2004 Skoda Fabia vRS review from UK and Ireland

Nothing. it was only a test drive.

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.