I am not (yet) an Octavia owner but have been doing my research and comparing with other cars and in particular the VW Golf. Well, VW have just announced the lead time for the 1.4TSi engine in a new Golf is now 5 months! Having checked with my local dealer he verified this and and as a result they are offering virtually no discount off list. I then contacted Drivethedeal (which seems to be referred to often on this Forum). Very helpful guy at the other end of the phone and he advised that 5 months would probably be a minimum and it could be longer. What about Skoda, I asked? 12 to 14 weeks was the reply but this is increasing as people who can't get the Golf are now looking at Skoda.

So, maybe I should bite the bullet and get my order in whilst it is still 3 month leadtime and they have the "No VAT" offer?

Comments appreciated!

I am not (yet) an Octavia owner but have been doing my research and comparing with other cars and in particular the VW Golf. Well, VW have just announced the lead time for the 1.4TSi engine in a new Golf is now 5 months! Having checked with my local dealer he verified this and and as a result they are offering virtually no discount off list. I then contacted Drivethedeal (which seems to be referred to often on this Forum). Very helpful guy at the other end of the phone and he advised that 5 months would probably be a minimum and it could be longer. What about Skoda, I asked? 12 to 14 weeks was the reply but this is increasing as people who can't get the Golf are now looking at Skoda.

So, maybe I should bite the bullet and get my order in whilst it is still 3 month leadtime and they have the "No VAT" offer?

Comments appreciated!

If you wait too long the VAT discount from Skoda MAY no longer be available after the 31st March next.

It is a known fact that the Golf is a more popular car than the Octavia and engine allocation may be on an

absolute number of units. So the Golf will always be more difficult to get as things stand at present.

I quite expect after the 31st if the VAT is discontinued then the Octavia lead time will drop for the TSI engined cars.

Bite the bullet and order an Octy - better value, equal quality, more exclusive and more features for your money

I am not (yet) an Octavia owner but have been doing my research and comparing with other cars and in particular the VW Golf. Well, VW have just announced the lead time for the 1.4TSi engine in a new Golf is now 5 months! Having checked with my local dealer he verified this and and as a result they are offering virtually no discount off list. I then contacted Drivethedeal (which seems to be referred to often on this Forum). Very helpful guy at the other end of the phone and he advised that 5 months would probably be a minimum and it could be longer. What about Skoda, I asked? 12 to 14 weeks was the reply but this is increasing as people who can't get the Golf are now looking at Skoda.

So, maybe I should bite the bullet and get my order in whilst it is still 3 month leadtime and they have the "No VAT" offer?

Comments appreciated!

It may depend if you are talking about build or stock - If you want to order a build (with specific options to your requirement) then fair enough. If like me you are prepared to take a standard, say 1.4 TSI S or SE from a compound somewhere in mainland Europe and take whatever colours are available, then it should be shorter, unless the situation has changed dramatically in the last 8 weeks or so since I purchased.

I ordered my from stock, there were several colours available, although very few of the corrida red I wanted. From order to delivery took 4 - 5 weeks and would have been a good deal quicker again except that every transport slot for my car was being 'hijacked' by GB to meet the March new registrations (we don't get the in NI) and my dealer had to invoke something called 'forced transportation'.

It may depend if you are talking about build or stock - If you want to order a build (with specific options to your requirement) then fair enough. If like me you are prepared to take a standard, say 1.4 TSI S or SE from a compound somewhere in mainland Europe and take whatever colours are available, then it should be shorter, unless the situation has changed dramatically in the last 8 weeks or so since I purchased.

I ordered my from stock, there were several colours available, although very few of the corrida red I wanted. From order to delivery took 4 - 5 weeks and would have been a good deal quicker again except that every transport slot for my car was being 'hijacked' by GB to meet the March new registrations (we don't get the in NI) and my dealer had to invoke something called 'forced transportation'.

I don't actually want my new car till June/July, so 3 months lead time works well for me, if the order price is fixed, which Skoda say it will be. What I don't want is it disappearing into the distance and arriving next Autumn and accompanied by a price hike! (VW won't guarantee the price). Hope you are enjoying your new car - does it meet expectations?

I don't actually want my new car till June/July, so 3 months lead time works well for me, if the order price is fixed, which Skoda say it will be. What I don't want is it disappearing into the distance and arriving next Autumn and accompanied by a price hike! (VW won't guarantee the price). Hope you are enjoying your new car - does it meet expectations?

As long as you get the agreed discounted price in writing and make sure there's no small print about it being subject to price rises before delivery (that's another old trick, where a dealer is happy to put a deal in writing pending delivery but where the small print allows for price rises to be passed on to you), then I can't see how you can go far wrong.

My 1.4 TSI exceeds most expectations, especially the engine power / smoothness / quietness, the light positive gears, the bolero radio (silly, I know, but it is a good radio!) and just the overall quality of the car.

I've just posted a gripe under the "worst aspect" topic about the brake pedal and seats, but I suspect that these are more down to my physiology than a problem with the car because I've never seen anyone else complain. Any other niggles I have are the sorts of things that other people consider as positives and in truth are things that I just like to rant about rather than be genuinely put out by, eg. the door locks, which I find unfathomable.

The fuel economy is no better but no worse than I expected at probably around 40 mpg overall, though this can be beaten over longer journeys (I've had over 45mpg driving economically). During most journeys I end up giving it the beans several times (4,000rpm+), eg. when joining a motorway on the sliproad, but I suspect if I did so at length the mpg would drop dramatically.

When I wanted to order my new vRS I wasn't too bothered about having extras. I have most of them on my current Octavia, and I really don't think I'll miss some of them.

So, I turned up at my dealer armed with all the figures and also armed with what I wanted as a trade in.

Me and the Sales Manager just looked through all the cars in the system, and found two that I would have wanted.

The first one I could have had in a week but this was already sold

The second one has a build date of March 29th, so I was told to expect the car around 19th April. Got the deposit sorted and order was done

Does anyone have an insight into how the whole build / stock arrangements work? I got my 1.4 TSI reasonably quickly because I wanted just a bog standard SE and was flexible over colour choice. 'Builds' take a lot longer. But just what is actually happening? Did my car, for example, roll off the line and was it then stored in a compound somewhere in mainland Europe with its details registered on a database accessible by UK / Ireland dealers? What proportion of production goes that way? If Joe Bloggs living in Manchester orders a car of specific colour and with factory options, is that fed into the production line so it is literally built as a RHD and sprayed from scratch as Joe Bloggs' car? Or do they take the right coloured RHD car from stock and move it back onto the production line to retro build?

Does anyone know how this all works?

Edited 17 March, 201016 yr by Cauliflower

Does anyone have an insight into how the whole build / stock arrangements work? I got my 1.4 TSI reasonably quickly because I wanted just a bog standard SE and was flexible over colour choice. 'Builds' take a lot longer. But just what is actually happening? Did my car, for example, roll off the line and was it then stored in a compound somewhere in mainland Europe with its details registered on a database accessible by UK / Ireland dealers? What proportion of production goes that way? If Joe Bloggs living in Manchester orders a car of specific colour and with factory options, is that fed into the production line so it is literally built as a RHD and sprayed from scratch as Joe Bloggs' car? Or do they take the right coloured RHD car from stock and move it back onto the production line to retro build?

Does anyone know how this all works?

Almost certainly the factory will schedule a certain volume build for a period. Let's say it is Octavia Estates. The basic chassis (i.e. the body) is the same for all variants and they will use a product configurator module within their manufacturing systems to specify engine, gerabox, trim etc. Their ideal mode of operation will be to build only to orders from dealers, i.e. not to stock. Let's say they schedule a 1000 units for the month of August. As the orders come in they configure each individual car. For the factory it is building 1000 cars; it is not concerned whether SE, Elegance, Manual/Auto etc (so long as it has reasonable parts availability). Dealers are always ordering cars for stock and of course end customer orders sometimnes get cancelled so things change as they move along. The longest lead time item, currently the 1.4 engine, probably determines the longest overall build time. So, in answer to above, joe Bloggs car will go in as an individual order with all the details that he wants including colour. If he cancels early in the build process, although some things may be fixed by then such as engine/transmissioin, trim might not be and so it could be changed before the car is finally built. Only if their forecasting goes horribly wrong do they end up with cars in fields, i.e. schedule the August build for a 1000 but only get 900 orders.

A friend of mine is looking at a new BMW. They have a traffic light system on their oder database. If it is green, then the car type is fixed (say 3 series saloon) but everything else can be changed. When it goes to orange it means body and engine/transmission is fixed but trim can be changed. When it goes to red everything is fixed as car is a couple of weeks off delivery.

Another (easier maybe to understand) example of modern manufactuiring is Dell computer.They build nothing to stock. When you spec your laptop on line with hard drive size, memory etc this is fed into their prodduction line. As hundreds of people are doing this every day, they just schedule build of x laptops and what they actually build in terms of spec depends on customer sales.

Hope this is reasonably clear and helps a bit!

I must have been very lucky with my order then, or else jumped the queue as my 1.4TSI was delivered within 7 weeks! I then had it sat at the dealers for 3 weeks whilst I waited for the new reg. It had about 6 options on it so its unlikely it was a stock car. Maybe the run up to Christmas and immediately after is a quiet time for new cars and so I was just lucky.

Almost certainly the factory will schedule a certain volume build for a period. Let's say it is Octavia Estates. The basic chassis (i.e. the body) is the same for all variants and they will use a product configurator module within their manufacturing systems to specify engine, gerabox, trim etc. Their ideal mode of operation will be to build only to orders from dealers, i.e. not to stock. Let's say they schedule a 1000 units for the month of August. As the orders come in they configure each individual car. For the factory it is building 1000 cars; it is not concerned whether SE, Elegance, Manual/Auto etc (so long as it has reasonable parts availability). Dealers are always ordering cars for stock and of course end customer orders sometimnes get cancelled so things change as they move along. The longest lead time item, currently the 1.4 engine, probably determines the longest overall build time. So, in answer to above, joe Bloggs car will go in as an individual order with all the details that he wants including colour. If he cancels early in the build process, although some things may be fixed by then such as engine/transmissioin, trim might not be and so it could be changed before the car is finally built. Only if their forecasting goes horribly wrong do they end up with cars in fields, i.e. schedule the August build for a 1000 but only get 900 orders.

A friend of mine is looking at a new BMW. They have a traffic light system on their oder database. If it is green, then the car type is fixed (say 3 series saloon) but everything else can be changed. When it goes to orange it means body and engine/transmission is fixed but trim can be changed. When it goes to red everything is fixed as car is a couple of weeks off delivery.

Another (easier maybe to understand) example of modern manufactuiring is Dell computer.They build nothing to stock. When you spec your laptop on line with hard drive size, memory etc this is fed into their prodduction line. As hundreds of people are doing this every day, they just schedule build of x laptops and what they actually build in terms of spec depends on customer sales.

Hope this is reasonably clear and helps a bit!

Thanks Colsay, this is very enlightening and worth reading by anyone about to order or in the queue.

Edited 18 March, 201016 yr by Cauliflower