Geek42

The problem with a 24 month deal is that the £2250 down is equivalent to almost an extra £100/month. Factoring in an extra £500 for my mileage this deal quoted at £159 is nearer to £270 a month to me, and would cost almost £6.5k over 2 years. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with PCP or PCH, if you really want a new car and like to swap it every couple of years then this is probably miles better than stumping up the cash for one up front, but if you're happy to keep a car for a lot longer then I'd always buy nearly new (up to 1 yr is OK for me), or make sure you get a heavy discount (£17.5k for my car new would have been fine, but I'd never have paid list price for it). I used to pick up cars for as little as possible (always <£500), run them 'til the broke then scrap 'em and start the whole thing again. Coming from that history I consider my 9-12 month old purchases to be pretty well new anyway! I had hoped as I got older and more financially secure that I might be able to treat myself to a brand new car by now, but my children seem to have a large claim on my cash flow these days. Maybe when I'm old and retired...

I have a '13 plate Elegance, and I got it over the SE for the centre armrest, cruise control and sat nav primarily, although there was quite a list of differences on the '13 plate (I particularly like the alcantara seats as it happens). My two penneth about new vs. used and cash vs. PCP/PCH takes the form of a challenge to all the new car addicts: List price for my car (with a couple of options) would have been £21k, give or take. When I was buying the online broker price (as first registered keeper, UK spec) was around £17.5k. I bought a 1yr old car with 14k miles on the clock for £14.5k I plan to keep it a while, so if you assume that I drop £12k over 6 years that's £2k/yr or <£170k/month. My last car was a 9 month old Focus that was filled with extras for which I paid £12.3k, and when I chopped it in almost 6 years and just over 80k miles later I got £2.4k for it. That's less than £10k net over almost 6 years doing 14k miles/yr. Show me the PCP/PCH deal that betters that and I might buy my first ever new car...

Yes, it's the guaranteed price that the dealer will effectively buy it back at, irrespective of its actual value. Nobody can guarantee the value. I've never done it but from what I understand about PCP you are taking out a contract to buy a car in its entirety, including the balloon payment. The option to hand the keys back at the end is basically the dealer buying it off you for the GFV which happens (by design of course) to be the amount needed to clear the balloon payment. Obviously, if it's worth more then you don't take the GFV and haggling over the exact terms begins, effectively linked to a new PCP, which looks like rolling equity into the next car, but I bet legally they're two separate transactions. If it's worth less then that's their problem, which is kind of the sales pitch I suppose. I'm no contract lawyer, but I guess that this is also why the mileage adjustment can be applied when handing it back at the end, but not when VT-ing. At the end the GFV is invoked to clear the debt, but GFV was linked to the mileage in the contract and is a transaction in its own right based on the agreement, whereas VT-ing is genuinely just handing it back, doesn't constitute a new transaction and rips up the agreement.

First reason was boot space, but I wanted a fairly traditional shaped car, not a converted van! The only thing I saw that was genuinely bigger in the rear end without being a van was a Mondeo, but they are much bigger all over, heavier, less efficient and more costly to buy. Also the 1-yr old ones were in crap condition, where the Octavias were in pretty good nick, bar a blemish or two on the paint, which I don't mind (the Mondeo's looked like someone had been living in them at best, at worst like someone had died in them). Once I'd chosen Octavia I went 1.4TSi for the refinement over the 2.0TDi and I chose Elegance for the cruise control, centre armrest, sat nav and a few other toys. I would have preferred 16" wheels, but 17" was the minimum on Elegance, although I believe that the SE L let's you 'downgrade' to 16" (which is an upgrade in my opinion!).

The thing about the torque vs. power thing is that it's not as clear as people think. It is torque that throws you down the road, but it's torque at the road wheel (not at the flywheel) so gearing comes into it and, without turning this into a maths lecture, the gearing affects the engine rpm at a given road speed, and the net effect for a geared vehicle is that road wheel torque is proportional to engine power, not engine torque ...(puts tin hat on)... The thing is that absolute pace and everyday driving are two different things, so the breadth of the power/torque band comes into it as well, but by virtue of it's extra power I would say that the 1.8TSi should be comfortably the fastest of the three engines, but you have to use the upper rev range to get the advantage. In everyday driving the 1.8TSi and 1.4TSi would feel much closer. I drove the 1.4TSi and 2.0TDi when I bought and decided that they were close enough for pace, and whilst the diesel would have been a little cheaper overall it wasn't enough of a difference, so I chose mostly based on refinement and went for the 1.4TSi. For me it was a great choice, and I would make the same one again, but it depends what aspects of driving you prioritise.

I do have a tendency to temporarily stick it in 2D mode and then scroll around a bit to check that I like the route before putting it back in 3D mode to set off. I have it set to fastest route only though, I don't need options from the sat nav, and if I don't like what it says then I just ignore it. It'll recalculate sooner or later!

Nail...head....etc. We're discussing net cost like it's the defining factor, but ultimately the cheapest car for you is the one you already have in 99.9% of cases. Really it comes down to wanting a new car. When my last car was sick in an apparently not fully diagnosable way the worst case scenario was a >£3k outlay, but it would probably still have been the most economic option long term. There's value, and therefore a price to be paid, for peace of mind though, and ultimately the swinger for me was that I actually wanted to replace it anyway and it was a good excuse (and something to tell the wife). My father-in-law chopped in a 4-year old non-turbo Fiesta 1.4 for a new Fiesta 1.0 ecoboost. He was sold on it by the salesman telling him how much money he would save with the improvement in fuel economy. When he told me that this was the reason I laughed, because really he got it coz he wanted a new car and the salesman gave him a way to kid himself it was the sensible decision (and gave him something to tell the wife). Deep down he new he wasn't saving any money, but I bet it's a better drive than the old gutless 1.4, so he's probably over the moon with it.

This is a whole other thread, and a total argument starter if previous discussions are anything to go by....but.... have you tried winter tyres? Have you seen the Snowdome footage where the 2WD / winter tyre combo pastes the 4WD / summer tyre combo in ski slope climbing terms?

A lot of what you say seems logical, but I will make no comment on whether PCP was mis-sold, either morally or in law. Whatever your opinion of the selling techniques though you can't blame them for filling the factory?! Every manufacturer of every product type in the world wants a full factory as, given the fixed overhead, anything else is commercial suicide.

I once tried to add up all the associated costs of owning and running a car, in order to compare several different makes/models. I quickly realised that (depending on your mileage) the two big costs are depreciation and fuel, and the rest of it makes for small differences by comparison. Since I normally keep a car until it's worth very little this distils (for me) into a comparison of purchase price and fuel economy. I also like the idea that the depreciation shouldn't cost me any more than the fuel, and with my current mileage this equates to about £1800 a year. I bought mine for £14.5k, so if you assume I might get a couple of grand for it when it goes then I'm going to drop £12.5k, which means I need to keep it for at least 7 years (and something around 100k miles) to make this equation work, but ultimately I'll keep it until something really bad goes wrong with it (my last vehicle went when it had suspicions about the DPF, EGR and turbo simultaneously - not that I knew they'd all gone but it wasn't clear which was the problem and it was suggested a bit of trial and error was the only way to find out at a possible total cost of over £3k!). Whether you consider £150 a month to buy a used car and keep it for 7 years as good value compared to a PCH is entirely a personal choice, although I'm obviously hoping to keep it long enough to reduce this figure further. That or until I suddenly come into more money and buy something that smells of a mid-life crisis!

I've never done a PCP, but from what I read on here I would have thought you were in a position to VT? With just over 12k left to pay on a vRS you must have paid more than 50%? Or is the vRS not as expensive as I thought (I may be thinking of the L&K figures I saw discussed)?

I never understood this sentiment. I agree that the wheels look a bit small for the arches, but it's the gap that looks wrong to me, and that's a function of the whole wheel/tyre combination rather than the rim size. If I wasn't such a wuss and a stickler for keeping things standard I'd be tempted to try adding 5 to the tyre profile without changing anything else. Slightly larger overall diameter and 15mm off the suspension would look better, but bigger rims doesn't solve the issue for me (and it doesn't bother me enough to make me get my wallet out anyway!)

But not if you go for the Elegance! I don't know if there's a weight difference, but the 17-inch wheels are almost certainly detrimental to CO2 emissions (on paper at least). Personally I'd rather have the 16's anyway, but that wasn't an option with Elegance trim. The newer SE-L comes with 17's as standard but there is a no cost 16-inch option, so with the slightly lower consumption of the 150 vs. the 140 and 16-inch rims I'd say the SE-L is almost certainly a lower tax band than the older Elegance.

To be fair, 4th and 6th are far too close together in the manual. With the torque that's available at low revs it could easily handle much longer legs.

Interesting discussion, but mostly I agree with your conclusion... mine is only 140PS, but you're correct that it "rocks"! Some comments: My town driving is less extreme that yours, average speeds up into the high teens, and I get about 40mpg on the maxidot. I guess high 20's in a hot country with aircon on, averaging 9mph doesn't sound so bad. Highway - I had a trip last week where I was early for every meeting, so cruised at 60mph on the motorway, with cruise, and averaged 60.5mpg on the maxidot. Normally I'm getting just under 50. If I drive everywhere at 90mph (not in this country, obviously) I can get down into the 40-42 range. I only see less than 40mpg when I'm in a good mood on an empty B-road, but it's not that often as you only get empty roads round here when I'm asleep. Regarding the effect of climate control, I find it does impact fuel economy with low speed start-stop driving, but if you're doing 70-80mph the impact is negligible. Kind of the opposite to the effect of opening the window really, although yesterday was a definite windows up, air con ON day!

Brilliant news, well done for getting there in the end. Well done also for keeping your cool and going through 'proper channels', giving them the chance to keep digging themselves into the hole. Many of us would have lost our cool and may have made matters worse! Thanks also for the regular updates, I for one would have more confidence to stand my ground and more of an idea what to do about it having read this.

The technical aspects of this answer seem correct, but are you not ignoring the effect of modern electronically controlled ignition? There shouldn't be any pinking as the electronics would detect any tiny amount that occurred and instantly modify the timing. This is the reason that any performance / economy improvement would need several tanks of super to obtain, as the computer goes instantly conservative on the first hint of pinking, but is quite cautious about going back the other way to make use of any octane improvement. There are, of course, extra additives in with the higher RON rating, the benefit of which may or may not be significant but I'm not qualified to assess that.

Agree with some of the comments above - there's no real difference. For what it's worth, I believe that there is some variation in the way the user manuals are written. There is a difference between something that can be paraphrased as "should use 97/98, but can use 95 if needed although you will get less performance" and something that can be paraphrased as "Designed for 95, but if you stick 97/98 in you might just feel a difference". The 1.4 TSi is in the latter category. I ran mine exclusively on 'super' for 3,000 miles (predominantly shell and occasionally BP), then switched to the 'regular' and noticed no difference whatsoever. Any difference in fuel economy is unmeasurable as it is swamped by variations in route, traffic levels and my mood (the latter being most critical!), certainly the price increase cannot be justified by fuel economy improvement. I have read that there are additional cleaning agents in the 'super' and that it might be good for the injectors, so I give it the odd tank of the good stuff now and then, but predominantly I'm using the 95 and it's fine.

Define 'much'. The list price of my car is around £21k once you've added metallic paint and a spare wheel. It's no sports car, but it's plenty quick enough for me, and has all the kit that I need (primarily what I want is cruise control and a DAB radio, and I like an auto-dipping rearview mirror and a centre front armrest, but the rest is fluff). The cheapest XE lists at £27k. Now consider that online brokers offer 10% off a jag and 18% off my car (at least that's what it was when I was buying). Now consider that a 1yr old jag with 15k miles on the clock is still only 10% off list, and my car at the same age is 30% off list. The XE is also more expensive to own and run in every way. By my reckoning sterling would have to halve in value before an XE is comparable financially, although I will grant you that it would be a nicer place to sit and I wouldn't at all mind having one! And, being serious for just one minute, a car assembled in this country has many components that are imported anyway, so the chances are that the price of a british built car would be under pressure as well (although to a lesser degree).

I guess you've got a manual? I think it's supposed to be something like 27 or 28 mph/1000rpm, but the DSG does more like 32 or 33. I'd like to try a 1.4TSi with the manual gearbox out of the 2.0TDi and a remap to give 300Nm/170PS. Since these cars are supposed to be modular now it may be possible, but I've no intention of messing with a perfectly good gearbox. If it ever breaks though...

OK, I can buy that. I've found the best way to improve fuel economy is to focus more on the brake pedal. The perfect eco-driver doesn't need brakes! Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk

Are you sure you're comparing the same 1.0 engine? Maybe it's just unfair to compare it to a vRS? The light-pressure turbo providing low-down torque is a feature of these new downsized petrols, such that I consider my 1.4TSi to be almost a little diesel-like in the driving experience. A long time ago I had an 8v 2.0i Cavalier (115bhp) and more recently a 16v 2.0i Mondeo (~140bhp) and the 1.4TSi is MUCH faster than both of them. In fact, I'd describe the Mondeo as totally gutless (something to do with 25% weight penalty as well, maybe), but the 1.4TSi has loads more torque and delivers it from much lower down the rev range. The 3-cylinder 1.0 is a more extreme version of downsizing than the 1.4, I admit, but these engines are not designed to be used at 6k rpm (in fact, I reckon mine is faster if you don't red line it and keep the revs more in the mid-band).

http://www.skoda.co.uk/models/new-octavia-hatch/performance I didn't download the brochure, I went to the 'model page' which has only 1.4 and 2.0 options for petrol.

It doesn't exist on the Skoda UK website yet, but there are reviews online from several of the usual motoring press suspects, who all have it down as 148lbft or 200Nm. 250Nm is obviously better, but 200Nm should be OK in an Octavia. I think 148 would be inadequate had that been the case, but it doesn't look like it is. The general gist of the reviews is that it goes OK, but it's not very refined, which I can believe.

I thought I read 148 lb.ft, which is ~200Nm, although I hear what you're saying about the narrower band.