Hi All,

Here are my thoughts now I'm coming upto the end of first week with new vRS:

Pleased with:

1. Performance - Fantastic straight line pace. Really chuffed, seems alot quicker than I remember from test drive. Below 'jail speeds' doesn't feel any slower than my old focus ST really. Before I took delivery was looking into re-maps but can't see the point now!! :yes:

2. Ride quality - who says the ride is too hard? Sure its firm but at no stage is even remotely uncomfortable. Just glides over most bumps and rough surfaces with no problem.

3. Refinement at low speed -Excellent. Really quiet around town. Bit of wind noise at 70mph but not too bad tho.

4. MPG on commute and around town - mix of A and B roads + some town driving on way to work and not had less than 34mpg from it yet. Pure town use in stop-start traffic yields about 28mpg. Pretty impressive for the perfomance especially as not yet run in.

5. Build quality - can't fault it. Everything well screwed together and seats really comfortable.

6. Heated seats - work really well, more than 2 minutes on the highest setting and you risk melting skin!

7. Climate control -

8. Engine noise at low/mid rpm - Really impressed. Didn't think much of this on my test drive but loving it! Getting addicted to the whooooosh-hissss of the supercharger/turbo

9. Exhaust noise - didn't have any high hopes for this and was again thinking "might need to get a miltek on this" before I took delivery. Wrong again! After a couple hundred miles started to sound sweet -nice low growl and even a few 'pops' every now and then...

10. DSG box - had a few doubts about this but can honsetly say its fantastic. Really smooth and easy to use. Is so relaxing actually fins myself driving slower than usual! :wonder:

Not so pleased with:

1. Pulling away smoothly - DSG not quite got this right it seems. Am also getting slight hesitation when pulling away compared to manual, makes you concentrate that bit harder when trying to pull out quickly at busy junction etc. Put your foot down then nothing seems to happen followed by a shove in the back as it jumps forward abit too quickly. Will no doubt improve as I learn more how to get the best out of it.

2. Paddle shifters attached to steering wheel - why oh why can't they have been larger and most importantly fixed to the steering column and not the wheel?! Fine when going in straight line but become completely friggin useless when turning the wheel by any significant amount as you lose track of where they are....

3. 'S' Mode over-revving - S Mode great at low rpm and for overtaking maneuvres etc but bloody hell why does it have to rev to such an extreme degree all the time? Would be perfect if just programmed to shift up 200-300 rpm earlier...

4. Climate control fan - too loud. When in Auto mode it cranks up the fan speed too much whilst getting up to temp. Once temp reached it settles down and is fine but can get abit annoying

5. MPG on motorway cruise - did 250 miles on M'way cruising at 80mph (sorry I mean 70mph ) and only averaged 36mpg -suspect this will improve as time goes by.

Overall so glad I went for the vRS -its great fun! Also chuffed to bits with White/black roof/dark chrome colour combo.

Tom

Great review for a great car....

Glad the heated seats in the furby heat up properly :wonder:

fit some bigger paddles

fit some bigger paddles

Would like something like this on mine but they just look too aftermarket and tacky for my liking

It would be good if you could remove the original paddles and get proper longer ones instead of these stick on jobbies.

8. Engine noise at low/mid rpm - Really impressed. Didn't think much of this on my test drive but loving it! Getting addicted to the whooooosh-hissss of the supercharger/turbo

Tom

It is surprisingly addictive. Quite a nice sound. I wonder if other's can hear it as much as I can?

3. 'S' Mode over-revving - S Mode great at low rpm and for overtaking maneuvres etc but bloody hell why does it have to rev to such an extreme degree all the time? Would be perfect if just programmed to shift up 200-300 rpm earlier...

Agreed. I understand why S Mode is there though and it does that. Clue is in the name :p. You need to combine it with paddles, so you do the changing up (usually about 4-5k rpm for me).

5. MPG on motorway cruise - did 250 miles on M'way cruising at 80mph (sorry I mean 70mph ) and only averaged 36mpg -suspect this will improve as time goes by.

Sweet spot is defintely 40-60mph for this car. 70mph seems quite good and I'd expect 40mpg.

Good review mate. Glad you're enjoying it and your own experiences seem to reflect mine even after 8600 miles

Dont forget that the DSG learns your driving style

AND

I agree..The paddles need to be on the column NOT the wheel!!

Hi All,

Here are my thoughts now I'm coming upto the end of first week with new vRS:

Pleased with:

1. Performance - Fantastic straight line pace. Really chuffed, seems alot quicker than I remember from test drive. Below 'jail speeds' doesn't feel any slower than my old focus ST really. Before I took delivery was looking into re-maps but can't see the point now!! :yes:

2. Ride quality - who says the ride is too hard? Sure its firm but at no stage is even remotely uncomfortable. Just glides over most bumps and rough surfaces with no problem.

3. Refinement at low speed -Excellent. Really quiet around town. Bit of wind noise at 70mph but not too bad tho.

4. MPG on commute and around town - mix of A and B roads + some town driving on way to work and not had less than 34mpg from it yet. Pure town use in stop-start traffic yields about 28mpg. Pretty impressive for the perfomance especially as not yet run in.

5. Build quality - can't fault it. Everything well screwed together and seats really comfortable.

6. Heated seats - work really well, more than 2 minutes on the highest setting and you risk melting skin!

7. Climate control -

8. Engine noise at low/mid rpm - Really impressed. Didn't think much of this on my test drive but loving it! Getting addicted to the whooooosh-hissss of the supercharger/turbo

9. Exhaust noise - didn't have any high hopes for this and was again thinking "might need to get a miltek on this" before I took delivery. Wrong again! After a couple hundred miles started to sound sweet -nice low growl and even a few 'pops' every now and then...

10. DSG box - had a few doubts about this but can honsetly say its fantastic. Really smooth and easy to use. Is so relaxing actually fins myself driving slower than usual! :wonder:

Not so pleased with:

1. Pulling away smoothly - DSG not quite got this right it seems. Am also getting slight hesitation when pulling away compared to manual, makes you concentrate that bit harder when trying to pull out quickly at busy junction etc. Put your foot down then nothing seems to happen followed by a shove in the back as it jumps forward abit too quickly. Will no doubt improve as I learn more how to get the best out of it.

2. Paddle shifters attached to steering wheel - why oh why can't they have been larger and most importantly fixed to the steering column and not the wheel?! Fine when going in straight line but become completely friggin useless when turning the wheel by any significant amount as you lose track of where they are....

3. 'S' Mode over-revving - S Mode great at low rpm and for overtaking maneuvres etc but bloody hell why does it have to rev to such an extreme degree all the time? Would be perfect if just programmed to shift up 200-300 rpm earlier...

4. Climate control fan - too loud. When in Auto mode it cranks up the fan speed too much whilst getting up to temp. Once temp reached it settles down and is fine but can get abit annoying

5. MPG on motorway cruise - did 250 miles on M'way cruising at 80mph (sorry I mean 70mph ) and only averaged 36mpg -suspect this will improve as time goes by.

Overall so glad I went for the vRS -its great fun! Also chuffed to bits with White/black roof/dark chrome colour combo.

Tom

Good review Tom, jealous that we're still having to wait a while for ours to show up.

Regarding the ride, I personally think it is a bit overtly firm and crashy. It's not terrible but nothing like as resolved as a MK6 Golf with sports suspension. For the money only too happy to put up with it however.

Climate control....have to be honest it did my head in. Looks v nice and all that but functionally I think its rather primitive. We've had Climatronic (exact same unit) on an 03 reg Ibiza and the auto fan was really annoying, it also started to break (fan would stop then go full blast all the time, ended up turning it off unless we really needed heat or AC) and was going to be expensive to fix. I wanted it but after a test drive in a car with it reminded myself how bad it was and scrubbed it off the list. I think its only worth having for how it looks, not how it works. Just my opinion though.

Climate control....have to be honest it did my head in. Looks v nice and all that but functionally I think its rather primitive. We've had Climatronic (exact same unit) on an 03 reg Ibiza and the auto fan was really annoying, it also started to break (fan would stop then go full blast all the time, ended up turning it off unless we really needed heat or AC) and was going to be expensive to fix. I wanted it but after a test drive in a car with it reminded myself how bad it was and scrubbed it off the list. I think its only worth having for how it looks, not how it works. Just my opinion though.

Agree the auto function is really quite annoying when you first get in the car to start a journey, there reaally is no need for it to turn the fan speed up so high whilst the cabin is warming up! I tend to disable 'auto' whilst things warming up then when desired temp reached switch it back on again. When the fan is blasting away it works really well to keep the temp steady and regulate airflow. Not had climate control on car before so was keen to order it and try it out. Definitely improves the look of the dash I think, generally gives it a more premium up-market feel. :yes:

Bet you can't wait for yours to arrive -post up some pics when you get it

Agree the auto function is really quite annoying when you first get in the car to start a journey, there reaally is no need for it to turn the fan speed up so high whilst the cabin is warming up! I tend to disable 'auto' whilst things warming up then when desired temp reached switch it back on again. When the fan is blasting away it works really well to keep the temp steady and regulate airflow. Not had climate control on car before so was keen to order it and try it out. Definitely improves the look of the dash I think, generally gives it a more premium up-market feel. :yes:

Bet you can't wait for yours to arrive -post up some pics when you get it

Fair shout mate, it definitely looks nice in the dash compared to the standard unit. I initially thought the standard air con was purely a manual affair (as described in the brochure) but it transpires it is the semi-automatic "Climatic" unit. Has this in a few cars now and is very good, keeps an optimum temperature without the auto fan and distribution controls, is all I need.

Missus was very strict on what I could put on it also, I insisted on the Dark Chromes and Elec Rear wins, she wanted parking sensors and thats as far as we could go. Would have quite liked Cruise but being an auto we can live without it. Gather its fairly easily retrofitted if you want it at a later date anyway, just a change of indicator stalk, a wiring harness and a recode. Many dealers and 3rd parties will do this for you.

It's now absolutely killing me waiting for the thing, looking forward to the first blast in it thats for sure. Looking forward to baiting some Golf GTi's!

Would have quite liked Cruise but being an auto we can live without it. Gather its fairly easily retrofitted if you want it at a later date anyway, just a change of indicator stalk, a wiring harness and a recode. Many dealers and 3rd parties will do this for you.

It's now absolutely killing me waiting for the thing, looking forward to the first blast in it thats for sure. Looking forward to baiting some Golf GTi's!

Haha, you'll love it. Fab vRS is quite a handy chav-slaying tool!

With regards cruise it might be worth checking with dealer about retro-fitting as I heard a rumour on here a while back saying that it was a 'dash-out' job on the vRS so better to spec it from standard if you want it as car will never be quite the same again after work like that.

Any more pictures of the motor mate

Cheers

Tim

Edited 8 March, 201115 yr by Tim31

Good write up & echoes my feelings exactly. The DSG box does start to learn you..S mode now changes up on light throttle openings before 7K which is nice! :-)...but the delay is still there which does slightly irritate me. I wonder if the delay has been specified by tyre manufacurers to increase revenue...how many times have I tried to pull out of a junction...thought 'COME ON!!!'...then 1/2 a second later dissapear up the road in a cloud of tyre-smoke!

Forgot to say...the Heated seats are AWESOME...I had our Octy VRS this morning which has leather heated seats...It takes about 4 mins to feel anything...like you say, with the Fabia seats, 2 minutes & you're reaching to turn them down!

Forgot to say...the Heated seats are AWESOME...

The only use I have for my heated seats is secretly turning on the passenger seat so they feel like they've wet themselves

The only use I have for my heated seats is secretly turning on the passenger seat so they feel like they've wet themselves

I did this once, I had a Volve S80, top of the range, there was a heat wave on, Sunroof open, windows down, Wife's heated seat on Max. She was wriggling around for ages till she spotted the heated seat light lit on the button

No nookie for a Week :no:

Nice review.

On the paddles issue, I can see it being annoying them not being static and attached to the wheel boss perhaps.

But generally you've already selected the gear appropriate for the corner, so there shouldn't be a need to access the paddles while you've got any decent degree of wheel lock applied?

Any more pictures of the motor mate

Cheers

Tim

Yeah no probs will post a few more up when I get a minute. Dark chrome rims looking great now I've given 'em a bit of a clean -were strangely abit dirty and looked more like the black wheels when I picked the car up -almost like the valeter had washed/waxed the body but forgot the wheels! :wonder:

Furby had a few admiring looks from a BMW M5 driver today haha

huge plus point for DSG is that because the changes are so quick you can change up a gear mid corner with out upsetting the car. try that in a manual or normal automatically and you'll have a real ar$e clenching moment. Really useful on some tracks, especially the nurburgring. I found in my octavia that i needed another 500revs free sometimes as i didnt want to risk changing gear mid bend becuse it was manual. With DSGflicked the paddle and i could have just accelerated out faster

Would have quite liked Cruise but being an auto we can live without it. Gather its fairly easily retrofitted if you want it at a later date anyway, just a change of indicator stalk, a wiring harness and a recode. Many dealers and 3rd parties will do this for you.

It's now absolutely killing me waiting for the thing, looking forward to the first blast in it thats for sure. Looking forward to baiting some Golf GTi's!

At the moment it would appear that it is not possible to retrofit cruise to the VRS. I got the dealers show room model and they investigated getting it added and found that they could not. I also contacted SKUK and two other dealers (service departments) who all took details and called me back confirming what my dealer had told me.

Hopefully, some one will come up with a work around or Skoda themselves will make it available at a later date. I noticed on at least one of the after market sites that they do advise to contact them before ardering as not all Fabias can be retorfitted with cruise control, and give the version of the ECU(?) fitted for those that they can not deal with.

Thanks for the post .... looking forward to the pics

But generally you've already selected the gear appropriate for the corner, so there shouldn't be a need to access the paddles while you've got any decent degree of wheel lock applied?

Nice review.

On the paddles issue, I can see it being annoying them not being static and attached to the wheel boss perhaps.

But generally you've already selected the gear appropriate for the corner, so there shouldn't be a need to access the paddles while you've got any decent degree of wheel lock applied?

But as i said in my previous posts, theres time on tracks and even on the road when you at full revs in say 2nd a gear but you could do with being in 3rd half way around. I always felt like if i had an extra 500 revs in the octavia it would have been so much better at the ring for that very reason. Now with a DSG i dont have to worry about sticking the clutch down and making the car coast temporarily around a corner.

Not wanting to go off topic but if you find you need to change up mid corner why not just be in the higher gear before you tackle the bend? Or as wardy mentioned surely you wouldn't have that much lock on so you can just flick the paddle? Never seem to have a problem in the XF and that has paddled mounted to the wheel.