Is it just me or is all this ' My Clio is better than your fabia ' and 'DSG is poo and manual is great' thing is wearing a bit thin?

Reminds me of arguing about whether an Amstrad CPC464 was better than a Commodore 64 ( Amstrad) when I were a lad.

I've got a Clio RS CUP at the moment and have a red Fabia VRS on order. They're both good cars and I think we're nit picking at minor details if you think back to some of the rubbish hot hatches we used to get ( Punto Sporting anyone )

( queue opening sound of can of worms )

It annoys me when people say DSG is stupid in a vRS when they have never tried it!

On the Fabia vRS the DSG gearbox makes the car in my opinion!

Punto Sporting wasnt a hot hatch, it was just a 1.2 16v with I think 85 or 90bhp! The Punto GT was miles better... and the Uno Turbo better still

Punto Sporting wasnt a hot hatch, it was just a 1.2 16v with I think 85 or 90bhp! The Punto GT was miles better... and the Uno Turbo better still

Although not as good as my Panda 100hp .

Oh and Six speed manuals are rubbish too, 4 speed is betterer

Clearly you are all wrong.

My Morris Minor is less than 800kg for optimum sportiness and with a 948cc engine pumping out an amazing 37hp it's far more of a drivers car than any Clio, VRS or Fiat thingy.

Clearly you are all wrong.

My Morris Minor is less than 800kg for optimum sportiness and with a 948cc engine pumping out an amazing 37hp it's far more of a drivers car than any Clio, VRS or Fiat thingy.

Here! Here! My very first car, went like a bomb, a small one, stopping it was another story!

It annoys me when people say DSG is stupid in a vRS when they have never tried it!

On the Fabia vRS the DSG gearbox makes the car in my opinion!

I have a Fabia VRS mkII and a Yeti 1.2tsi SE which will ne 12 months old in April. I wish I had gone for the DSG in the Yeti and have considered looking to change for a DSG. What is the exact spec of the demo you are about to sell....price etc.....

Whilst I paid outright for the VRS we put the Yeti on a pcp with a minimal deposit although a reasonable discount. Will I be in negative equity or would it be worth investigating further?

iv driven the clio 200(non cup) and thought it was phenominal to drive. makes you smile very quickly. I found the fabia to be gutless in the midrange, but the clio was dead in comparison. great when at full throttle/revs, but not enough midrange grunt.

I love my trackdays and alot of the reason i bought this car was because of tunability, cheap running costs and low weight. The only issue is they have compromised on the dynamics to make it more 'everyday' usable. To get around this i will be remapping it, uprating the springs/dampers and anti roll bars. Dynamically i still wont expect it to match the feel on the clio one ive done it, but id bet it will have closed the gap a lot. And with 215Hp/300Nm torque and DSG and the chassis mods, it'll be pretty impressive, yet still very usable.

Clearly you are all wrong.

My Morris Minor is less than 800kg for optimum sportiness and with a 948cc engine pumping out an amazing 37hp it's far more of a drivers car than any Clio, VRS or Fiat thingy.

Back in the 80’s my mates much modified mk1 capri (or crappie as we called it) was loping down the M1 at 110 when a morris-minor-traveller flashed from behind. He took it to 120plus but couldn’t shake it. He lets it through and it torched past, we noticed 2 big exhausts and it was gone.

We pulled in to Leicester Forest and there it was. What have you got under that bonnet mister we asked. Nothing he replies, and it was true. It had a mid-mounted Rover V8 where the back seats should be!

Q-cars. Love em.

Whilst I expect the Clio RS is fantasic to drive, It wouldnt be the car for me. I've never much liked or trusted French cars, most are still plagued by poor build quality and electrical issues. The Fabia is a fantastic compromise for those that want a fast car but want reliability, build quality and space; something thats easy to live with day to day. The DSG is perfect for the car, sure it has its faults but it allows you to drive fast with minimum effort, or take full control when the mood takes.

A colleague of mine had a previous gen 182 and he told me a horror story that his brake pads fell out on a motorway slip road at speed, leaving him with little or no braking power and nearly killing him. It's horror stories like this that prevent me from ever wanting to part with cash for a car like this.

I think if I'm honest i've been damaged having been forced in my early driving days into a number of extremely poor italian cars (Lancia Y10 FIRE & MK2 Fiat Uno 1.0 to name a couple) by a father at the time obsessed with Alfa Romeo's. I can say happily that such experience makes you intent on getting away from cars that always have something wrong with them (poor build, electrical problems and in their case RUST!). Much time has passed and now I can safely say I would never buy anything other than German (or a very close relation!). My dad now has an A3 1.4 TFSi Sporthatch S-Line DSG and a Porsche Boxster S PDK (weekend wheels) so guess he's really also learnt the hard way.

It annoys me when people say DSG is stupid in a vRS when they have never tried it!

On the Fabia vRS the DSG gearbox makes the car in my opinion!

Yes...on my test drive I was impressed too! Agreed. A choice I suspect will improve sales even more though, I bet.