Cauliflower

I changed from a 95 Kamiq to new 110 Fabia in January and in all honesty, I've found the difference in power around town and on open roads to be negligible. In fact, the only time it was noticeable was when I had four passengers and their luggage and I was heading up a slip road to join a motorway, I remember thinking that the Kamiq definitely wouldn't have been so sprightly. But that's about it.

Goodness! Where I come from (Northern Ireland), such jokes have long, long disappeared and to hear one now would sound like a mother-in-law joke from the 1970s. Maybe it's an Essex 'Dave down the pub' thing, but here, Skoda and quality are pretty well synonymous, the only thing they have to crack now is to make them look a little less bland! Our Assembly (parliament) bought a ten car fleet for the ten Ministers of State for £200k (Superbs - it's the back seat space thing). I won't mention specific makes, but there's quite a few cars that our Ministers wouldn't be seen in!

Each to their own as you say, but I DISAGREE with your suggestion to "Let's just agree the gaping Audi grille on a C1 vs the tiny Toyota snout on the Aygo are things you simply don't notice at all and that I on the other hand don't notice a tiny kink in the side glass of the VAG triplets." No, I don't agree. Incidentally, I have now received a warning from the moderator for expressing my opinion to you, which is disgraceful.

No, the words "I reserve full judgement" have inexplicably not appeared in your post, the only thing I saw were your words that the Skoda interior looked "cheap and nasty to me". Let's just wait and see if your "cheap and nasty" description was accurate, then we'll know if my "glasses" reference was warranted.

Well, that's the wonderful freedom we have to enjoy different opinions. Let's see how your judgement on the Skoda Citigo interior looking "cheap and nasty to me" bears out.

I'm with you on "hot-swap" thing, the minute that the boffins crack a battery replacement which is the size of a gallon container, which takes you 100 miles, which doesn't cost the earth, which you can buy at every petrol station in the land and which you can fit into your car in a matter of seconds, the war's over.

Presumably nearly £10k for you if you want dealer options, but as I understand it, the OTR price, no quibbling, is £8,995. There'll be a lot of people, including myself, who are currently considering a new or nearly new car for, as Dickens described it, an "aged P". Thus far I've been looking at 6 month old Ford Fiesta 82bhp Zetecs with 5k mileage at around £9,995. On the face of it (and like the recent Octavia 1.6 mpi offer), this Fabia offer looks like the deal of the century, but the deal-breaker is the old 1.4 mpi engine - is it really as gutless as posters are making out? MPG isn't the be all or end all (provided it does 30 - 40!) but does this engine have enough poke to survive the rough and tumble of A&B roads?

Specsavers still do a two for one! Seriously though, I imagine you're in the minority if you really can't notice the differences on the outside - the kinked VW windows that took you weeks to notice took me all of a matter of seconds. And the nose is entirely different, the VW one is clearly marketed at our feminine side! It's a bit like saying you can't really notice the difference between the C1 / Aygo / 107. I've no doubt the perception of the VW interior will be more favourable, that's why the badge costs £500 more across the range. I would still worry about the VW glass rear though, it's a more general issue I have over how ductile a large expanse of glass is within such a small frame. Time will tell.

That it offers more interior space than virtually anything else on the road, yet I can still drive it into my garage without folding a mirror. How come?

It's a water feature.

Nearly a couple of years and 20,000 miles on the clock of my 1.4 tsi and I am happy to update everyone that, performance wise, the engine has not left we wanting in any aspect of normal driving, whether it be low down in town or at speed (within the legal limit of course!) there is a powerful linear delivery that would be expected of a competent larger engine. To give you some idea, I drove a VW 2.0l 115bhp a few years back and this 1.4 tsi feels as if it has longer legs. So to those of you who might wonder about the engine "struggling", or having to "thrash" the engine, wonder no more, those words don't fit into the vocabulary of this engine. If anything, you get the best oomph from this engine if you change up to a higher gear a bit earlier, rather than wringing more revs out of the lower gear. Fuel consumption overall has been consistently average, not desperately disappointing or anything like that, but if you're expecting seriously good mpg figures from these modern VW tsi engines (I'm reading elsewhere that the 1.2tsi displays similar traits), you will be slightly disappointed. All my measurements were taken brim to brim, although in the event the onboard reading was within a couple of mpg. I do about 10% town / city driving, the remainder split, say, 30% motorway, 60% A / B roads. No really hilly / mountainous stuff. Overall, I am achieving 38 - 40 mpg without consciously trying (ie. my true normal consumption for what I would call a "brisk" driving style) . If I'm consciously a bit gentler (still not pootling, but only allowing myself the odd really heavy quirt or two of juice in a journey, such as sailing up a motorway slip to join the traffic), I can achieve low 40s, say 41 - 43. Only if trying on a much longer journey via motorway or quiet A / B roads will I get 45. On the other hand, if I do a lot more gunning or additional town / city driving, I've seen below 35mpg. Those are the scores on my doors, the overall ownership calculations for the 1.8 petrol or 1.6 diesel simply wouldn't have represented as good value for money over the miles I do.

Yes, 'What Car' seem to like it as well. IMO the Citigo is better looking than the VW Up! - the rear window treatment on the VW looks fussy (why spoil a straight line?) and the front grin on the VW is too cutesy for my liking - perhaps women will prefer it more. Then there's also the full length glass rear on the VW - how much is that going to cost when it shatters? It speaks volumes for how Skoda have progressed when all the talk is around the comparison between the Citigo and the Up! The poor old Seat Mii has a bit of an identity crisis, it's like "the other brother".

Well no, but then I didn't say that. :( One's choice of car is down to an amalgam of factors. Years of market testing has proven that the design of the badge plays its part in that amalgam. If the design of the badge is so unimportant, car companies wouldn't have spent fortunes updating them over the years. I suppose it's all down to whether you believe in branding or not. At the conscious level, some boast not to be remotely influenced by it. Then they go and unthinkingly fill their shopping trolley with the goods which have had the highest branding budget deployed... But they'll continue to deny that it has any influence.

But in truth, they're not thinking about you or me, we're Skoda converts. They want to appeal more to the Skoda-less masses. The new badge looks slicker, less amateurish, more corporate and, yes, less idiosyncratic / more bland. Which is good. I know it'll rile the traditionalists, but it is a move in the right direction.

"It won't win any races" - what do you mean by this exactly? I assume you find it wanting in some sense?

Hi guys, has no-one else tried the 1.2TSI Octavia in Europe yet??? We don't have it in the UK yet, but I reckon a lot of folk would be interested in hearing about it. Key point of interest for me is if it is significantly more economical than my 1.4 TSI without compromising enjoyable performance... I'm particularly interested in hearing from former 1.4 and 1.6 MPI owners.

Matter of opinion. The 1.6 is the only option going forward for diesel afficionados (which I am normally). Let's see if VW tinker with the engine or gearing. Gawd knows they need to...

Yes, in a different topic, RangerMD of Greece responded to me and I've pasted it below as a starter. Subject to his confirmation the engine is at least as good as the VW 1600cc normally aspirated petrol version engine but with 45+mpg potential: The car only has 1100 kms on it, I have read that consumption can be expected to decline further. Also, these are true numbers and I avoid always keeping low revs for better running in. So Yes, believe 45 mpg are realistic. My only concern would be tight turns on uphill roads: you need to keep revs above 1500 to avoid switching down to second or 1st gear. That is you need to have one of those gears in already! However, I am not aware of many 1600 normal aspirated engines (especially 16 valve ones) that could move an octavia with 1300 revs in this situation. The car was measured with the Bosch horsepower system here in Greece. They reported 124 PS and 206 kg of torque!

Brimma ain't alone. Here's a link that takes you to a step-by-step guide to changing the grille colour on pre-FL cars. I suspect it's probably by a Briskodian, if so, make yourself known !!! OK, the slant is on colour co-ordination, but obviously any colour choice is viable. Anyway, I think it looks a million dollars, so-ooooo much better than the default / poundstretcher black grille. Couldn't get this to link properly so some users may have to cut and paste the URL into your browser... http://www.octavia-vrs.com/technical/colour_coded_grille.htm

Interesting. Good to at last hear some personal experience of the 1.2TSI in an Octavia. If I understand correctly, you're saying the performance is at least as good as a normally aspirated 1600 petrol and it looks like 45+mpg is realistic. This is very welcome, especially in such a large car. What about noise / refinement - is the engine coarse / loud?

And you are entitled to your opinion as well .

That's your opinion, which you're entitled to. Mine is that this topic and other topics attract healthy debate which sometimes strays from the original question but which is nonetheless enjoyable.

Only if you need one... do you?

You know what, it's work in progress. But we'll all be wearing them tomorrow.

Steve vRS and the rest of you that think that way go google 'Lake Wobegon' effect. Lambs to the slaughter...