A year & 9600km with my Skoda Slavia 1.5 MT: What I like, What I don’t

The usage is mainly limited to city so most of the times I can’t enjoy its real power.

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Skoda Slavia Style 1.5 MT 1 year user experience:

ODO :9600 kms

Our first car was Rapid 1.6 Mpi which was bought in 2019, which we actually bought out of an impulsive decision. I really enjoyed driving it, the engine was medicore but the driving experience was great. I had plans to get an Octavia but the price of Octavia skyrocketed with the launch of new gen Octavia and was way out of the budget.

I was waiting for the launch of Slavia as it was the car which ticked almost all the boxes in my checklist. Booked the car in April 2022 in Carbon Steel Grey from Malayalam motors Trivandrum, Kerala. But unfortunately, the dealership was closed down before the delivery of the car. I was in need of the car before September, the sales executive gave us contacts of EVM motors Ernakulam and tried to get a car allotted as early as possible. It was the time Skoda removed the 10-inch entertainment and subwoofer from the lineup. The EVM motors told me that they can try to arrange a car before September but they can’t get one in Carbon Steel grey. I was a bit disappointed as I am not getting the colour of my choice and missing out the wireless android auto.

Then one fine morning hardly a week after I changed my booking to EVM, they called me and asked whether I am interested in a white one with 10-inch infotainment system as someone cancelled their booking, but there is a catch the car is now in Ernakulam but it was initially unloaded at Kannur and was bought there by driving. My thoughts were like should I get that one or should I wait and try my luck, whether I should get a car which might be rashly driven in the initial 250 kms. I called them up and told them I am interested but I will pay only after I see the car in the yard, they agreed. I went to see the car after a week in their yard, checked it thoroughly for anything suspicious, checked whether their story of the car matched the kms driven and the date of manufacture. Found everything to be believable and paid the advance amount and then informed bank to release the payment. Took a number of my choice and then took the car home.

Ever since I was sure about the colour of the car, I was asking quotations from different detailers in Trivandrum for Dechroming and wrapping the roof in black. I got a nice deal from Autowize Detailers Trivandrum and finalised the deal even before the delivery of the car. Took the car next day after delivery to the detailers and they did a wonderful job of dechroming it and wrapping the roof in black and did a graphene coating for 3 years.

Things I love:

• The engine and gearbox combo. there are no words to describe it’s really awesome. There is a bit of turbo lag which I experience in full load but its manageable. The usage is mainly limited to city so most of the times I can’t enjoy its real power. This car is made for the highways. Yet to do a long highway trip , probably will do it next week .
• Headlights. Coming from the candle lights of rapid this is huge upgrade for me these ones look good and illuminates the road well but on rainy weather I found it a little bit weak

Things I am ok with:

Fuel efficiency: I usually get a full tank of fuel when the DTE is around 120 kms. Used only XP95 till date. I am getting average of 10.5-11.5 kmpl in tank-to-tank method. This is mainly because I drive with a heavy right foot and my commute is during peak city traffic hours. The best I got was around 17 kmpl for a trip of 250kms at night.

Things I hate:

• Poor Ac performance. It really suffers from poor ac when there are 4/5 passengers, my rapid used to give decent cooling but Slavia fails miserable in that. In rapid I used to set the temperature around 23 and leave it as such in auto mode, but in Slavia I always put it in 21 if there is no one at back and at 19 if there are passengers in back
• Rattling sounds from dashboard. Its really annoying that there are rattling sounds from a car which is hardly a year of age, I don’t know how it will stand the test of time. The rattling increases if the car is parked in the sunlight for a long period of time.
• Cost cutting: I don’t know why Skoda choose to do so many cost cuttings, at least they should have included the features that were present in the Rapid. 1) Height adjustable seatbelts. 2) One touch up and down for all windows. I really wonder why they cut this feature in Slavia, only driver side have this and that was also buggy and got resolved now after the first service

Acessories installed:

Underhood insulation : I have done it mainly to reduce the bonnet heat as it tends to get very hot quickly , now its resolved:

Rear sunblind : Got it installed during my first service , I think the part is a little bit small for the rear glass , but it looks good when viewed from outside:

Bosch Frameless wipers : The stock wipers on the car was really bad and started to leave streaks so changed them to Bosch Clear advantage 26’ and 18’ and they work nicely now:

Dechroming and wrapping the roof black . This is one of the things which I love , it really changed the looks of the car , I found it more appealing:

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