SKODA’S original first generation Fabia used to be a car that came with qualified praise at its launch back in 2000; writes Jonathan Crouch. 

‘It’s good for a Skoda’, ‘it offers a lot of bang for your buck’, ‘it’s set to break into the big league’ and so on.

Read between the motoring journalist-speak and it was clearly a car that offered a decent deal for the money but couldn’t level with the best superminis.

Much of that changed when Skoda relaunched the Fabia in second generation guise in 2007. It was suddenly a car to be taken very seriously.

The qualifiers suddenly disappeared from the road test verdicts and the Skoda faithful looked rightly smug.

The car we look at here is the facelifted version of the second generation Fabia, introduced in 2010 and running through to generation three, which was launched at the end of 2014.

Here’s what to look for.

The Fabia hasn’t always enjoyed a spotless reputation for reliability, with the first generation cars having quite a patchy record. The second gen model tightened quality up markedly and the facelifted version went another stage further.

There are still some residual electrical and suspension niggles that have refused to go away, but on the whole, the Fabia scores well above average for reliability.

Make sure the air conditioning system works as advertised and that the shock absorbers on diesel models still work properly.

The Skoda Fabia makes a great used buy, particularly in the updated second generation guise we’ve been looking at here.

Unfortunately, plenty of people have cottoned onto that fact, so despite there being a lot of stock available, you might have to move fast if you want to snag a genuine bargain.

The Greenline and vRS models both look like winners, although the best value might just be found on a 1.2-litre petrol variant. It’s hard to pick a duffer from the entire range.

Just make sure all the electrical components work as advertised and that it’s been serviced on the button.