Ok - this has the potential to sound stupid but here goes.

Bought my VRS, completely standard, last November, when it was nice and cold.

One of the front tyres was quite low, the other was fine.

Accelerating hard in 2nd gear would sometimes cause some scrabble for grip and the ESP light to come on. Doing the same in the wet would make the light come on some more as you'd expect.

Bluefin remap in early December, car totally transformed. Dry acceleration producing even more ESP light action, wet acceleration in 2nd was verging on undriveable, couldn't get the power down at all - no complaints, I loved it.

Put new tyres on in December and the traction seemed to be better.

Last couple of months, the car hasn't felt as quick as it used to. Nice and wet today so I thought I'd give the ESP light some bother, but even at full tilt in second plenty of traction was to be found.

My thoughts:

1) I've got used to the speed of the car, it's just as quick as it was but just doesn't feel like it to me after 7 months or so.

2) The new tyres, now nicely run in, provide far more grip than the old pair and stop the ESP intervening so much

3) The roads were greasy/icy back in Nov/December time making traction harder to find.

4) Everything I've read about heat soak in summer is true and you truly do suffer quite a performance hit when the temperatures rise compared to the winter. When the colder weather returns my ESP light will be happily flashing away how it used to.

I'm most inclined to think (or rather hope) that no. 4 is the main culprit. I might even take the re-map off to remind myself what an un-mapped car feels like

I'd say a combination of all four really.

Might be something else such as DV.

could also be due to the fact we are on summer diesel now, they put kerosene in winter diesel or something to prevent it freezing.

Have you had it back to a dealers for any work? I only just remembered to tell mine that it was re-mapped last time it was in. Good job as they had it on VAS and could have re-flashed the ecu & wiped off the remap!

Personally mine also seems to induce less "panic" in the traction control department, seeming less frantic and much more linear. However I cant say it seems less powerful

I'd also agree with a question mark over the DV, especially if it's still the origional rubber diaphragm type (G revision?).

Finally on warmer weather, there could be a couple of factors. You probably put "summer" tyres on, and they don't become grippy and flexible until they are above a certain temp. Mine were awful in the colder (even dryer) weather, but have become loads better as the weather warmed up, and i havent done that meny miles on them yet! Check the manufacturers technical specs on their websites. Also, AFAIK as air becomes warmer it's less dense and therfore you need more "mixtue " to generate the same power, this i believe is compounded on turbo cars, where you need the intercooler to "cool" the charge. In warmer weather you get less cooling, so don't hold the power as well.

Finally I think, IIRC that the Octy "learns" your driving style with throttle adaptation, so remaps take a while to settle in. I don't know if the traction control also "learns". It may be that all this are impacting at once.

I'm sure there are some on here who know what is happening and will hopefully correct my very simplistic & probably incorect, understanding!

Finally I think, IIRC that the Octy "learns" your driving style with throttle adaptation, so remaps take a while to settle in. I don't know if the traction control also "learns". It may be that all this are impacting at once.

The ECU is adaptive yes, but the ESP isn't. If it's a petrol then I suspect a ripped DV. Get it changed for the new G revision and you'll be ripping tyres up again before you know it

Tyres can make a huge difference.

My first octavia (51reg 150bhp 1.8T) was originally on Pirelli P6000 when I got it, totally undriveable especially in the wet.

Next set of tyres were Bridgetone Sport I think, lots of grip and could "make progress" in the wet.

I have noticed on my DSG Tdi Vrs I get alot less wheel spin in S than D:confused:

cold tarmac wont help tim , ground temperature will be lots lower in winter , as already mentioned check the dv mate

Get the car onto a dyno and that will give you the answer your seeking lol

Nice replies

I had considerd the DV - it's a 2006MY so I guess it's got the older type on it. I need to take the DV off when I get around to fitting the chav-spacer I bought off Simon recently so it might pay to stick a new one on if they're only 25 quid or so. Am I right in thinking if I just order one from the dealers it will be the later version?

It's a petrol by the way.

It's not been back to the dealers, and the power drop is far less than if the map had been taken off. I suppose one of the advantages of Bluefin is that you can just stick the map back on if it inadvertantly gets wiped!

I suppose whether or not it breaks traction is a crap way of measuring power. I only wonder if something's up because I tried booting it again yesterday on a nice wet road, level gradient, decent surface - no break in traction. A few months ago it would have been spinning all over the place, but it _still_ feels plenty quick!

I did replace the fronts with Conti Sport Contact 3's - maybe they're just an awesome tyre

Thanks for the replies - going to change the DV and wait until it's cold again.

I have a stage one Revo and the car has done just over 20 000 miles and still has the original Michelins on with 6mm on the rear and 4mm on the front, which is surprising as the front ones struggle for grip when it's cold and/or wet.

During the recent hot spell though the grip vastly improved as the tyres were warmer and much more supple.

I always now use 99 octane petrol as the car seems more responsive than when I was on 97.

Also the point about becoming used to the cars performance is something that I would have to acknowledge as well. A couple of weeks ago I had a passenger who runs a Mk1 Octavia vRS and I said to him that the car didn't feel that fast anymore.

His reply was "Well it ....ing does to me! Lol.