roaddetective

When buying my previous MK2 fl Octavia VRS TSI, I had to travel 160 miles to see it and buy. With my present Octavia VRS I had to travel around the same distance to pick it up. In other words, to get a good VRS petrol, as they are hard to find, you might have to travel to buy. With both cars, I bought in a way I never thought I would ever do. Got all the info I wanted about the independent family owned dealership on the MK2 and asked a lot of questions to the salesman. Put down a £500 deposit on the condition if it was not as described, I would get my deposit back. The MK2 was perfect. With my present VRS, did the same thing, but this time I bought from Marshal Skoda, it was one of their cars they had used themselves for the first 9 months from new. Turned up and the car was again as described, perfect. I actually spent a few thousand pounds extra for this one than I had originally planned, it was just so perfect for me. They are hard to find, but if you are prepared to travel, snap it up quick before somebody else buys it. Just had it remapped as well yesterday, boy they can be extremely fast!!

Hopefully the clutch will be fine for a while, but if not I will have an uprated one fitted. As for the extra heat, it's not going to ever be used on a track and I certainly don't floor it that often. With the odd short blast on an overtake for instance, I am sure it will be fine. The reason I went with Racingline, is their vast experience in this area and the numerous testing of the product they have made.

Hi Ads230. My car is completely stock, no hardware mods at all. Maybe if ever there is a group dyno check somewhere else, I will see what comes up on their dyno. Can't believe how hard it now pulls though!

VW Group Specialists Swindon. A garage with a lot of excellent reviews. They said they send the printouts via email, as well as possibly putting a video of my car on social media. The first run on their dyno showed in his words, a very healthy car. As usual with these TSI motors, it was running from the factory with more than the 230hp Skoda state. That gave them a good starting point. Might post the printout on here when I get it.

It always seems a lot longer to wait when you are so looking forward to getting it done. You may have read on another post I made regarding Racingline maps and are they worth the extra money. I decided to go with Racingline in the end and had it done yesterday. The car is now running 329bhp with 499nm of torque. Boy am I happy. Let us all know how your car feels after being mapped.

I went the easy route when I needed to update my maps on Skoda SD card. I don't trust myself to not mess it up if I download new maps onto card, so I bought a genuine Skoda SD card with updated maps on it from Rustynuts, a member on here. From my old memory it was only around £20 and has been working perfectly ever since.

I think so, although you can never be 100% certain it was worth it, until you stick all the other maps on your car to test them. Chris at the garage did say after the job was done, I had made the best decision going with the Racingline OEM map, as he generally gets the best results with this one, compared with some others he has used. They used to also use SA Tuning maps, but now as well as Racingline they use Ecotune instead. He did not put any sales pressure on me beforehand to spend more money on Racingline, Just talked about it afterwards. As I am keeping this still quite young vehicle a few years, I just though sod the extra money, try to fit one of the best maps on the market. I certainly know on my drive home afterwards, it brought a smile to my withered craggy old face. Lol

So as I mentioned earlier, my car went in for a Racingline OEM stage one remap today. Bloody hell is it now fast! The guy said he started with an extremely healthy engine according to the first run on the dyno. As usual with these engines they usually show better bhp and torque than Skoda quote as standard, as was the case with mine. With the stage one map put in, it then showed 329bhp with 499nm of torque. It was running on Tesco 99ron at the time. It still has the rubbish Pirelli Zero tyres on from new, so I have booked it into another garage for 2 new Michelin PS4S this Thursday. No good having the power if you can't put it down. Very very impressed with the end result after my 30mile drive home. I did say to the guy, have you got a very kind dyno, as the power and torque were above Racingline quoted figures. He said the one they use cost £120k and is very accurate. One day perhaps I will get it on a dyno somewhere else to see what comes up. Never mind the figures though, I LOVE IT. Now I just have to remember the classic line from the film Spiderman, "with power comes responsibility".

The other day on the Blackcircles web site they were offering £15 off if you bought 2 PS4S tyres, but today it had gone. I guess I paid too much for the convenience of getting them delivered and fitted local. Cost, £320. Stop laughing themanwithnoaim, that's just cruel. LOL

I paid a fair bit more than that, although they get delivered at a local garage and the price includes fitting and balancing. Might have to look into Costco for the future.

Made the decision on tyres and just ordered 2 via Black circles web site. I have gone with the Mitchelin PS4S.

Don't mind a little extra noise, if they give me far more straight line grip, especially in the wet. With tyre noise I just turn up the volume on my Led Zeppelin album, that drowns it out. lol. Such a hard decision when you have either the AS5 or the PS4S tyres to choose from. If I knew they were identical in grip, I would go with the AS5, as they are £30 each cheaper than the PS4S. themanwithnoaim has had some good experience with the PS4S mind.

I know you have to feed the power in with certain weather conditions and surfaces, it's just with the best tyres you can feed the power in quicker. Don't get me wrong, I don't tear away from traffic lights and 99% of the time although always making good progress, my power pedal is well off the floor. The original Pirelli Zero tyres I have on at the moment, are just bloody useless for grip when you put your foot down, even in 3rd at times. Getting advice from Octavia owners, especially those with mapped cars, is priceless. Like all of us on this site of course, we do have to make a decision as to whether the people who post info, actually know what they are talking about! I am glad to say it looks like you and themanwithnoaim do. Cheers guys.

Not a problem with 18" wheels, as mine are 19". I know the old train of thought was to put new tyres on the front and the new one is to put them on the rear, but my rear tyres have plenty of tread anyway. Once they wear down, I will get rid of the Pirelli Zeros on the the rear and replace them with whatever I have decided to fit to the front. I don't actually mind a bit of oversteer, as being a qualified skid car trainer gives me a bit of an idea what to do if it happens. In fact where safe, it has been known with previous cars to get the rear end to step out on purpose. Driving my mates older V8 Mustang was great fun in that respect. Sounds like some good info you have given me on tyre choice, as you can't beat somebody's actual experience with the same model of car where it has been tuned.

Trouble is, we do have many a wet day in our usual summer and I do love to disperse that water with good tread. I do what I preach to other drivers in my role of advanced/defensive driver trainer. We might have to agree to disagree on this one mate.

Yea I have heard Ben is a bit of a tech wizard. My last Octavia VRS ran for a couple of years and good mileage without problems after being Shark mapped. Quite looking forward to the drive home Tuesday afternoon.

I think that is what I am going to do. The fronts only have 4mm tread left anyway and I usually change tyres at 3mm for safety.

You could be right in me putting 235 on the front and leaving the 225 on the rear a bit longer. At least I will get some extra grip to help with the extra power of the map. Changing all 4 tyres as well comes with a cost. £650 for the map and £520 for the tyres all in the same week. It's naughty enough me not telling the missus how much the map is going to cost. Some secrets are worth keeping. lol.

Hi Ecomatt. The Goodyear Asy 5 were the ones I was leaning towards, especially after looking up prices on Black Circle tyres. I never knew they came out on top compared to the PS4's though. I have had the Goodyear Asy 3 on my previous Octavia VRS and was impressed with them. On an online test I watched, the 5s out performed their earlier 3s as well. I also wanted to go from tyre width of 225 to 235 to help protect the diamond cut alloys. Trouble is, the rear tyres are so good, one of them brand new, if I bought all 4 tyres at once, I would be getting rid of 2 good rear tyres far too early. Not the done thing to have 235 width on the front and 225 width on the rear till the rear ones wear down. Have to stick with width 225 all round for a bit longer. Does that lot make sense?

I have made a decision at last. Got the car booked in this Tuesday at VW Group Specialists Swindon for the Racingline Stage One remap, done on their rolling road. Will probably then have to get 2 new front tyres. The standard Pirelli P Zeros you get from new still have 4mm of tread on them, but they are not great for grip when getting your foot down. They will be even worse with the extra power after Tuesday. Have read some good reports on the Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 5, as well as the Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S.

Hello and welcome Simon, a fine car you have there.

Hello and welcome. I will let the Fabia owners here answer your question. You will probably get an answer soon, as this is a great site to be a part of.

Welcome Mark to a very friendly informative site. It's the best one I have ever been a part of.

You certainly do think good things about Racingline, to come all the way from Sunderland to Milton Keynes, the north east being my place of birth by the way. I think you have made my mind up. Where I am at the moment is this. When I bought the car I also bought a 2 year service plan. It's on 17k miles now, so the second paid for service is due soon. Once Skoda do that service any other work will be done at my local independent garage afterwards. So although the car will still have some Skoda warranty left on it, I may take the risk of voiding the warranty and get it remapped. I have been pondering this decision for a while, get remap after the Skoda 3 year warranty runs out, or have it done before and hopefully don't have any major problems with the car. Oh decisions, decisions!!

Thank you for this information, I guess you do get what you pay for. My last Shark remap on a previous Octavia was at Unit 18 Milton Keynes, but I want this next map done on a rolling road. Where did you actually go to see Ben to have yours done and do they have a rolling road set up?