Skoda Octavia vRS (Mk4) | PH Used Buying Guide
All the family car you'll ever need makes just as much sense used as new...
- Available for £20,000
- 2.0 litre four-cylinder turbo, front-wheel drive
- Steady rather than exciting, but immensely capable
- Core vehicle had no common problems…
- … but the infotainment system was glitchy and frustrating
- Spacious, solid, quick, still a great ‘Swiss Army knife’ choice
OVERVIEW
This time we’re looking at the petrol-powered 245hp version of the fourth-generation Octavia vRS, which was announced by Skoda in late 2019 for deliveries in the second half of 2020 (which turned into early 2021).
Before we get into it let’s have a quick chat about the vRS name, which has been a source of confusion for some. Standing for ‘victory Rally Sport’, vRS has always been the ‘correct’ term for UK market cars. Skoda UK was originally going to go with a simple RS for its hot models but they were frightened off by Ford who reckoned that it would amount to a form of trading-off on their own long-established use of that acronym for its motorsport-themed cars. Having said all that, if you look at the V5 registration doc of a vRS it will almost definitely say RS on there, with no vs to be seen anywhere.
In terms of differences between a vRS and an RS, there are none – it’s the same car. If you’d like to read more about the whole Octavia vRS history, PH once again comes to your educational rescue with this Origin Story.
The gen-four Octavia continued this model’s magical tradition of conjuring up crazy amounts of interior space from what was nothing more than a Golf chassis. For its part, the vRS version continued its reputation for providing strong performance at a competitive price. As usual it came in hatch or estate versions. The estates have always been seen as great all-rounders capable of tickling your driving buds and transporting your brood and all their tracklements, though ideally not at the same time if you wanted to minimise the crying in the back. In reality many found they didn’t actually need a vRS estate as the hatch had such an enormous boot. That is reflected in the gen-four vRS split on the used market, where hatches outnumber estates by a factor of around 2.5 to one.
As noted at the start, we’re concentrating on the 245hp/273lb ft TSI 2.0 TSI petrol models here. A 200hp 2.0 TDI diesel vRS was available. That had the option of all-wheel drive, which put it on a 6.7-second par with the 245hp petrol car over the 0-62mph run, but the petrols were exclusively front-drive. In the old days 273lb ft from 1,600rpm would definitely have caused rowdiness in a front-driver but the gen-four vRS had a traction-boosting electronic VAQ differential as standard. It also came with a DSG twin-clutch gearbox on launch, a six-speed manual coming slightly later. Even allowing for the DSG’s head start there was a strong preference for it in the UK. For every manual you’ll see there’ll be four autos.
The cheapest gen-four petrol vRS we found when we were putting this guide together in July 2024 was a blue 2021 manual hatch with 59,000 miles at £19,995. The cheapest estate we spotted at the time of writing was a 35,000-mile ‘21 auto in eye-popping Hyper Green at £23,895.
SPECIFICATION | SKODA OCTAVIA VRS (2021-on)
Engine: 1,984cc, four-cyl turbo
Transmission: 6-speed manual or 7-speed DSG auto, front-wheel drive
Power (hp): 245@5,000-6,700rpm
Torque (lb ft): 273@1,600-4,300rpm
0-62mph (secs): 6.7
Top speed (mph): 155
Weight (kg): 1,475
MPG (official combined): 37.7
CO2 (g/km): 160
Wheels (in): 19
Tyres: 225/40
On sale: 2021 - on
Price new: from £31,495 (2021) or £33,945 (2023)
Price now: from £20,000
Note for reference: car weight and power data are hard to pin down with absolute certainty. For consistency, we use the same source for all our guides. We hope the data we use is right more often than it’s wrong. Our advice is to treat it as relative rather than definitive.
ENGINE & GEARBOX
It wasn’t the smoothest engine ever made, but the Garrett turbocharged EA888 2.0 did a fine job in the vRS, especially with the DSG automatic gearbox fitted. Not only did it make the car fast, busting it through the 0-62mph run in a genuine and repeatable 6.7sec and going on to 155mph, it was also well suited to relaxed motorway cruising thanks to the long-legged seventh cog. Adaptive cruise control – a £700 option – made the most of that characteristic.
If the standard performance wasn’t enough for you, Stage 1 tuning with no hardware mods lifted power and torque from 245hp/273lb ft to 340hp/353lb ft, or 369lb ft with a gearbox recalibration.
The noise created by the Soundaktor sound generator wasn’t all that natural but some (including PH’s own correspondent) didn’t mind that because they thought it made the vRS sound more like a V8 than an inline four. If you didn’t like it you could disable it, but you had to do that before every drive. For a more permanent solution you could disconnect the battery and remove fuse number 59. Or you could take the whole gubbins out. We believe it’s near the wiper motor mechanism but don’t quote us on that.
The DSG box was predictably excellent, delivering upshifts more or less instantaneously on the paddles and with only a slight delay on downshifts. The car’s stop-start system was able to sense when the vehicle ahead was moving away and in response smartly start your engine for a timely departure. That was in addition to the normal throttle-activated restart.
The official fuel consumption figure of just under 38mpg could easily be improved on a run to over 40mpg (and reputedly over 50mpg in manuals) but urban trundling could knock the DSG back to 25mpg. A realistic real-world average would be somewhere in the low to mid 30s.
Normal oil and inspection services at Skoda UK dealers in mid-2024 were priced at £220, or £263 with a new pollen filter. ‘Extended scope’ services were recommended at year three or 30,000 miles, and then every two years or 20,000 miles after that. The cost of an oil/inspection service with the extended scope was £285. You could spread the cost of servicing and maintenance through interest-free payment options.
A safety recall was issued in 2022 to fix loosely-attached engine covers.
CHASSIS
Irrespective of the performance, if you were looking for a safe-handling and spacious family car the vRS definitely deserved a place on your shortlist. Its ride height was 15mm lower than the regular Octavia’s, and ride quality wasn’t what you’d call plush. First buyers could pay an extra £995 for the adaptively-damped Dynamic Chassis Control. A car thus specced is well worth seeking out on the used market because these dampers brought a welcome degree of pliancy to the ride in Comfort mode as well as tighter body control in the sportier settings.
The gen-four’s ‘progressive dynamic’ variable-ratio electronic steering gave you the best of all worlds – nicely reactive and high-geared in town, slower and steadier at higher speeds – and felt more predictable than the old hydraulic system used on earlier vRS Octavias. The VAQ electronic diff could send up to 100 percent of available power to either front wheel. It worked really well. Overall the vRS was good to drive but not quite as much fun as the Golf GTI.
Lane-keeping assistance was part of the standard spec. You couldn’t turn that off permanently. As with the fake sound, you had to disable it at the start of every drive. If you forgot to do so and went to change lanes without indicating the steering would yank you unceremoniously back into your lane. That was no different to any other car fitted with a similar system.
The upgraded braking system with bigger (17-inch) discs at the front was perfectly adequate for the performance. A recall was issued in early 2024 on DSG-gearboxed Octavias and Superbs sold between 2020 and 2024 to sort out an incorrectly fitted heat shield between the brake master cylinder and the exhaust. In the worst case scenario this could cause a fire and, in the understated language typically used for recalls, ‘a reduction in braking performance’.
BODY
The gen-four was a handsome car, especially in wagon form, but it could be hard to immediately distinguish it from the gen-three facelift. From the front the newer car had a double-slat black grille above a deeper front bumper section with honeycomb infill. It didn’t have the gen-three’s obvious trim piece vertically splitting the headlights, which on the gen-four had become brilliant (in every sense) full LED Matrix adaptive units. The big ‘vents’ in the corners of the bumper were actually only functional at the extreme outside edges.
In profile, the old car’s door swage line ran more in parallel with the sill than the newer model’s, where it had a distinct downward slope from front to back. The gen-four has a more bluff rear end than its predecessor, and ‘SKODA’ written across the tailgate in individual black letters replaced the gen-three’s round Skoda badge. The hatch had aero flaps, a bootlid spoiler and a diffuser in gloss black, that finish also being used for the door mirror housings and window frames. The estate had black roof bars as standard. The rear windows were blacked out. The trapezoidal tailpipe trim pieces were a front for conventional round exhaust tips.
Options included a panoramic roof and a fold-out towbar. Blind spot detection wasn’t standard. Special vRS paints like the Hyper Green mentioned earlier or the spiffy Race Blue were £600. Meteor Grey looked great on these but you don’t see many of them for sale, presumably because their owners are keeping them.
Some cars have had trouble with the fuel filler cap flaps freezing shut.
INTERIOR
The vRS cabin was nicely understated, really roomy front and rear, and generally rather agreeable. The black fabric front seats were heated and supportive without being overly ‘clampy’ as they could be in cars like the Hyundai i30N. The familiar Virtual Cockpit with extra Sport layouts was present and correct, as was a 10.2-inch-screened infotainment system. You also got carbon optic decorative strips, LED ambient lighting, aluminium pedals, a scattering of vRS logos and red stitches across the armrests, an Alcantara-covered instrument panel and a new multifunction three-spoke flat-bottomed leather wheel with knurled chrome controls. Better yet it had proper physical buttons rather than the touch-oversensitive ones found on some Volkswagens.
Which brings us to the Apple/Android compatible infotainment system. Well, infotainment was only a part of what it did, and that was arguably part of its downfall. Although Skoda did retain some physical shortcut buttons for climate and driving modes the touchscreen still played too big a part in everyday driving. Adjusting the climate beyond the talents of the shortcut button was a confusing and needlessly complicated process, and a potentially dangerous one if you were trying to do it while you were driving. The annoyance level was heightened on a typically bumpy British road when accurate screen-stabbing became a circus-level skill. The driving mode button was a long way away from the driver, especially on right-hand drive cars, and it couldn’t be used to cycle through the modes – you had to go back to the screen for that, which seemed bonkers.
The system wasn’t glitch-free. There could be popping and crackling from the speakers when using Bluetooth audio. Saved climate and radio settings might disappear, requiring a tiresome reset. The CarPlay icon might not appear. The sat-nav became overly bright at night after an ‘upgrade’ and as far as we’re aware you couldn’t darken it to your taste. The nav could sometimes get the idea that you were many miles away from your actual location. Some cars have generated SOS messages without being asked. Finding a quick and permanent fix for that particular fault has eluded more than one dealer. Info screens could take a while to load, or you could have a complete blackout, especially in the early days of the gen-four. Again, software upgrades were put out to try and counter this.
The Alcantara dash was nice but some of the other interior materials like the fake carbon on the dash and the plasticky gear selector were too budgety. The fabric used on the rear seats was different to (and not as nice as) the stuff used up front. On the plus side, even with the front seats’ high backs, the Octavia’s deep side windows fended off any coal-hole sensations for the littluns in the back.
Cabin storage was brilliant, well thought-out and generous. It was nice to have a USB-C port next to the rear-view mirror as that allowed you to plug in ancillary kit like dashcams without the need for cables dangling down by your danglers. On the downside of that, if you’re of a certain type, all the other ports were USB-C (two front, two rear) with no old-school USB ports or cig lighter socket.
The gen-four Octavia was the first Skoda to come with a head-up display. Other standard vRS features were keyless entry and all-round parking sensors with manoeuvre assist, which detected obstacles and could put the brakes on if you were for some unaccountable reason ignoring the warnings.
Options included half-leather seats, electric seat adjustment, and wireless phone charging at £300. Annoyingly a reversing camera also had to be paid for, and it wasn’t cheap at £600, but for some reason that camera package also included dynamic indicators which were quite swish. If you didn’t want to spring for that you could always glue a mirror into the free driver’s door umbrella and hold it out of the window while reversing. Puddle lights projecting ‘SKODA’ onto the ground were surprisingly useful if you lived in the country and weren’t sure what you might be stepping into.
By common consent the Skoda cabin was less accomplished than that of the Golf GTI when it came to filtering out external noise, both from the tyres and from the wind which could be an issue in the Octavia’s A-pillar/window region. Rattles from the doors were not uncommon either. The 600 watt, 12-speaker Canton audio was a reasonable box to tick for around £500, but for a long time global microchip shortages effectively blocked this option for vRS buyers as Skoda felt it had to concentrate on cars that had the better system setup fitted as standard.
Even before you started folding the rear seat backs down, the hatch’s 600 litre boot (640 in the estate) was about 50 per cent bigger than anything else in the class. For bigger loads only the seat backs went down, so the space wasn’t anything like flat and there was a ridge to overcome too, but that was a small price to pay for your newly enlarged space of over 1,500 litres (in the hatch, the estate was even bigger). Catches just inside the boot made seatback-dropping easy and the tailgate was powered.
PH VERDICT
Where do you stand on Skodas? Prices of all cars including Skodas have gone up in recent years, but there are some who feel that Skoda quality has gone down at the same time, dictated (so they say) by VW’s need to balance the books in the post-Emissionsgate era. Taking a less conspiratorial view on it, that perception of reduced quality could just be a backlash from the gen-one Octavia vRS days at the start of this century when Skoda was enjoying its reputation as a purveyor of super-robust and great value vehicles.
Objectively though, the vRS in either hatch or estate forms still stands up well as a kind of automotive Swiss Army knife, an easygoing Golf GTI in disguise for those who prefer their motoring to be value- rather than image-based and who aren’t bothered by nuances that might only be picked up by road testers. You wouldn’t call the vRS a hot hatch (or a hot estate) because that term implies a degree of excitement that the Skoda didn’t really have, but there was no denying its qualities as a highly efficient long journey-maker. Next time you see a Skoda ‘jam sandwich’ (note for overseas readers, that’s a police car) on UK roads, chances are it will be a vRS. The BIB (boys in blue) know a good car when they see one, or indeed when they are chasing miscreants in one.
What are the alternatives? The Golf GTI was superior to the vRS both dynamically and in its more premium feel. Not by much, but by enough to justify its £2k higher price. The Cupra Leon had 310hp and all-wheel drive and was available as an estate but it was also £4k more expensive. Hyundai’s i30N wasn’t as spacious as the Octavia but most would find it a nicer drive. Skoda’s own £3k+ more expensive 1.4 hybrid petrol version of the vRS delivered the same 245hp as the 2.0 we’ve looked at here and gave you nearly 40 miles worth of engine-free motoring, but it was 130kg heavier than the petrol vRS and you could only get it as an automatic. It didn’t have the VAQ electronic diff either, and you lost 150 litres of boot space.
Overall you should have no major worries about entering into a relationship with a gen-four vRS. Admittedly, the Volkswagen group’s infotainment system didn’t do it any favours but, crashes apart, that was something you could eventually get used to if you felt that Skoda was doing its best to put things right. That was, by a long way, the car’s weakest feature. We found no common problems for the core vehicle in either the drivetrain or the chassis.
The cheapest gen-four vRS Octavia on PH Classifieds in July 2024 was a ’21 manual hatch with 35,000 miles at £21k. Hopefully by the time you read this there’ll be some images of it. Just over £26k would bag you this 16,000-mile manual hatch from 2023.
I had a car remapped recently, a chap with an older vRS was in at the same time, he was white as a sheet when he came back from his post-map test drive.
It’s basically a detuned 300bhp engine from the factory.
Has anyone settled for a hatchback over an estate, and found it just fine? I've always had estates, but maybe a hatch as large as this and a towbar for the bike rack will do.
My F56 Cooper S did 6.8 to 60, and the performance in that never blew my socks off if you know what I mean.
Anyway I guess it is all moot anyway, because you'd just remap this if you did want more punch in fairness anyway.
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