Opinions please: Skoda Felicia

i dont care about the VW connection i would still never have a skoda!

Nice constructive feedback there.

Why not? I have just ordered a Skoda. So far as I can see it's a VW/Audi with about a third knocked off the price. What is it you find unacceptable about them, other than the badge?

You obviously suffer from status anxiety, seek out a good therapist before it is too late! I'm afflicted with the opposite disorder, I'm phobic to middle-class conformity, hence I won't buy a VW.

Seriously though, I see a lot of Skodas round where I live and the older ones all seem to be remarkably intact compared to the Fords/Peugeots/Rovers/Vauxhall/Renaults which look like they are falling apart after 5 years. There is nothing wrong with Czech engineering -- the London Eye was built at a Czech plant because there was nowhere in the UK that could handle it.

I want a simple practical car that is cheap to run. Perhaps I am strange because most of the things advertised as selling points on modern cars I see as disadvantages:

• Electric windows -- why? Is the effort required to wind down the window really that much hassle compared to the likelihood of the electrics failing after five years?

• Sunroof -- prone to leaks, electrical problems.

• Body coloured electric wing mirrors -- expensive to replace when white van man knocks them off, what on earth is wrong with generic black ones?

• Alloy wheels -- do I want to find my car on blocks because some toerags have nicked the wheels?

• Air conditioning -- can of worms when it goes wrong, only really useful for 10 days in the year, also makes your car pong, why not exercise your arm muscles by winding down your non-electric window?

Complexity Theory posits a law of diminishing returns; each new layer of complexity in a system brings smaller benefits than the last one. At a certain point additional complexity actually reduces the efficiency of the system -- I think modern cars are at that point now.

Driving is such an unsatisfying experience here in the South East I really cannot understand why people spend vast sums on their cars. My neighbours have just remortgaged their house to buy some awful new 4x4 piece of ugly Far East junk-- in ten years it will be crushed and occupying landfill but they will still be paying for it.

Here in suburbia the Saturday morning ritual is compulsive car washing before a trip to the retail park. Call me a fool but I'd rather be walking the dog or reading the paper and drinking fresh coffee.

I'm sympathetic to most of what you write, but:

They're more reliable than that, even with cars notorious for electrical problems. But the main thing I like about them is that when the side windows are misted/wet, at a junction you can lower the passenger one easily and thus see more.

cheers, clive

But if the air con is on, then they are not misty anyway!!

mrcheerful

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Clive George" saying something like:

Pah; just pull out - you can tell by the bang if you've timed it wrong.

Under the bonnet of my 1.2 Fabia all the parts have VW/VAG labels on them. It is basically a VW Polo, but much cheaper.

A Railman

AAUI, the Fabia was the test bed platform for the new shape Polo. They released the fabia, ironed out the problems, and then put the new skin on it, and called it the Polo.

Pretty much the same with the Seat Ibiza.

The odd thing now is that the Polo Estate is going to be a re-badged Ibiza estate.

Argh!

Pete.