[adimicra]

Originally Posted by 2cents

@MihirC: Prices are now updated in their website. It is indeed 5.81L for 1.6. You should check with the dealer again. Skoda shield is not mandatory, but I would strongly recommend you to go for it, if you end up buying the Fabia.



I dont think pretensioners are mandatory with airbags, Polo doesn't have it.
And for the three point seat belt.

Thanks for the clarifications.
Regarding the pretensioners, I had assumed that it comes as default in cars with airbags as I thought it is very important from safety P.o.v. But, it seems I was wrong.

I was pretty happy with the Fabia launch but the omission of some must-have and important features like rear defogger and wiper still leaves me puzzled. I can't quite understand what's the rationale here.
Also, SKoda has skimped on various other useful features from the previous Fabia to keep the cost down (notable ones are split seats, heated OVRMs, etc).

IMO, it's more of a downgrade of the Fabia rather than a facelift.

Prices are 5-10K cheaper than the Polo in Hyderabad. So, the difference is not much. Specs are very similar. SO, nothing much to differentiate between the two. But if I were to choose between the top end variants of the 2 cars, I will choose the Polo which has useful features like rear defogger/wiper and split seats rather than the cosmetic nice-to-have's of the Fabia like vanity mirrors, illuminated glove box etc.

I would like to take back my earlier comments about Fabia being a better buy than Polo after going through the fine print.

[blackbeast]

Originally Posted by 2cents

@MihirC: Prices are now updated in their website. It is indeed 5.81L for 1.6.

That is not a bad price. It is worth considering it against T jet. About 4L difference upfront and perfect for city drive, compact and revv happy. I strongly feel one should go for fabia 1.6 or just don't mess with skoda. We have lots of premium hatches now to think about. Not worth going for skoda.

[MihirC]

Originally Posted by 2cents

@MihirC: Prices are now updated in their website. It is indeed 5.81L for 1.6. You should check with the dealer again. Skoda shield is not mandatory, but I would strongly recommend you to go for it, if you end up buying the Fabia.

Mate I have the printed pricelist from Autobahn,Prabhadevi. The break-up given by me before is from that printout itself. The OTR is clearly mentioned as 6.10 L.I ll try and check up with JMD today to compare the prices, will update soon.

[MihirC]

Originally Posted by MihirC

Mate I have the printed pricelist from Autobahn,Prabhadevi. The break-up given by me before is from that printout itself. The OTR is clearly mentioned as 6.10 L.I ll try and check up with JMD today to compare the prices, will update soon.

Spoke with JMD @ Andheri, and even they have confirmed the ex showroom price is 6.10L and OTR is 6.92L. This makes it very clear that the pricelist with Autobahn was the correct one.

Also The lady mentioned Skoda sheild is not compulsary though.

Am I the only one here who finds the price difference between the Ex showroom and OTR very high??

There go my hopes of having a 100+ bhp hatch

[gkrishn]

Checked with vinayak. I asked for just 1.6, as i was not interested in the 1.2.

Ex is 6.02. Road tax 1.2 lkh!!! Insurance is 22k. OTR is about 7.27lkh here in bangalore.

That is about 30k less than the polo 1.6.

[mgh]

Skoda cuts Fabia tag, may fuel price war - The Times of India
Reduction is 67000 for petrol basic model and 1.1 lakh on basic diesel model.

[ampere]

The new Fabia thread is up and running. All the details available in there.
We can merge all the contents there.

[Sahil]

It takes courage for a company to slash prices as it's an indirect way of admitting that the product was over-priced and/or uncompetitive given the current scenario. As an adverse effect customers that have already paid a heft price for the Fabia loose faith in Skoda and will always be skeptical in the future of buying at full price.
But IMO, kudos to Skoda for being straight forward and slashing the price instead of going on a discount spree like most others when put in such situations.
Honda, you listening? Watch and learn !

[mobike008]

Isnt that nice? Thats the first piece of news that i read this morning and i thought about time.

Instead of just a price cut, they should have released it with a slightly more powerful engine with some cosmetic spruce-ups at a competitive price. Then things may have looked up. Right now, I doubt even after the price reduction there would be many takers.

I reckon even Jazz needs a similar ( better) treatment to push up its sales.

[Parm]

well that makes the initial buyers of Fabia, feel cheated and robbed!

i think Skoda should pull up their socks when it comes to A.S.S.

Skoda as a brand is placed below VW in international market, in india its been the opposite as of now!

things are changing, i guess!

[Car Fan]

They pretty much had to reduce the feature list when they cut the price, and not just to maintain their margins. That's the only way you can make previous buyers less unhappy, by pointing out that they received a better feature set for the higher price paid.

[adimicra]

Originally Posted by Sahil

It takes courage for a company to slash prices as it's an indirect way of admitting that the product was over-priced and/or uncompetitive given the current scenario. As an adverse effect customers that have already paid a heft price for the Fabia loose faith in Skoda and will always be skeptical in the future of buying at full price.
But IMO, kudos to Skoda for being straight forward and slashing the price instead of going on a discount spree like most others when put in such situations.
Honda, you listening? Watch and learn !

I agree. Honda is giving 55000 discounts on Jazz and you can bargain for more.
Going by some of the deals of Jazz in this forum, people have got anything between 60K - 90K discounts on the Jazz.
So, it makes sense for Honda to officially reduce the prices. The earlier owners are anyway unhappy with Honda, so it does not matter.

Having said that, I am not happy with Skoda cutting corners on essential features like rear wiper/defogger, electric mirrors and split seats, particularly since all the competitors offer the same. Dropping some of the other nice-to-have stuff like projector headlights, cooled glove box, passenger seat height adjust in the older Fabia are fine.

[aryasanyal]

Originally Posted by Car Fan

They pretty much had to reduce the feature list when they cut the price, and not just to maintain their margins. That's the only way you can make previous buyers less unhappy, by pointing out that they received a better feature set for the higher price paid.

But to what end?
Skoda, IMHO, are trying to target a larger set of customers than before, what with reports of better A.S.S. and slashed prices of the Fabia.

Who are they competing against? Figo, Punto 1.2, Swift, Micra and the others a segment below. I don't believe that they are up against Polo or the i20.
Then look at the basic essential features that Skoda has omitted from the Fabia and compare if those are available with the direct competitors. Yes, they have made airbags available through the variants, but these seem more like a marketing gimmick ala Micra.
Having mandatory ABS would have been more helpful given the better highways that we drive on now at higher speeds.

India is a tropical country and large parts of our country experience heavy rain each year, which makes the rear wiper/defogger a necessary safety feature.

End of it, I don't buy the thought that just to keep the earlier owners happy I devalue the car for newer prospective buyers. This isn't evolution.

[Mpower]

Originally Posted by fi.robin

EBC and dual BA aren't really new safety features. They were offered in the outgoing Ambiente and the Elegance model too.

Guys, does Polo highline have these two features?

[jigbarai]

Coming from a Fabia owner - this is NOT a price cut at all.
Seems more like a eyewash to me.

BS3/BS4 engines aside - looking at the features provided and skimped, essentially they have taken the previous gen 'Active' model and rebadged it as 'Classic' - cheap game. Heck even the previous base model, Active had 2 Airbags !

The previous Active version was available at the rates quoted now, considering the discounts offered then. In the game to go cheap, they are losing the 'premium-ness' associated with the car's name.