Faults:

Mis firing - turned out to be a 'flywheel probe' that was bust.

General Comments:

This is my third Skoda, and each has been an improvement in quality and ride from the previous one. It does tend to lose power on the hills, but for a general drive around, it will be hard to beat. The beginnings of VW are apparent, and it is a comfortable car to sit in for a period of time. Perhaps a good dealer (as I seem to have) is a help.

Faults:

Steering mechanism noisy. It has been inspected many times by the Skoda service in Rome (Autocentri Balduina). It has been finally replaced only after I wrote a complaint letter to Skoda.

Suspension (absorbers) defective since the car was new.

You absolutely need air conditioning.

General Comments:

Pros and cons of my Felicia:

Pros:

1. Very comfortable cabin

2. Low price

3. Cheap spare parts.

Cons:

1. Bad service

2. Unreliable.

Faults:

Off side brake cylinder had seized, managed to release it, but the stress on the near side brake cylinder caused that to leak.

Misfiring, but found that was caused by the spark plugs. Needed to change the plugs every 10,000 miles, which was odd, as they were set right and were from a top German manufacturer.

Otherwise, nothing wrong with it at all.

General Comments:

This is a big, small car. There is plenty of space both front and back. Boot hasn't got much capacity, but this is to be expected on a small hatchback.

Reliability is superb and the build quality is great. Even has that solid feel when you close the doors, which you don't get on any other car of this size.

A great looking car too, look at other cars this size and they are ugly. Interior is attractive, appealing and makes the car feel bigger than it really is.

Economy is good. Handles well, if you're sensible and feels best on the motorway, very smooth and a great cruiser between 60 and 80 MPH. Performance and power not so good as it dies on the hills.

Faults:

The exhaust...

Rear windshield wiper stopped working...

The ignition system literally fell apart, leaving me stranded on the road.

2nd gear is getting very shaky...

Nothing else...

General Comments:

This our company car. It has been fairly reliable and I think I can depend on it, except for that one instance when the ignition system broke down and left me stranded.

This car can withstand the roughest conditions and seems very well put-together. At least there are no rattles.

To tell the truth, we always drive this car like maniacs (that's why 2nd gear is giving up). These 56.000 km are probably equal to 100.000 regularly driven km !! :)

It has no extras, not even power-assisted steering, let alone central locking system. That's why I give it such a low comfort mark. The radio/speaker system completely sucks and wind and road noise is very high. You can listen to the radio while driving at 90+ km/h.

The thing that bothers me most about this car is that it is completely gut-less. The engine is 1.3 liters, no injection, only 8 or 12 valves and is only outputting about 50 hp. Even though the car is only about 800 kg, I'm having trouble keeping up with buses and trailers and of course regular traffic. Sometimes it's amazing when you are at a red light, beside a big diesel Taxi like for example the Hyundai Starex and no matter how you floor the car, you just can't keep up with them - they just drive off.

Since you are always pushing the car to it's limits, the fuel consumption is surprisingly high, that's why I give the car only 5 in running costs.

This is quite a good car for a company car (very cheap), but I would never buy this car for myself.