my local dealer showed me a plug in device supposedly capable of increasing the power of a fabia vrs by 26 bhp. I am about to purchase a new vrs and wonder if anyone can tell me where in the uk to buy one of these devices. Apparently they are available for around

Welcome

It sounds as if you're talking about tuning boxes, of which there are two kinds - analogue and digital ones. If you do a search, you'll find lots of posts about it.

Main advantages are they're cheap and they plug into the wiring under the hood. Benefit being that you can take it out for servicing / when you sell the car.

Remaps are more expensive. They offer a little more bhp and a more "refined" drive, but cannot beat tuning boxes in terms of value for money.

cheers will do

I personally wouldn't bother with that kinda bhp increase - you'll get higher fuel consumption, more smoke, chance of burning up your clutch and you'll loose your warranty as well.

Digital tuning box or remap makes far more sense imho. That said, it's YOUR car, so do what you like

Of course if the dealer supplies the tuning box he'll know the car is modded when it comes round to servicing time. Warranty work will be very difficult if the dealer sticks to the wording of the warranty.

If you've got a few dealers near you it's possible to get around that by having work done at other sites but I'd suggest you ask the dealer how yuor warranty would be affected and then give Skoda UK a call and get them to confirm it.

Perhaps even get it in writing.

Is there a cynic emoticon around here somewhere :P