Ok, have decided that I want an Octavia VRS, been into my local dealer today, I cant 'ideally' change until the end of the year so just wondered if they ordered a car on the VAT deal I could have it in December, he said they would be able to do that just by changing the spec, although the only spec change that doesnt cost money and take you out of the VAT offer is a colour change, so in theory it could keep being changed until it was delivered in December and I would still be on the VAT deal, anyway, that was hard to guarantee so not going for that, so that is out unfortunately.

So I really cant decide on new or used, if I was in the VAT offer then I owuld be tempted with new, but am also tempted with a used one.

Thing I would like to know is that (I know there is no definate answer to this) but when the VAT deal offer ends, they will no doubt have an alternative offer, but what other deals have Skoda done in the past to get discounted Skodas???

Or my other option was to reserve the demo he has coming in July, a white 2.0TDI DSG with leather, sunroof, front and rear sensors, window tints, auto rear view plus other bits but its just going to be too expensive, so he has said that he will be ordering his next one in June so has said I can go in spec his demo and then by the time it is delivered and been on demo for 3 months it would fit into my required date to change, and the price would be around £15K with my spec that I want, i.e. anthracite grey, TFSI DSG engine, heated seats, rear sensors, auto dimming pack, we also get to demo the car properly for a long weekend when he first gets it etc etc also the figures stack up better.

Or my other option is I chuck my current car in now with no penalty, and buy a used one, decisions, decions!

Either way, I am test driving a petrol manual he has currently on Thursday to decide on whether it really is the car for us, and hopefully that will help make my decision, but I have pretty much decided that DSG is the way to go, my wife is disabled so it makes sense as it will be easier for her to drive when she needs to drive.

Also, does the DSG have different modes? If it does what difference does it make etc?

However, if anyone happens to see a used Petrol DSG under 2 years old with some toys on it then pease let me know!!!!

What are the pro's and con's of having the demo car? I know it wont be 'new' as such but I am hoping the price would be better than a new one etc?

Thoughts anyone?

James

hi james

one thing to watch out for

i agreed to buy a demo car because the octavias were slow coming through.

when i agreed the car was 2 weeks old and had done 300 miles.

i was assured that after 3 months it would have no more than 2500 miles on it.

they tried to sell it to me with 6500 miles at the agreed price

i told them to keep it - or words to that effect

The DSG has two proper auto modes, normal and sport where the sport mode changes down sooner and up later in the rev range. It then also has the manual setting where you choose the gear you want by manually stepping up or down the gear range with the knob or paddles. Finally you can use the paddles at any time whatsoever to change up and to change down within the permitted rev range for each gear.

I thought I'd be all over the paddles but I'm not, the DSG is that good. Also, much to the pleasure of my wife, it rarely goes in sport mode, the whole thing is that good.

This is my first diesel and I absolutely love it, having come from a Subaru I thought I might miss that oomph but this has plenty and the torque is superb, plus my current average mpg is 44 and that's with only 1300 miles on the clock so it will improve.

There's no answer to your predicament however, I will say make sure that you try petrol and diesel back to back, I did and there was one clear winner. As for how to go about the purchase it's a shame that the VAT free offer on the diesel Octavia has finished otherwise my advice would be an definite order a diesel Octavia before the end of March.

Whatever way you go good luck

Thanks for the replies chaps, thats what worries me with the demo in that I would agree to buy it within certain parameters and then when it came to having the car it would be outside of those parameters, I suppose if they changed things price wise then it would be OK, I just dont want to get taken for a ride on it thats all.

I am looking forward to my VRS test drive on Thursday having never driven one before, so that will start to satisfy somethings in my mind, but the DSG just sounds great :-)

However, if anyone happens to see a used Petrol DSG under 2 years old with some toys on it then pease let me know!!!!

Platinum Skoda in Bath have a 10-plate petrol DSG vRS at the moment, in silver, as a demo car. It's the one I test drove back in January. Nothing special about the spec from what I remember though.

I'm actually moving from a diesel DSG (albeit an Audi A3) to a petrol manual. The DSG is definately the best auto box I've driven, but to be honest, while an auto is nice in heavy stop start traffic, I've missed having proper manual control too much, so it's back to a manual I go. I found the flappy paddles to be a bit of a novelty, and it's very rare I've used it anything other than auto mode. The pull-away delay still annoys me to this day. Nothing really wrong with the DSG, it just isn't the right gearbox for me!

hi james

one thing to watch out for

i agreed to buy a demo car because the octavias were slow coming through.

when i agreed the car was 2 weeks old and had done 300 miles.

i was assured that after 3 months it would have no more than 2500 miles on it.

they tried to sell it to me with 6500 miles at the agreed price

i told them to keep it - or words to that effect

I expect that demo was getting taken home by a salesman every night with a fairly lengthy commute!

Well went to test the one that was planned this morning, said to the wife before we left, bet the car isnt there! Parked our car in the car park, couldnt see it, walked in, salesman sat in the chair and says 'what can I do for you.....' we reply 'here to test drive the VRS as arranged' and met with the reply 'oh its not here, it went back to our other branch last night' so as you can imagine I wasnt impressed, bear in mind that with this same dealership which does both Skoda and VW, we have had 3 new cars in 3 years, the last one was 8 weeks ago, we would of been regarded as good repeat customers, and so they woudl make sure everything was in place for us, but no, I even rang yesterday to confirm the appointment, and was told it was all OK and to turn up as arranged.

Bear in mind that my wife is disabled, is in chronic pain and spends a lot of time in bed, today she wasnt really well enough to go out, but she got herself sorted as she doesnt like to let her health problems beat her, also the fact that she was bad today would help decide if the VRS was for us or not, and they let us down like this!

So thats it, not going to buy it from that Skoda dealer, its a point of principal for me, everything was arranged, it was put in teh test drive book, and to not even get a phone call to say that the car has already gone back and not available for test drive is in my view extremely poor customer service, so I have decided that I will deal with the guy that I always deal with in the VW side of the dealership for my Skoda, including the test drive, ordering, pricing etc and if the Skoda side dont like it then I will go else where, the VW side had already told me they could help me as I was a long standing customer of theres, but I said no I will let the sales people in Skoda deal with it, but they have ballsed it up on the first attempt, so sod em!!!!

Really annoyed me this has, having worked in the service industry myself before I know that it is all about customer service and there are plenty of other places to buy cars from....

Anyway, rant over!!!

I had exactly the same experience with the dealers in Kings Heath B'ham, except the other salesman had taken it to Scotland for the week

Sometimes it makes you wonder whether they actually want to sell you a car doesnt it...

So sorry to hear that, it really is unfathomable how they work.

My dealer was quite good but they weren't perfect and I mentioned a couple of issues in the Skoda UK survey which arrived in my in box a day or two after I'd collected my car. A week or so later I had a call from SUK to ask if the dealership had been in contact and they hadn't, about 10 minutes after the chap had rung from SUK I get a phone call from the dealer asking me to call in to give them chance to sort out the issues that I had. I did and they did but for goodness sake I was spending over £20k on a car and they couldn't even make sure that it was precisely as I'd asked

Don't let it put you off Skoda, they are brilliant cars, find your next nearest dealer and go there.