The diesels certainly hold their value better. I paid about £15,300 for mine new in Dec 2008 and when I change it in March I'm getting 12k back on it.

Other than that I've found diesel ownership disappointing. The CR is more refined than the PD and it's a good engine but I just found the whole diesel experience boring. Mine has been better since the remap but I can't wait to get my TSi

There is a part of me that is very tempted to see what deal the dealer could give me if I switch to a petrol vRS. Mine returns on average 38-42mpg which is mostly around town work out of rush hour, and from what I've read on here the petrol is not that bad on fuel now days.

Me too. the finance calculator on SUK website makes it look very tempting, providing it's up to date

I ordered my pertrol Vrs back in August, will be picking it up on Friday. Will have to try and see if I can get the extra £1000.

The 'extra £1000' is apparently being offered to customers who have ordered diesel models to try and persuade them to chose the petrol and therefore reduce the backlog of diesel orders.

How widespread it is I'm not sure- I've ordered a diesel and have certainly never been offered the opportunity to swap.

If you originally ordered a petrol you've got no chance of getting another £1k off

I have just picked up my Silver vRS170CR, has maxidot, full size spare, front & rear parking sensors .

I you really want one, please post any over the top offers beyond 30k & I will consider it ( NOT Really i wont )

I have just picked up my Silver vRS170CR, has maxidot, full size spare, front & rear parking sensors .

I you really want one, please post any over the top offers beyond 30k & I will consider it ( NOT Really i wont )

I got £32k for mine.

Can't help thinking that there is more to this than meets the eye. Skoda for some reason have effectively decided to put an extra 20% or thereabouts on the price if a new diesel Octavia. Not withstanding the fact that all manufacturers including Skoda charge aroud a thousand pounds more for a diesel in the first place as well. Diesels are a good profit maker for manufacturers, for the simple reason that it doesn't cost them anything near a grand extra to make a diesel car. I doubt if it costs much more at all to make a diesel car, but they don't want you to work that one out.............................

So what if orders are stacked up ahead ? - it's all business and in these economic times, no-one is going to increase prices by a fifth and lose business, unless something else is going on - well you should get the drift.

Fact is - Skoda are saying loud and clear that they don't want you to buy a diesel engined car for reasons that they are not disclosing..

My thoughts? you probably won't agree, but the fact is that Skoda are at the top of customer surveys. They don't want to lose this hard won ground. DPF's are causing massive problems to many and many drivers won't now buy a car that they haven't got control over how it can be driven. I certainly wouldn't once I had done some research and so I bought a 1.8Tsi - great engine, great car.

Also, if what I am now hearing from a reliable source is correct, there is another problem related to diesel engines set to become public knowledge very soon and that is concerning the proportion of bio diesel that is now added to the fuel and the damage and effects now being discovered.

VAG will however make all the diesels they can and flog them to the emerging markets - stack em high and sell em cheap.

I was a huge diesel engine fan and have had several diesel cars over the last 20 years, but not any more.

Can't help thinking that there is more to this than meets the eye. Skoda for some reason have effectively decided to put an extra 20% or thereabouts on the price if a new diesel Octavia. Not withstanding the fact that all manufacturers including Skoda charge aroud a thousand pounds more for a diesel in the first place as well. Diesels are a good profit maker for manufacturers, for the simple reason that it doesn't cost them anything near a grand extra to make a diesel car. I doubt if it costs much more at all to make a diesel car, but they don't want you to work that one out.............................

So what if orders are stacked up ahead ? - it's all business and in these economic times, no-one is going to increase prices by a fifth and lose business, unless something else is going on - well you should get the drift.

Fact is - Skoda are saying loud and clear that they don't want you to buy a diesel engined car for reasons that they are not disclosing..

My thoughts? you probably won't agree, but the fact is that Skoda are at the top of customer surveys. They don't want to lose this hard won ground. DPF's are causing massive problems to many and many drivers won't now buy a car that they haven't got control over how it can be driven. I certainly wouldn't once I had done some research and so I bought a 1.8Tsi - great engine, great car.

Also, if what I am now hearing from a reliable source is correct, there is another problem related to diesel engines set to become public knowledge very soon and that is concerning the proportion of bio diesel that is now added to the fuel and the damage and effects now being discovered.

VAG will however make all the diesels they can and flog them to the emerging markets - stack em high and sell em cheap.

I was a huge diesel engine fan and have had several diesel cars over the last 20 years, but not any more.

I agree with your sentiments. I have previously owned Peugeot, VW, BMW and Mercedes diesels. The latter needed a new DMF at under 20K miles. The garage charged £2300 for the pleasure of a replacement - fortunately it was under warranty. Diesel engines are good if you do a lot of miles with a warm engine (e.g. road transport, taxis etc). My driving now also includes a lot of under 3 mile journeys from cold and this is what the Merc didn't like. There is more engine vibration when it is cold and hence greater stress on the DMF. No doubt if it had been fitted with a DPF that would have caused problems too! Horses for courses as they say.

Ah, so it's a conspiracy then, 'they' don't want to sell diesels.

Right.

Conspiracy? Not really. But the UK is a hugely important car market for manufacturers and because we are a densely populated nation, news, both good and bad tends to circulate pretty rapidly by word of mouth via a network of watering holes and other places. It's pretty easy to find out via the social network who makes the best power drill or which boilers people have most trouble with.

Same with cars. When a manufacturer puts in their brochure " A driving style is required during regeneration, where a constant vehicle speed above 37mph, (Sod speed cameras and the Police filming), must be maintained. This does not always suit customers who make frequent short journeys or experience stop/start driving or drive within inner city or urban areas." Source; Skoda brochure. Other manufacturers are saying similar things in their blurb and some also quote specific geographical areas such as the Isle Of Man or Channel Islands. My local Fiat dealer Salesman is actually advising customers not to buy a diesel at all. (I think they have had huge troubles with diesel Doblo's)

There is a very clear message here. Study how DPF's work - I personally can only conclude that the technology is quite insane. At the very least it is certainly not perfected and those who buy diesels are buying a car with a system still in the experimental stage. As I said at the start - the UK market is very important to car manufacturers and the Octavia is now probably the most popular choice in the Taxi market. Skoda will not want to lose the massive progress they have made in the last few years.

If I was the CEO of Skoda UK, I would be trying to kill off sales of Diesel Octavias and doing everything I could to encourage sales of the brilliant Tsi petrols in order to maintain position as a market leader.

You're coming across as a bit of a drama queen mate. I'm on my 2nd DPF equipped Octavia and only do 5000 a year. No problems experienced or anticipated.

The reason why diesel is not being promoted by Skoda right now is a supply chain problem, and Skoda being at the bottom of the food chain in VAG, aren't getting any of the engines. They're going to Audi and VW in the main.

I ordered my pertrol Vrs back in August, will be picking it up on Friday. Will have to try and see if I can get the extra £1000.

Phoned Skoda Uk, told the offer was for swapping customers out of Diesel and into petrol's (as posted above). Explained that I felt I was now paying a £1000 to much for my petrol car and was not best pleased. The response was still No, you wont get the £1000.

Ive declined the £1000 to go into the petrol. The build date on my CR has been brought forward 5 weeks

Phoned Skoda Uk, told the offer was for swapping customers out of Diesel and into petrol's (as posted above). Explained that I felt I was now paying a £1000 to much for my petrol car and was not best pleased. The response was still No, you wont get the £1000.

Why you would have ever thought Skoda would give you £1000 back on your petrol Octavia that was ordered as a petrol is beyond me.

Fact is - Skoda are saying loud and clear that they don't want you to buy a diesel engined car for reasons that they are not disclosing...

This is a joke, right!?

It's quite simple; it's called supply and demand.

Demand for diesel Octavia's is far outweighing their ability to supply. The reason being that they are simply more desirable.

Skoda know they aren’t getting anymore build capacity from VAG and are simply trying to preserve sales numbers by incentivising those customers who would otherwise take their business elsewhere to try a petrol instead.

To claim Skoda is actively going out of their way to prevent you from buying a diesel is laughable

You're coming across as a bit of a drama queen mate. I'm on my 2nd DPF equipped Octavia and only do 5000 a year. No problems experienced or anticipated.

The reason why diesel is not being promoted by Skoda right now is a supply chain problem, and Skoda being at the bottom of the food chain in VAG, aren't getting any of the engines. They're going to Audi and VW in the main.

Had two diesel octy's now and the exhaust pressure sensor gave up on my previous car but fixed under warranty. No problems after that. My current car is a CR and has not had any problems so far either. Could it be that SUK just want people to swap their orders from diesel to petrol because the petrols aren't selling and there's a glut of them...?

This is a joke, right!?

It's quite simple; it's called supply and demand.

Demand for diesel Octavia's is far outweighing their ability to supply. The reason being that they are simply more desirable.

Skoda know they aren’t getting anymore build capacity from VAG and are simply trying to preserve sales numbers by incentivising those customers who would otherwise take their business elsewhere to try a petrol instead.

To claim Skoda is actively going out of their way to prevent you from buying a diesel is laughable

To me its exactly this, why discount a product by 20 percent off its normal price when you are struggling to meet demand on it. I know for a fact their is a 6- 8 month waiting list on an A3 black edition diesel. Audi and VW have introduced 13% tax bracket diesels with stop start technology which are flying out of the showroom. We have a big culture of company cars in this country.

New VAG diesels are in huge demand.

For what its worth I just handed back a 140 CR diesel audi a4 to the lease company, what an absolute peach of an engine, ultra smooth, quiet, economical, more than fast enough and never put a foot wrong in 2 1/2 years motoring. I've heard a few horror stories about DPF but to rule out diesels full stop is a bit blinkered IMO.