RE: Shed Of The Week: Skoda Octavia vRS

[QuattroDave]

Just shifted my 2003 53 plate vRS estate in yellow with only 127k and full history. Let the guy have it for a grand dead on as I was buying his 530d and wanted a hassle free sale. Now thinking I probably short changed myself by a couple of hundred but then again I didn't pay too much for his either, horses for courses!

I had mine for over 2 years and it never let me down. It was capable at everything but brilliant at nothing (imo). It was fast but not that fast, it was comfortable but not that comfortable. It could however trickle along at a shade under 70mph and easily achieve north of 40mpg which is quite a thing for an 11 year old petrol and as I found out could swallow a double mattress into the back and still have room to drive safely!

I'll miss the big banana but I do like the extra luxuries the 530d has for when I'm stuck in traffic, which having to commute on the M27 is about 90 minutes every day without fail for a 16 mile round trip!

[s m]

Redbaron1973 said:

nicfaz said:

s m said:

Great shed

"Strong performance".......but never as strong as the original Autocar road test

Yes, one of the best trolls of recent times, delivering the road test car to autocar with a TT spec 225bhp engine in it. I wonder if the Skoda management knew, or it was just someone taking a bit of initiative... I suppose it did represent the kind of performance that was easily achievable if you had a simple map put on it.

Friend owned the actual roadtest car and was definitely not a 225 TT engine in it... however whatever tweaked map it was running was gone by the time it appeared in the dealer network.

I remember them doing a follow up article to that road test in the EOY special

[iloveboost]

I can't argue with that at all for less than £1K. The SOTW I'd be most likely to buy, if I had to buy a car for a grand.

[P4ROT]

I sense there are two distinct camps of oppinion; I'm afraid I fall into the 'it's boring' group.

[Emeye]

I can't read these "Shed thinks" article without cringing, so I didn't and skipped down to the advert, but...

Did anyone else stop reading the advert at "affectionately known as 'Lightning'".

ETA - that engine has millions of sensors - when one goes wrong it can be a bugger to trace which one.

[QuattroDave]

Emeye said:

I can't read these "Shed thinks" article without cringing, so I didn't and skipped down to the advert, but...

Did anyone else stop reading the advert at "affectionately known as 'Lightning'".

ETA - that engine has millions of sensors - when one goes wrong it can be a bugger to trace which one.

I wasn't aware of it having any more sensors than other cars of the era. But then with my Bluetooth ELM327, a copy of Vagcom & Torque pro even if mine did have a sensor problem it wouldn't have taken long to find.

[Emeye]

QuattroDave said:

Emeye said:

I can't read these "Shed thinks" article without cringing, so I didn't and skipped down to the advert, but...

Did anyone else stop reading the advert at "affectionately known as 'Lightning'".

ETA - that engine has millions of sensors - when one goes wrong it can be a bugger to trace which one.

I wasn't aware of it having any more sensors than other cars of the era. But then with my Bluetooth ELM327, a copy of Vagcom & Torque pro even if mine did have a sensor problem it wouldn't have taken long to find.

I suppose my point is they are not as reliable as I have seen suggested - I've had a few cars with this, or similar engines. When my last MK1 TT had an EGR sensor failure, the errors were reporting all sorts of possible sensors were faulty and not the one it turned out to be!

Research helped and I got there in the end, as did my issue where the engine was missing - all reported faults led to the injectors being faulty, which is a very common fault, but in the end it was the wiring loom just down from the injectors that had rubbed through the insulation - I wrapped it up with electrical tape and the problem was cured!

Edited by Emeye on Friday 23 January 17:00

[LC2]

Emeye said:

I can't read these "Shed thinks" article without cringing, so I didn't and skipped down to the advert, but...

Did anyone else stop reading the advert at "affectionately known as 'Lightning'".

ETA - that engine has millions of sensors - when one goes wrong it can be a bugger to trace which one.

Nowt wrong with cars called Lightning

As long as it's vaguely accurate

God shed though, reads as if it's been looked after.

[nicfaz]

angelicupstarts said:

nicfaz said:

angelicupstarts said:

weight is only 90 kg heavier in tt
1375 kg to 1465 kg
audi tt is 0 to 60 in 6.4
standard skoda 0 to 60 7.6
so would need boost of 25 to 30 % to get to same level of 0 to 60
so to be faster and pull away would need 50 increase to boost ? hard to get
plust aud is more slippery on cd aero ... flat under car e.t.c ..so would go audis way there as well ....

used to have a friend who drove a old capri ...told me he would blast the doors off a 996 on the way to work everyday ...... but as always ...does the other driver know they are supposed to be racing ?

having said all that i had a vw bora v6 2.8 4 motion ... slower on paper ......but always felt faster then my audi tt 225 .....( one of the most disappointing cars I've ever owned )

Bear in mind that 0-60 flatters 4WD cars quite a lot, as the journo's rev them up to 6k then move their clutch foot straight sideways off the pedal. That results in a really sharp getaway in a 4WD car, but you can only do it a few times before something breaks.

Alternatively, from 40mph on a dry road, 4WD is just extra weight and transmission loss, so a FWD version of the same car would be quicker.

good point , maybe why the tt never felt that fast to me ....felt dead .
have a vvc mgf ..now thats supposed to be a 0 to 60 7 sec car ... so on paper just .5 sec slower then the tt ....but it feels faster .. more responsive .
but as you say on a road from 40 isn ? those are more real world conditions i guess .
think there was a sabb a few years back that had a porsche beating pull from 40 to 70 ?

Yes - Saab 9000 Aero. Period ads said "The 5-speed Saab 9000 Aero will streak from 50 to 75 mph faster than a Ferrari Testarossa or a Porsche Carrera 4."

It was true too, though it did obscure the fact that it was done in top gear and the others had higher top gears because they could achieve higher top speeds. Still impressive...

I've got a Saab 95 Aero and that's the same - rubbish from a standstill as it's FWD, but very quick 40-70 (mildly tuned to 295bhp/325lbft, only 1550kg).

[KM666]

I've got a 150ps l&k with vrs brakes and uprated shocks and springs. I wouldn't recommend them to anybody who values handling. Awful, makes my old astra feel like a sports car in comparison. Everything else about them is average. Mechanical tasks that are simple on other cars are unnecessarily complicated or require special tools. There is no 'right' way to jack them up and put them on stands as the jacking points are the only place you can put axle stands on them, the idea obviously being to push you to dealers, oil change etc no problem, changing shocks or anything in that area needs spreader sockets. Blown bulbs throw up engine lights that can only be turned off with vag com. They rust in the same places as golfs do and the dealers are fkwits where carrying out work correctly is concerned.

[shalmaneser]

nicfaz said:

s m said:

Great shed

"Strong performance".......but never as strong as the original Autocar road test

Yes, one of the best trolls of recent times, delivering the road test car to autocar with a TT spec 225bhp engine in it. I wonder if the Skoda management knew, or it was just someone taking a bit of initiative... I suppose it did represent the kind of performance that was easily achievable if you had a simple map put on it.

Is this actually true? Sounds like hearsay to me!

[Drive Blind]

shalmaneser said:

Is this actually true? Sounds like hearsay to me!

the engine wasn't the standard 180bhp. The performance times it produced were a lot faster than it should have been.

I vaguely remember the Autocar article. They definitely instantly called out that somebody at skoda was being naughty sending them a tuned or remapped car.

[MC Bodge]

KM666 said:

I've got a 150ps l&k with vrs brakes and uprated shocks and springs. I wouldn't recommend them to anybody who values handling. Awful, makes my old astra feel like a sports car in comparison. Everything else about them is average. Mechanical tasks that are simple on other cars are unnecessarily complicated or require special tools. There is no 'right' way to jack them up and put them on stands as the jacking points are the only place you can put axle stands on them, the idea obviously being to push you to dealers, oil change etc no problem, changing shocks or anything in that area needs spreader sockets. Blown bulbs throw up engine lights that can only be turned off with vag com. They rust in the same places as golfs do and the dealers are fkwits where carrying out work correctly is concerned.

Legend has it that a rear anti roll
Bar improves handling a lot.

[Drive Blind]

I've just dug out an old autocar, the 0-100 time was 16.7s

which doesnt add up for 180bhp and 1350kg.

[rpm1969]

I've had my 54 plate for 8 years now, although its been my wife's daily driver and the family car for the last 6.
I think the best way to some them up is that they're great value. Not perfect at anything but very capable. And I've never grown tired of how they look. A few bits have gone wrong, but I'd describe the reliability of mine as very good on the whole.

[aka_kerrly]

Drive Blind said:

I've just dug out an old autocar, the 0-100 time was 16.7s

which doesnt add up for 180bhp and 1350kg.

Coincidentally that is the TT 225 0-100mph time and is quoted as the VRS 0-90mph which seems more accurate as a VRS is circa 15.7 sec quarter at just under 90mph.

Various sources seem to think the 100mph time is nearer 21sec

[MC Bodge]

aka_kerrly said:

Coincidentally that is the TT 225 0-100mph time and is quoted as the VRS 0-90mph which seems more accurate as a VRS is circa 15.7 sec quarter at just under 90mph.

Various sources seem to think the 100mph time is nearer 21sec

Well, re-mapped it felt (and was, compared with a friend's standard car) significantly faster than standard

[SuperHangOn]

Objectively you can't really fault that shed. Totally respectable, relatively modern car which will be safe, reliable (probably) and has a bit of poke too. I would have last weeks v8 money pit though.

[Drive Blind]

other VAG 1.8T Autocar figures 0-100mph

TT 180bhp - 21.2
TT 225bhp - 15.8
S3 210bhp - 16.4
Leon 20VT 180bhp - 20.9
Golf GTi 150bhp - 25.6
Leon cupra R 210bhp - 18.0

[daytona365]

Seems most modern generations of cars are 'sheds' more or less as soon as they leave the showroom. Not like older cars where they did at least allow a bit more/less ? Built in obsolescence !