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Bought a Skoda Slavia 1.0 TSI MT as my first car: Initial observations

8th November 2022, 11:03 by Dev Shah

I must say that between booking and final purchase of the Slavia, I did spent sleepless nights to analyze if I made the right choice or not.

BHPian neochanger recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Brought home my first car:

Background:

The search for a new car started about 6 months back due to my requirements for office commute, a drive of about 45 km from home on traffic ingested highway. The initial choice was VW Virtus due to its looks, driving dynamics and solid built. Creta, Seltos and other CSUVs did not appeal to me much as I was never so crazy about the SUV stance and Virtus offered the necessary GC for the rough road patches. But when I began to look for all the pros and cons of Virtus on Team-BHP and YouTube, I somehow came across the proposition that Honda City was a better choice overall. But the looks of City has become a bit too common now and noone in my family seemed to be excited about it. A bit more comparison and pros-cons analysis convinced me about checking out Slavia and when we visited to see it, we all seemed satisfied for it. A test drive next day and I booked the car. And I must say that between booking and final purchase, I did spent sleepless nights to analyze if I made the right choice or not. A lot of options considered, even accepted but got finally rejected in favour of existing booking, the Slavia. I had planned to get my car between Dussehra and Diwali but Skoda seemingly messed up supplied during festive season and my SA could not deliver on his promise. Finally, I got my car in the first week of November. I decoded the VIN and it was manufactured in October-2022. Good enough.

Initial observations:

Despite a video on YouTube showing Skoda has started to provide bonnet insulation in Slavia, I did not get one in mine. The video showed AT variant and I have bought the Style 1.0 MT variant. My SA denied any variant coming with insulation. I need a confirmation on this point by fellow BHPians if they have any concrete information.

The car looked and felt as per the many reviews posted on this thread. I did not notice anything new that I haven't read about already on this thread. Kudos to BHPians for detailed observations! Yet I would like to point out few things that are still there even in Oct-2022 manufactured cars to inform other potential buyers:

The engine is far from silent. It's 3 cylinder engine and makes good noise outside the car even in idle. It does not feel that kind inside the cabin. So check it out if you are comfortable with it or not. I am comfortable with it.
The driver side window's auto up/down functions inconsistently. It sometimes goes down when you want it up, then you pull it up again, it works but not in auto mode. The workaround is to turn off the car and turn on again and it will work again. Just like dealing with mobile hangs. But it does show this inconsistency and you will notice it sooner than expected.
While reversing, the reverse camera does not show up always. Sometimes, it says on HU that Reverse Camera is not available. I need to figure out why this happens.
On crawling speeds, it is difficult to keep the car running on 2nd gear. I currently drive a Ciaz and felt that Slavia requires shift up and down more frequently than Ciaz. I have driven Honda City 5th Gen as well and that too can easily be pulled up even from 3rd gear sometimes. Not really a problem, but I guess if you are to deal with traffic heavy city roads, avoid Slavia MT and go for AT even if you have to go for the Ambition variant instead of Style.
The SA filled up the free fuel with 91 Oct fuel and despite asking he said 91 Oct fuel is sufficient. Perhaps, the usual stuff he tells everyone.
There is no lumbar adjustment on driver's seat. This is indeed problematic given the fact that it's a 17 lakh car.

Apart from the issues listed above, everything else is good and quite impressive. The looks are second to none in its segment (except Virtus, of course). Mine is in white and the paint quality is definitely brilliant. The car looks stunning on road and here in Kanpur, many assume it to be a car of higher segment.

Signing off with few shots. I will try to post a detailed long-term review later. Once again sincere thanks to fellow members and Team-BHP for all the help and support to make the car buying process more exciting and intelligent.