Due to lack of use (less than 5,000 miles in the last year), my excellent Skoda Octavia vRS is regretfully up for sale. I'm a bit of a car nut, and letting go of such a superb vehicle (in the best colour ever™) pains me, but I cannot justify keeping it.

It was first delivered to IML Skoda in Newton Abbot on 30th March 2006 and sold to Westwood Paper Sales of Marsh Barton, Exeter on 5th April 2006.

I bought the car on 18th January 2012 *(typo - that should be 2010, sorry!) with around 95,000 motorway miles on it, and full service history. Since then I've completed just over 20,000 trouble-free miles and it's had a further two services by Awesome GTI in Irlam, Manchester (one including cambelt - more on that later) plus an interim oil service by myself.

The car has all the regular vRS spec, including dual zone climate control, two-tone half leather / half Alcantara seats, electric windows and door mirrors, reach and rake adjustable steering wheel, adjustable lumbar support in drivers seat, full size spare wheel, 6 CD changer with excellent stereo, ABS, ESP (traction control), trip computer with fuel consumption, miles left in tank, outside temperature, etc, plus driver and passenger airbags.

Extra factory fitted spec includes: Xenon headlights, Jumbo box (storage box between the two front seats), 18" 'Zenith' alloy wheels (17" are standard), cruise control (all cars should have this!).

The car also benefits from a Revo Stage 1 Remap, tweaking the timing, fuelling and boost to improve power and torque from standard to around 230 bhp and 270 ft/lbs. These are 'realistic' figures, you cannot achieve ~250bhp (or more!) from a simple remap on this engine. As well as increasing the power, the remap completely changed the feel of the car, smoothing the throttle response and power delivery. Some maps can be very 'peaky', but the Revo drives just like the standard car in that respect.

The diverter valve was also changed to handle the extra boost - the standard one on this car can split and leak when the boost pressure is increased.

As you will no doubt know if you are looking at this advert, the car is based heavily around a Golf GTi (same chassis, engine, transmission, all the mechanicals really), except with a more practical boot and with a much more enjoyable price tag. I feel the need to say it anyway though, just to remind myself that I need to buy another Skoda again in the future sometime... :-)

I am aware there is rather a lot of text here, so I apologise for that, but what's worse than turning up to view a car that you know nothing about and is probably a bit of a shed?

Service History:

14/11/06 - SMC Skoda - 15,305 miles - oil change and inspection

29/06/07 - SMC Skoda - 29,007 miles - oil change, inspection, new spark plugs

15/02/08 - SMC Skoda - 42,576 miles - oil change and inspeciton

15/09/08 - SMC Skoda - 56,750 miles - oil change, inspection and brake fluid change

02/03/09 - Pro Vehicle Services - 70,630 miles - oil change, inspection, spark plugs, air filter, fuel filter

09/07/09 - Pro Vehicle Services - 80,984 miles - oil change, inspection

26/10/09 - Pro Vehicle Services - 89,310 miles - oil change, inspection, spark plugs, air filter, fuel filter, cambelt, lamba probe, brake fluid

I purchased the car around 95,000 miles - here's where the yearly mileage drops off rather a lot!

27/05/10 - Awesome GTI - 100,951 miles - oil change and inspection - £233

At this service Awesome mistakenly read the VCDS scan which showed 160,000km as 16,000 miles, and still said the car was in good condition!

17/06/11 - Awesome GTI - 109,622 - oil change, spark plugs, air filter, cambelt - £553

Here, I spoke with Awesome about a strange issue where my car took a long time to 'learn' it's remap after the battery had been disconnected. They suggested the cambelt had most likely been incorrectly installed at the previous interval, since one tooth out would mean the ECU takes a little while to learn the new settings and adjust.

So, I booked the car in for the cambelt 2 years and 60,000 miles before it was due as a precaution (£400's worth of work). Upon collection they seemed rather smug that the cambelt had NOT needed anything doing to it, but had still gone ahead and done the work anyway without even attempting to get in touch with me.

To keep it short - I made my feelings known, wasn't impressed with how it was(n't) dealt with, will never use this company again, and the car won't need a cambelt change until 190,000 miles or June 2015!

25/05/12 - 114,591 miles - oil change (5w30, 507.00, C3 - highest spec available), air filter recharge, new pollen filter (didn't look like it had ever been done!), inspection. Work carried out by myself.

I'd decided to keep the car for a few more years after the cambelt saga, so decided to continue servicing it myself since at least then you know exactly what's what! I keep on top of two MX-5s (one a track car, the other a race car) and my Westfield without letting anyone else get their hands on them, so used to let the Skoda go to a garage instead due to time constraints.

This time I'd done so few miles in the year, I wanted to do the service myself, rather than pay someone the thick end of £100 for a glorified oil change.

Turns out the VAG servicing manual says you should suck old oil out of the dipstick tube, rather than doing it properly and taking the undertray off, removing the oil filter completely, and allowing the sump to drain fully. I'm glad I decided to look into it myself and therefore ensure it was done properly!

Awesome GTI had also, on the previous service, just topped the car up to the max after changing the oil and handed me the keys. Now anyone with half a brain will realise that, as soon as the oil has circulated, the level will drop. When I got the car home I checked the stick as a precaution - it was 0.5l short. Wonder how many other cars are trundling around in that state...?

History of other work / upgrades / consumables:

06/04/2010 - MOT - no advisories

21/07/2010 - Official Skoda radio antenna - £28

06/08/2010 - APR Stage 1 Remap - £399.99

25/08/2010 - Two front tyres fitted, Falken FK452 - still on 4mm

06/11/2010 - Awesome GTI 'Revo Amnesty' - they swapped the map over to Revo free of charge, due to them stopping dealing with APR. This transformed the car, and it drives a lot better for it.

08/11/2010 - Euro Car Parts - Camshaft sensor - £20

04/05/2011 - Two rear tyres fitted, Falken FK452 - still on 5.5mm

26/07/2011 - Advanced Towing UK - Witter tow bar and 7 pin electrics fitted - £200. I used this for light towing (575kg kit car) for less than 2,000 miles. Never had any signs of clutch slipping.

The bar is still fitted to the car, but I removed the ball for the photos. If you want the tow bar and ball, please add £100 to the price, otherwise it will be removed before sale and the standard slam panel put back on. The car is rated to tow 1360kg, and with the remap will easily tow this.

29/10/2011 - General Traffic - Exide 3 year battery - £56. After a cold snap, the car was sluggish to start. The original battery had given up, so it was time for a new one!

21/02/2012 - Rear bump stops - £15

27/02/2012 - Pair of Bilstein rear shocks (they had to come off to do the bump stops so thought I would replace these anyway - they have made the car feel much 'tighter' so the old ones must have been a bit worn anyway) - £120

02/04/2012 - MOT. Failed on CV boot split, leaking grease. This was immediately changed by my local (and excellent, it has to be said) garage Autosave, and the MOT was passed the same day with no advisories - ~£100

Unknown date, estimated March 2012: New coil packs fitted under warranty / product recall, by Simpson's Skoda, Preston. They also told me I needed a full service, cambelt change and about £1000's worth of other work including 4 new tyres. If they'd have looked at the service book (which was in the car) they'd have seen it was done only a few months ago, and if they could use any sort of basic measuring device they'd have seen that all the tyres had at least 4.5mm on them.

Weirdly, when I took my car into my local garage to have these 'problems' checked out (which were all 'worn bushings' at a few quid for the part and hundreds for labour), they'd had another customer with the same car who went to the same dealer and had the same 'problems' with his car! Main dealers - don't get me started...

Here's a few other bits and bobs that might be useful / informative:

I've just had the car professionally valeted, and the fuel needle isn't right down in the red like most, so it's ready to drive away!

I have other cars to drive fast in, so this car has always been treated with respect and mechanical sympathy, rather than been booted around a full throttle at every opportunity.

Returns 40mpg easily on the motorway, average with mixed town/motorway driving sees 30.

MOT until 1st April 2013, taxed until 31st March 2013.

I bought the car from a dealer, so it's HPI clear and I have no finance on it either.

It uses a little bit of oil, perfectly normal for this engine, so I've got a 1 litre topup bottle in the boot at all times (will still be there when the car is sold).

I have a full, unregistered (just means it's not locked to a particular car) version of Ross-Tech's superb VCDS (VAG Com Diagnostic System) so the car gets scanned regularly for faults. I don't have another VAG vehicle so we could arrange a deal if you wanted this as well. It works with any Windows computer (laptop ideally) via the USB port. I would be after £200 for it with the car, it will sell for more than this separately.

I've got both the original keys with the car, plus a folder of receipts etc. that you are welcome to.

My insurance runs out on 9th August - happy for test drives until this point (providing you being proof you are insured), but that they will have to be done on the private industrial estate where I'm currently keeping the car (indoors).

I pay £650 a year fully comp for insurance. 29, company director, 8 years no claims, in a 'D' postcode region (Scale is A-F, F is the worst), with the remap declared.

The boot is massive. We call this the 'Octardis'. I'm a mountain biker and this swallows bikes whole, it's awesome not having to mess around taking front wheels out. We also took 4 people, 2 big tents, sleeping bags, airbeds, food and all our weekend stuff to Silverstone for the F1 last year, and still managed to get the parcel shelf back in place. I still don't know how...

There's lots of handy storage cubby-holes: One between the two front seats, one down where the ashtray would be (non-smokers car), another to the right of the steering wheel in the dash, another on the top middle of the dash, another in the roof by the interior lights (suede lined - perfect for sunglasses), another under the passenger seat, and another in the centre console that faced the rear of the car! Doors have plenty of space too, and two round bits for bottles of drink.

I've looked at what else is currently available, and I believe I have priced the car realistically for a hassle-free sale. If you don't agree, give me a shout and we'll chat over it!

You don't get many 1.4 ton cars that'll do 0-60 in under 6.5 seconds at this price, so test pilots please.

The 'bad' bits - there aren't many, but I like to point them out anyway:

Obviously the car has covered quite a few motorway miles, so has suffered a few stone chips mainly to the front of the bonnet. These have all been touched up (no rust) and haven't caused me any issues at all. I have taken pics of nearly all of these.

There are also a couple of scratches, none of them bad, again I've tried to photograph most of these 'in perspective' so you can see where they are. These will be on every car of this age, just not shown on the photos, but I like to be honest.

The Air Con doesn't blow ice cold. Not been a problem for me but I wanted to mention it. I don't believe anything 'expensive' to have gone wrong having done some checks with VCDS, I am pretty sure a re-gas would do the trick.

Edit: 25th July. I have researched the AC issue further after a question from a potential buyer, and it seems the N280 valve in the compressor could be at fault. It does spin up to the correct RPM, and reads a load and pressure with VCDS, but the load is 1.2Nm (should be >4.5) and pressure is 4.4 bar (should be 14-16). This would indicate the valve is sticky. I have reduced the price of the car by £300 because of this. If you go to look at another similar car, check the AC is blowing COLD!

http://www.briskoda....d/#entry2875461

The brake fluid is due a change according to the service schedule. I am happy to do this before the car goes, providing you don't mind a few grubby fingerprints on the wheels!

If you do a full MOT check on the car, you will see there is a gap. Some idiot (me) forgot to get his car MOT'd for nearly a full year, and only realised when trying to tax it. Again it doesn't affect the car in any way, but if you found that out elsewhere it might look a bit odd!

Alloys a little bit kerbed. If you are a detailer, this will bother you. If you want a quick, comfortable, spacious, well-specced everyday car then it won't ;-)

I hope that covers most stuff, but if you do have any questions, or would like to come along to have a look please get in touch. The car is based near Preston, Lancashire and my number is 078 345 346 12. You can also email me at mr(underscore)b1tch[at]hotmail.com.

Standard boring stuff - payment by cash on collection, or bank transfer, fully cleared cheque before collection. This is a private sale, so car is sold as seen, no warranty expressed or implied.

Many thanks,

Adam

just an observation, but you say you are selling the car after only doing 5,000 miles in the last year, yet in the next paragraph you say that you bought it in Jan 2012 with 95,000 on and have done 20,000 trouble free miles. bit of a contradiction there.

Sorry if that wasn't clear - I meant I had done 5,000 in the last year, however I've had the car about 2 1/2 years now.

Edit: Oops, serious typo there - cheers!

Sorry if that wasn't clear - I meant I had done 5,000 in the last year, however I've had the car about 2 1/2 years now.

Edit: Oops, serious typo there - cheers!

No probs, good luck with the sale

Thanks

Received a PM from another Briskoda member, who points out I made a thread last May about my Air Con, and it had been recently re-gassed.

I genuinely forgot I had made this thread: http://www.briskoda....air-con-thread/. The scans seem to show that the compressor pump is still turning (see picture 2 - 1000 rpm, 5.2 bar pressure, 1.3Nm load, which increased to 2400 rpm in picture 3 when the engine revs were increased), which I guess is a reasonable sign the compressor has not siezed and it's a less serious issue. I looked through my folder of receipts as a 'prompt' for making the advert and the receipt for re-gassing isn't there, which is why I missed it, sorry about that.

I would of course be happy to reduce the sale price to reflect the air con issue. However, I will do some more investigating, as I would prefer to find the exact fault, so I can either get it fixed before sale or give a good estimate for repair.

After you disconnect the battery, you need to recalibrate the throttle body assembly, that is why your map did not feel right, see here ----

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/243912-throttle-body-alignment-for-petrol-cars/

Great stuff - thanks! And a big no thanks to Awesome GTI

Does look really good, espeacially in that colour.

Could be interested..... But it's always about the price as il probably need to do a collection to top up my funds to pay for it lol.

How negotiable are you on the price?

Thanks. It is a great car, I wouldn't be selling if it was getting more use. Yep, I understand, everything has a price!

I'm a little negotiable - however I believe it's fairly keenly priced already, and I have been as honest as I can in the advert. If you wanted to come and have a look and found genuine reasons to knock me down a bit, I wouldn't be adverse to that. I've had a few offers so far via eBay without viewings, the highest being £3600, which I have declined as I'd rather someone comes and has a look at the car before trying to knock me down!

I'm also keen to get it moved to get some space back, and with the insurance running out on 9th August I'd like it sold by then ideally - since unless the buyer arranges insurance before viewing, it won't get a decent test drive (only round a small industrial estate), and I would prefer the buyer to have driven it properly before making an offer, it's the only fair way in my opinion.

All that said, to give you a figure - if someone came along to have a look at it, genuinely liked the car, and had £4k with them, I would be silly to say no.

Since my last post:

- The throttle body assembly has been recalibrated. Was a couple of percent out, so should run even sweeter now

- Had some further questions from a potential buyer, so might as well stick the answers up here too:

- Oil consumption: I cannot remember exactly, but definitely no more than 1 litre every 10,000 miles. The topup bottle I keep in the car is a litre and I haven't ever used this up between services. A quick Google seems to indicate this is better than average. The owner's manual states that 0.5l / 1,000km can be relatively normal for this engine (!).

- I have invoices for the services by Awesome GTI, plus the remap and uprated diverter valve. I don't have invoices for the services from the previous owner (I am guessing they went to their accountants) but the book is fully stamped. I can send over pics of that if you like, no problem at all.

- I have invoices for the oil, oil filter and pollen filter for the service done by myself. I marked the service book with what was carried out, the date and mileage. I have left the brake fluid change empty as that has not been done yet as mentioned in the advert.

- Brakes: They are in good condition all round. The pads have about 75% material left, and the rotors are the same. There is a very small 'lip' on all the discs but only if you feel for it and get a bit particular. There is no juddering or 'pulling' under hard braking. Clutch and flywheel - I can't say for sure as I've never had that bit of the car apart, but the clutch operates exactly as it should, with a nice progressive bite point and no juddering/snatching. I don't drive the car hard, it feels too boat-like compared to my MX-5 and Westfield!

- Real world MPG: It genuinely makes 28-30mpg with mixed driving. If doing a lot of short journeys it'll be closer to 28, but if you tend to do long runs I've had it up at 35 before. Best I've had was 46 on a ~30 mile trip cruising at 65 on the speedo (60 in reality).

Cheers,

Adam

Looks like a superb example and a steal with the xenons. Mines got 117k on the clock and feels tight as a drum so the mileage really shouldn't put people off, especially as it's motorway mileage.

Thanks Martin! I don't get why it hasn't sold yet either. I am confident the first person to view will buy though.

It is indeed still all nice and tight. As I said in the advert, Awesome GTI mistakenly thought the mileage was 16,000!

Bit of a bump - £3900 will take it.

SOLD to a thoroughly nice chap from Northern Ireland. Hope the trip back goes ok Phil. Thanks again!

How much you sell for in the end? I'm looking to sell mine soon with similar spec and mileage. Pm me