SkodaVRS1963

These are the times that working in the insurance industry has its benefits; I paid £72 for three years RTI (return to invoice) cover for my 250bhp FocusST3. If you don't have that luxury, then Sparta (who seem to trade as ALA) are the best.

I'm not entirely sure what Lee's agenda is. I often wonder if he knows himself. I'm guessing he wants either a second referendum peoples vote or he wants Article 50 revoked. Both of which categorically kills off the notion that we live in a democratic state. Now I know that most of us grown-ups have realised that, of course, we don't live in a democracy; after all, if voting could change anything then it would have been abolished years ago. But you have to have something and as lousy as the current system is, it's better than no system at all. No system at all = anarchy. I have no problem with us leaving the EU (as voted for by 17,000,000 of us) and then a political party standing at the next General Election on a mandate to take us straight back in. But we *have* to leave.

Oddly enough, just got back from the gym and a guy there I was chatting to has just ordered a Kodiaq VRS for £35,500 via DriveTheDeal. Having looked at the specs, if I had two or three sprogs I think I'd be tempted..........

Well my commute has changed somewhat so I'm hoping they're a thing of the past; additionally, I genuinely believe my VRS was a bit of what we used to call a "made on a Friday afternoon" car!

Heated windscreen and steering wheel gets me a VRS for just under £36k. Just need to check the garage out to ensure it'll fit For those of us who grew up on Fords with their heated windscreen, it's a dealbreaker. 19 year old girlie gets into her £500 Ford Ka and pushes a button to defrost her windscreen whilst at the same time the executive neighbour walks upto his £75k top-of-the-range Mercedes and uses a little plastic scraper and scrapes away in his £750 Armani suit.

With respect Lee, the views of Mrs Georgiadou are about as vile as you can get. And she's the "second referendum" sponsor FFS.

The only purpose of a second referendum is to overturn the result of the first. Even a small child can grasp that simple concept. Otherwise, what's the point? We delay Brexit, we hold a second referendum.....oops,sorry, "peoples vote" and it goes 52-48 in favour of leaving again. How, *exactly* does that change *anything*?

Maybe it was 2016, God knows - it seems like it was eons ago You are undoubtedly proceeding with the very same mindset that May and the Establishment have......namely, the sweaty masses will roll over and accept a 2nd referendum. A very big mistake IMHO. And tanks on the streets won't change that.

I think you've under-egged the omelette. A second referendum *will* result in the biggest backlash against the Establishment since Wat Tyler's lot got a bee in their bonnet in 1381. There are a lot of ordinary people who voted in the 2015 referendum who believed that the Government would enact the wishes of that referendum. If the UK Government (of whatever political colour) *chooses* to decide that those people voted "the wrong way" and "so we'll have another referendum so that they can vote the right way" then they are making a very big mistake. I genuinely do believe that, in such an eventuality, you'll find Westminster razed to the ground. The one thing that us sweaty masses have is a vote every few years to decide which bunch of clowns is going to screw us over.....once you deny us even that then all bets are off. I, for one, voted Leave but I really hope that May reneges on the deal; the subsequent carnage will be glorious in all its graphic horror.

And when you return to your car that's been parked in a small railway station car park for 10 hours and don't happen to have a supply of warm water? Well......you do what I did and end up having to call the AA. Ridiculous!

I used to work in the national newspaper industry and it was fairly common knowledge that the character Elliot Carver in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies *was* a frighteningly realistic parody of Murdoch. If he'd sued, he'd have easily bankrupted MGM and Eon Productions.......but in doing so he'd have had to stand up in court and admit that he was a megalomaniac. Guess he decided that he had enough money already

Amusing how Remainers are saying "the Government can't ignore the petition, it's been signed by over 4,000,000" whilst, at the same time, conveniently overlooking the fact that the wishes of 17,000,000 people who voted to Leave three years ago have been disregarded

I'd never considered the Arteon so thank you for putting that option on the table. It actually looks really classy and has the 237bhp biturbo VW diesel unit so all the boxes ticked there. The dealbreaker for me (probably petty I know) is the door arrangement; most car doors when you open them are comprised of door frame, window, door panel (if that makes sense). The Arteon is just window and door panel, i.e when you open the door, a sensor drops the window by about 1/4". I had a similar setup on my Ford Focus CC and it works wonderfully........until your car has been parked up in sub zero temperatures all day long (this was in the winter of 2010/2011) and the window freezes shut. At which point, you can*not* get the door open because the window hasn't dropped. Really bad design, I'd expect it from Ford but not from a German manufacturer!

I used to own an Octavia 184bhp diesel VRS but got sick of the constant regens so bailed out long before the PCP expired in favour of a Ford Focus ST3 250bhp petrol. Oddly, it always seemed the Octavia was quicker (probably because when the turbo kicked in you got thrown back in your seat whereas the Focus petrol is a lot smoother in its acceleration). I want to go back to diesel and seeing as Ford have decided to deliberately underpower their new ST flagship offering, I'm looking around. I can get the VW Passat 237bhp 2.0 BiTDI SCR 4MOTION DSG GT Panoramic Roof sunroof, Automatic, Diesel with options for a touch over £33k I can get the Skoda Octavia VRS 184bhp 2.0 TDI CR 4x4 DSG vRS 7 speed Black Pack, Automatic, Diesel with options for a touch over £26k I can get the Skoda Superb 2.0 TDI CR 190bhp 4X4 DSG Laurin + Klement 7 Speed, Automatic, Diesel with options for a touch over £30k Is the Passsat £3k better than the L&K Skoda? £7k better than the VRS? Is the L&K £4k better than the VRS? All thoughts appreciated

My dear friend, if the biggest problem in your life is this then I am more than happy to pay for you to fly to the UK where I will collect you from whatever airport you land at and transport you to a hospital specialising in children who have been hideously burned/scarred where you can see some real first world problems. Small children with life changing injuries. I will then, of course, transport you back to the airport of your choice where you can depart to your place of origin and reflect upon what you have witnessed. PM me and I will happily set up your flight to the UK. I look forward to hearing from you

Thank you for correcting me. I will remember your advice when I open a brochure in a showroom with some numbers printed on a glossy brochure that claim x, y and z.

I am friends with a "content presenter" of a local radio station here (probably about 150,000 listeners a day so totally insignificant......but I wouldn't ever say that to her). Firestarter is on their banned list (it encourages anti-social behaviour).......loads more she told me but I particularly remember "I love the sound of breaking glass" by Nick Lowe. Where did Britain go so very, very wrong?

In their brochure in 2014. Before my Skoda I drove a Ford Focus CC 2.0 136bhp that was allegedly capable of 53mpg; I got nothing more than 44mpg. So I thought "ok, the manufacturers are able to inflate their claims by 20%, fair enough". So when Skoda claimed 61mpg I did the maths and got to 49mpg.......good for me, I was going to get 5mpg more than I was used to plus a 30% increase in power. Didn't even get close.

I agree with you entirely (you just have to look at the Brexit shambles to realise the powers-that-be have no intention of removing the UK from the EU despite being instructed to do so). But how do you "fix the system"? The only way is 30 million of us with pitchforks and torches marching on Westminster. Heads on spikes, all Government buildings razed to the ground, that sort of thing.......then, and then only then, might they listen. But how do you muster 30 million given that the Government would call in the army and shoot everyone approaching? Democracy in the UK? Ha ha. If nothing else, I'd like to think that the whole Brexit thing has opened they eyes of everyone (pro-Brexit or anti-Brexit) that democracy does *not* exist here. Good, innit?

Behave. There are those here who will tell you they get 70mpg and tyres that last 60,000 miles. My real world experience in a VRS 184bhp diesel was 16k out of a set of front tyres and never more than 43mpg. Shocking, seeing as Skoda claimed 61mpg. Don't get suckered in by the fanboys driving 230bhp petrols who claim 50+mpg........it doesn't happen. Really.....it does *not* happen. It's actually high time that the forum moderators clamped down on these claims. I appreciate that most of the perpetrators are site sponsors so they get to post what they like but it just makes a mockery of what is actually achievable by the brand.

Circular argument If Ford can stick a 237bhp engine into a Chelsea tractor then they probably ought to consider putting something into their flagship diesel model. 187bhp FFS, you can get a bog standard Focus diesel with 150bhp. Exactly; Ford had a chance to say "hey, we stand out in a segment where the best you'll get with other manufacturers is 190ps, look at our offering". And they didn't. Muppets. My money goes elsewhere once this shambles of a Government sorts Brexit out.

The VW 240bhp bi-turbo diesel is, from about a dozen reviews I've watched online, widely regarded as the apex engine in the VW stable. Every review you watch recommends it as peerless? It's actually quicker from 0-62 than my Focus ST3 250bhp petrol.........and about 10mpg better.

Ah but I've been flamed on this very forum for even daring to suggest that those "fanboys" were, ahem, telling porkies. So, duly admonished, I take their words at face value. 50+mpg is therefore achievable out of the 220/230/245bhp petrols. I read it on here and so why buy a diesel FFS when you can get better economy figures out of the petrol?

But the whole point is that in the Ford hierarchy, the top of the pyramid belongs to the Mustang and below that the Focus RS. But there is no current Focus RS (and won't be for another year at least) and so the ST adopts that mantle for the time being. Irrespective, given that there is no Mustang diesel or RS diesel then the Focus ST diesel becomes the flagship model. Except, the very boring S-Max (it's a people carrier FFS) in ST-Line guise gets the 2.0 Ford EcoBlue 237bhp 8 Speed Automatic?? So if I want to buy the best performing Ford diesel I don't buy the ST, I buy an S-Max? Marketing shocker. I imagine heads will be rolling when the chinless wonders at Ford see their sale figures this time next year.

Go to the Skoda Octavia <-> Skoda Octavia Mk III (2013 onward) forum and you'll find plenty of individuals claiming 50+mpg out of 220bhp petrols. Which is more than I was getting from my 184bhp diesel........so buy a high performance Octavia petrol, you won't need to worry about lower mpg.