Following on from my green brake calipers thread and the thread where I test drove a diesel CR which turned out to be a PD, today I went to see and drive a low mileage 09 vRS. However, it did NOT have the following:

- spare wheel

- dual zone air-con

- rear electric windows

- jumbo box / arm rest etc

- aux socket

I thought that all of these were standard from about 2007 or 2008. I have a brochure dated "UK April 2008" that has all of these in bold and says the bold items are "extra equipment as standard".

The dealer tried to assure me that these were all options up to the face lift version and that this was really a 2009 car with no options. I suspect it is actually a much older car that was registered in 2009. But why would that have happened?

The brake surronds (not just the disks) also had a thin coating of rust which made me think the car had been standing for awhile.

I loved how the car drove and it has no marks whatsoever. While the lack of these options is not a major problem (if the price is right) I am concerned that if this is a much older car it could be a problem to sell on or if it was standing in a field somewhere that some of the electrics or mechanical items may not last as long as they should.

I bought mine in December '08 with those bits missing, but the price was too good to refuse.

As a CR DSG, mine should really have had those as part of the 'free' upgrade pack, and no-one can explain why it didn't, but I can live without them.

I am sure too that the jumbo box was standard from 2008,well i bought my vrs last march and it's got dual air con,jumbo box,aux elec windows etc,then i just had zenons,maxidot,oh and rear parking sensors..

I believe that these "free upgrade" options actually needed to be ordered by the dealer when an order was placed. My 57 reg PD170 vrs had 18'' wheels and a jumbo box, but no elec rear windows and no dual zone as the dealer forgot to tick these options on the order form. The may explain why they are not on this model. A simple dealer error could be to blame.

The dealer tried to assure me that these were all options up to the face lift version and that this was really a 2009 car with no options. I suspect it is actually a much older car that was registered in 2009. But why would that have happened?

As you're in the UK I doubt that it's a re-import from somewhere else. Nevertheless, I guess that if you could get the VIN number it would be easy to look it up and gather the manufacturing date, factory-installed options and what country it had been built for!

They were standard fitment on UK cars, but just because it's right hand drive it doesn't mean it was meant for the UK. Could have been for the Irish market like the ones they had cheap at Motorpoint.

Edited 1 March, 201016 yr by WaveyDaveyGravy

Or Cyprus or Malta, in fact. I naively thought that would be anti-economical, but today I'm learning that it isn't.

Thanks for bringing that up

Following on from my green brake calipers thread and the thread where I test drove a diesel CR which turned out to be a PD, today I went to see and drive a low mileage 09 vRS. However, it did NOT have the following:

- spare wheel

- dual zone air-con

- rear electric windows

- jumbo box / arm rest etc

- aux socket

Interesting, but didn't the spare wheel cease to come as standard at some point after the other items became standard? So must be more to this than a dealer fail on ordering the free options. Older unregistered car or import theories both seem plausible.