Drivethedeal appeared good to me. The attraction being you order through them, but you pay and collect at a Skoda dealer and can take skoda finance if you wish.

Carquake appeared a little cheaper if you wanted an estate version, but in this case they supply the car so you cant get the Skoda finance (which is attractive).

Its always worth asking if you will be the first keeper (if this is important to you) as apparently some companies buy fleets from Skoda and register them, then sell them on with no miles on them, making you the second keeper.

For info I very nearly leased one from Lings cars (remember her on dragons Den?). She is doing a good deal on a 12 month lease. I contacted them but they are standard spec in metallic and I wanted a few options.

i had a look today at a Corrida red one with the silver and black wheels

Nicest part of the car IMO is the wheels

the BAD

Calipers are all wrong, red? wana be brembo's, whats wrong with green

Too high

Too slab sided

Dash doesn't give that BIG car feel, feels really tight in the front

Interior trim seems all kind of cheap

rear wind down windows

no xenon option

wrong engine

the price

fuel filler cap pull open from outside no remote release (cheap)

the GOOD

nice seats, more hugging and better colour than the mark1

dsg + flappy paddles, nice touch

dials - look cool

alloys

rear leg room vastly improved over mark1

sunset glass

drl's

more colour options

bigger boot than mark 1

dont think it will sell as much as the mark 1 neither did the salesman

all in all a marmite car i think.... although im unsure... do i love it do it hate it, hmmmm :|

Edited 15 August, 201015 yr by BigJase88

So, who is bringing a new fabia vRS to stretch its legs at Castle Combe in 4 weeks time then?

Might as well add my test drive experience here.

Demo car had 500 miles on it and the dealer had given me a third of a tank of fuel to play with "should be good for an hour or so.." I don't know if they had 95 or 98 fuel in though, knowing most dealers, probably 95.

So, this is only the second time I've ever driven an auto. DSG won't shift to R, D or S unless you have your foot on the brake, and off we go. Pottering though Dumfries to get to the route I have in my head and it's really smooth and effortless. Finally onto the the open road and it runs up to 60 in no time at all and I cruise along the first bit of open A road just to get used to how it all feels and how it responds. For now I just leave it in D and even here, where it is shifting for economy, you can cover ground quite rapidly! Overtakes are effortless, but you do get a second delay while DSG decides what gear it wants.

I now realise I've gone the wrong way, so, turn around and go back to find my route. Now I'm onto the A710 which would be more believeable if it was named B710, as it's quite twisty. Perfect!

Ar$e, I've caught a Jeep doing 40 :( OK lets give these paddles a go! Pop the lever over to manual, change from 7th to 5th and wait for that straight bit that's round the corner. Now that it's staying in one gear, it just goes instantly, wow! Through the next little twisty bit shuffling up and down the box with the paddles turns out to be great fun. Each time I come to a 30 limit village, I pop it back to automatic.

Now I realise I've been changing up at 4k. Why am I driving it like the 1.2 ?? Right, lets try it a bit higher. 40mph, into manual, select 4th. Mmmmm sounds a bit more fruity now! Here we go, full power.

:o

Oh yeah! This is where it's at, keep the revs a bit higher through this next twisty bit, now we're really having fun.

BONG!!

WTF??!! "please refuel, range 40 miles" Can't remember exactly how far I have to go to get back, so I'd better take it easy. Back to automatic.

That was a very pleasant hour and a half with the car, and after all that the MPG was reading an average of 36. So, to sum up:

LIKE:

The seats, could have been made to measure for me!

Engine. Power everywhere, doesn't matter if you're at less than 2k, it'll just go.

DSG. Rather impressed by it, but in some situations it seems to fumble around while it decides on a gear.

Suspension. Incredible that there is so little body roll, yet the ride is as good as my Elegance!

DON'T LIKE:

I can't have one NOW

I want one!

Agree with above 2 people. Dont compare it to the Mk 1, the lighter front end makes the car lighter and more agile.

Dumping the consoles and bushes has also made a massive difference.

My curiosity got the better of me last week so I booked a test drive of the new VRS...when I saw the car my first thought was that doesn't look like a VRS should it's not aggressive enough at the front the rest of it looked not too bad though a little top heavy maybe, driving...it was kind of mixed it's quite quick if you let it rev but low down grunt is non existent compared to the diesel which was what made to old car so good, gearbox...not having a manual option is a glaring mistake as fancy as the dsg box is personally I couldn't live with one as all the flapping around with the levers is a pain in the arse.

So for me the new VRS is a massive disappointment, no diesel, no manual and what if only looks.

You dont have to use the paddles, to be honest most of the time mines in D anyhow.

But its the reverse of the old arguement when the Fabia 1 came out, everyone couldnt understand why it was a diesel and argued it should have been a petrol, until people actually spent some time in them and drove them.

.........as fancy as the dsg box is personally I couldn't live with one as all the flapping around with the levers is a pain in the arse.

So much harder than putting your foot on the clutch every time and manually moving the stick..........

................not

I think I'll have to take one out again, I thought it was a highly capable little car but not very involving. Like playing a video game whilst being ferried around by a quick driver. I may be biased though as the the things I've never liked about the Mk2............... The slab sided styling, the cheap dark interior & bulky dash, the drivers seat that won't let you sit low in the car. All seem to be emphasized by the vRS version. It's as if the MK2 was never designed to be more than a competent run about & now we have a super fast, super smooth version of something that was never designed to be a sporty car. I really really wanted to love it but ultimately I came away feeling disappointed. A mis match of poor styling & awesome ability for me.

Incidently, I also drove the 1.8 Yeti on the day & was completely blown away by it. I've previously had no great interest in this type of car but just fell in love with it. The seats allow you to actually sit lower IN the car in a Yeti than the vRS?! It's a brilliant all rounder in my book & I'd have one like a shot if I was after car of that ilk.

i took a new fabia vrs out on a test drive today, it is a nice car, nice seats, very refined compared to the old fabia and the gearbox is brilliant, but i can't help feeling it's too expensive for what it is.

Very true Tom arent they all.

Its almost like I think they now have so many models in the range they have to justify differences in prices, so they start off with the base model and work up, but by the time you get to the top models the price is massive.

I wouldnt have got mine if it wasnt for staff purchase.

Popped into local skoda garage this afternoon and discovered that despite no phone call there was a fabia 2 vrs demonstrator available. Bright red (similar to golf mk2 gti I had many years ago) - didnt like it in red but it had the black alloys and I really liked the look of them on the car.

Set off in D mode on very wet roads but soon put my foot down on some straight B roads - impressive gear changing with very smooth changes and impressive turn of speed - but not the poke in the back I get when I floor my mk1 vrs.

I tried it in semi auto mode and used the paddles to change up and down and fired past some slow moving traffic - still impressed with the gear box and pulling power.

I pulled over in a village to have a good look around the inside - mirror control knob felt very flimsy and I dont think that would take too much abuse. Only other negative was the fan noise when demisting - seemed quite loud.

Road noise was reasonable but there was no exciting noise from the engine.

I discovered there was an S mode below D, so tried giving it some welly on the straights in S mode - definitely later on the auto gear changes but I had still been impressed with the normal D mode.

The one thing I didnt do was give it a good handling test on the bends - firstly it was extremely wet, and secondly I had wife and youngster in the back, who dont like being thrown about in the mk1 vrs, so I decided to leave it for a dry day.

Overall I was very impressed with the gearbox. Bit strange being back in a petrol after a number of years with turbo diesels.

I like the black alloys, and wife fancies the rallye green with black roof - which would suit the black alloys. I am not convinced by the green colour but then no other colour is calling to me either except perhaps the same pearl black that I have on the mk1 vrs - would look like a real mean bad boy with the black pearl plus the black alloys :-)

Will I buy one? Well maybe - as wife no longer likes manuals and may need a small economical car to travel to work shortly and doesnt want to use the mk1 vrs. But I cant say it set my soul alight and gave me the grin that the mk1 vrs still gives me on a long windy run - so will wait for a dry day and give it another test run on my own to test the handling on the bends.

Also a very good point to remember is the gearbox is adaptive, so sometimes an hour run or so wont get the best out of it.

but by the time you get to the top models the price is massive.

what was the price of the original fab vrs?? about 1200 wasn't it??

Yeah I paid 11,999 for mine in 2003.

How the world changes eh, Mk1 Octavia vRS was sub 15k and how much is the MK2? 20k+

New SEAT Leon Cupra R is 26k iirc, 10k more than the Mk1.

I think the Golf GTI is 24k standard and 26k with DSG but the Cupra R does have more power. Although there are some dealers offering no VAT on the vRS which means it would be around 12k for one without extras.