out to the full 6,000rpm.
The Combined fuel consumption is quoted at 61.4mpg; after I had zeroed the trip meter and calibrated the odometer, then flung it around Buckinghamshire roads for an hour and half, I achieved 45mpg.
The five ratios are set very wide so you’re quite busy when pressing on, and fifth is super-long, which is great for economy, but this car really needs a six-speed gearbox, which is available with the altogether superior 108bhp/147lb ft version of the same engine, which gives a top speed of 121mph, 0-62mph acceleration in 9.6sec and a Combined fuel consumption of 60.1mpg.
I’d been expecting the kind of anodyne driving experience found in the Skoda Rapid, but the Fabia is cleverer than that. It’s soft and gentle, with a fine ride and reasonable responses to the steering, but absolutely no pretensions to performance motoring.
The suspension is quite noisy, however, and the car tramlines and steers itself under braking. It lacks the fine body control we've come to expect of Skoda and there's a fair bit of weight transfer on that soft suspension.
On the heavily crowned roads typical of Britain, the gambolling sensation can quickly become nauseous floating.
There’s only so much you can do with a MacPherson strut front, twist-beam rear suspension set-up, however, and if you overdrive the Fabia in its cooking forms the chassis gets quite squirrely, with lots of nose-on roll understeer. Thankfully no one (other than professional road testers) drives it like that, however, so for users the Fabia is a comfy and secure drive.
I say users because that’s what this car feels like, not something you own, something you use; a hire car, maybe.
That’s a shame because while rivals might do just as much business with the hire fleets, they also manage to feel a little more like desirable objects in their own right.
2019 Skoda Fabia
PRICE range from £12840-£18,320 (estate from £13,860-£18,320)
ON SALE Now
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