I personally prefer changing the gears manually for overtaking; kickdown of course has its uses but i feel it tends to change down one too many cogs leaving you towards the end of the useful power for that gear. Still at least you can summons alot of go without having to think about what your doing, just stab and go.

RE the Climatic thing....yeah is a little bit annoying but hey ho wasnt going to bother ordering Climatronic. Manual system is perfectly decent and if anything easier to keep the car at a confortable temp. Find with Climatic/Climatronic that once up to temp it starts blowing cool air which can at times be unconfortable; its efforts to maintain a constant temperature just start to make me feel cold. Have it in my Golf and on a cold day find i tend to keep having to turn the dial up unnaturally warm just to keep warm air pumping out the vents.

I personally prefer changing the gears manually for overtaking; kickdown of course has its uses but i feel it tends to change down one too many cogs leaving you towards the end of the useful power for that gear. Still at least you can summons alot of go without having to think about what your doing, just stab and go.

RE the Climatic thing....yeah is a little bit annoying but hey ho wasnt going to bother ordering Climatronic. Manual system is perfectly decent and if anything easier to keep the car at a confortable temp. Find with Climatic/Climatronic that once up to temp it starts blowing cool air which can at times be unconfortable; its efforts to maintain a constant temperature just start to make me feel cold. Have it in my Golf and on a cold day find i tend to keep having to turn the dial up unnaturally warm just to keep warm air pumping out the vents.

there is another thing you can do when over taking and does not drop as much gears and does not rev as much as kickdown, all you do is blip the throttle twice very quickly and it will drop about 2 gears and allows you to overtake as well.

there is another thing you can do when over taking and does not drop as much gears and does not rev as much as kickdown, all you do is blip the throttle twice very quickly and it will drop about 2 gears and allows you to overtake as well.

Cheers for that chas will have to try it

lol did you guys not try kickdown on the test drive?

I used every gizmo in the car apart from the stereo!

I only used the kickdown once and I really caught me by surprise how violent it was. Used the paddles most of the time on the test drives.

lol did you guys not try kickdown on the test drive?

I used every gizmo in the car apart from the stereo!

I certainly did - on test you've got to have some fun. I was cruising at 30 in 5th or 6th and then just planted my foot to the floor to see what it did - was loads of fun!

Just a quick update another few hundred miles on.......

Overall opinion of the car has not changed. Think pound for pound both the hatch and estate are the best value and most well rounded hot hatch thats available at the moment. Sure its not the most focused car out there but no other car offers the combination of the pace, build quality, practicality and value that the vRS does currently.

Glad I chose white, looks great and having given its first decent wash today appears surprisingly easy to keep clean. Sure it shows the dirt v quickly but getting flies off of it seems very easy; not sure if this is on account of the solid rather than metallic finish. Same goes for the wheels, the dark chromes get coated in dust v quickly but are very easy to wash. V glad I didnt opt for the standard or white wheels as given how much dust my brakes are giving out give it a year (as I dont get to clean our cars all that often) they'd probably be in a bit of a sorry state.

On the downside whilst I love the DSG, it doesnt always change gear with the precision of a decent torque converter auto. On occasions very mild shunts can be detected when shifting through the gearsbut I guess this is typical of any dual clutch auto. To effectively have an automatic gearbox with so many gearchange options with the ability to change gear so quickly more than offsets this problem though.

Another issue is the MPG.....now when I bought this car I never expected it to be fantastic on fuel but on the basis the car should be able to return 45 MPG at the moment it is getting nowhere near this. Most drives I rarely better 30 MPG. Admitedly this is no doubt down to the cars low mileage, short runs and my spirited driving but as it stands I'll be surprised if I see 300 miles out of the current tank of fuel which isnt very good. Given that (begrudgingly) I've taken to putting Super Unleaded in it, this stings all the more. I'm sure it will improve with time though so dont want to be too hard on it.

One last thing....build quality. On the whole its very good but definitely no better than a VW's. My car was delivered with a broken handbrake cover and already has a rattly dash binacle. I've also had the exhaust system warning light appear though it so far touch wood is a freak occurance. I'm aware that other people are also experiencing niggly faults with their vRS's I just hope these little teething issues arent a sign of things to come as our last car wasnt reliable and dont want to be in the same position this time round....stuck with a car for three years thats forever going wrong.

Overall though I think its a fantastic car. You'd have to really hate the Fabia or have money to burn not to buy one over a Polo GTi, I also think its more appealing than the Ibiza Cupra as its so much more practical. Very glad I went with the estate as its proving to be extremely useful as well as being alot of fun!

Edited 14 June, 201115 yr by pipsyp

How many miles on your car?

Lol pipsyp, i thought it was wife's motor.

nearly 400 so f all in the grand scheme of things. Sure the MPG will improve but its certainly pretty poor at the moment.

Yeah didescharlie, is the wifes but seeing as I'm also paying for it and she cant drive it at the mo i'm using it :-)

Pips - nice words again.

Can confirm that the MPG does get better, i was in the very high 20's on my first couple of tank fulls but its getting better with age. Signed up for the fuelly thing (as you can see below) and MPG has slowly risen. I am getting 33 now. Have got 1,950 on the clock and things are also loosening up as well. I would like to think by 5,000 miles the MPG should be in the range of 36 - 39 and I would be happy enough at this level as quite a bit of my miles is dropping of kids, local stuff.

Again from my experience continue with the super unleaded diet and I think you will be rewarded in the long run.

Hope this helps.

nearly 400 so f all in the grand scheme of things. Sure the MPG will improve but its certainly pretty poor at the moment.

Yeah didescharlie, is the wifes but seeing as I'm also paying for it and she cant drive it at the mo i'm using it :-)

Pips - nice words again.

Can confirm that the MPG does get better, i was in the very high 20's on my first couple of tank fulls but its getting better with age. Signed up for the fuelly thing (as you can see below) and MPG has slowly risen. I am getting 33 now. Have got 1,950 on the clock and things are also loosening up as well. I would like to think by 5,000 miles the MPG should be in the range of 36 - 39 and I would be happy enough at this level as quite a bit of my miles is dropping of kids, local stuff.

Again from my experience continue with the super unleaded diet and I think you will be rewarded in the long run.

Hope this helps.

true and true, I'm over 10k now, and can easily get 45mg on a run

Tried the kick down button today, while in the car park at work with the engine off

Just wanted to see what the "click" felt like......got to say it was very exciting, can't wait to try it with the car actually running

pipsyp - managing to get 45 mpg on mine and its only done 400 miles too... you must be driving too fast!

How were your 400 miles done? Short runs or long runs? I've done 120 ish of short journeys, then late this week a 150 mile round trip followed by a few more short trips friday and then another 120 this weekend. Running nicely and have been upping the rpm gradually after a few miles rather than using Sport straight away.

Washed it today too as it gets filthy with rain and motorways

Hi Adlav,

Point i'm trying to make is that the car isnt quite as economical as I hoped it would be or what the official figures make it out to be.

I never thought it would be fantastic, after all its a small and heavily inducted engine but at the moment it is burning fuel at a very similar rate to a MK5 Golf GTi I had a few years ago, which given on paper its supposed to be a fair bit more frugal and is less powerful has surprised me to be honest.

Hopefully i'll see a change with some mileage and longer runs

Edited 18 June, 201115 yr by pipsyp

Well, i'm hitting the combined mpg targets they set at the moment. On a long run I would love to see 50 mpg but I didn't buy it for the mpg

I hear what you are saying about the 2.0T lump as that isn't as strained.

nearly 400 so f all in the grand scheme of things. Sure the MPG will improve but its certainly pretty poor at the moment.

Yeah didescharlie, is the wifes but seeing as I'm also paying for it and she cant drive it at the mo i'm using it :-)

Mine was the same 30 to the gallon, but now done a 1000 miles and now getting over 40 to the gallon, and if i push her will get about 35 to gallon and been told it will get even better, i think if you take it easy you will get the mpg....

20 mile drive and it returned about 36 but that was driving ultra steady, expect im being hard on it and it will get better with time

It can be driven economically if you try...

I you looking at the average display on 1 or 2?

1 is for the journey

2 is for the current tank/time nutil you reset it.

I signed up to fuelly and averaged 37.8 on my first tankful. On target for the same again I should hope.