Update 1 An introduction

I've been interested in cars for as long as I can remember, my early driving years featured a succession of warm/hot peugeot hatches including which culminated in this:

a 306GTi6 which was lowered, had a custom exhaust reburbished gloss black wheeks and a couple of other little bits done to it,I then moved out of my parents house and nice/sporty cars had to go as I had rent and bills to pay, a lot of boring cars, came and went a clio 1.2, a passat saloon, a passat estate.

During this time I got married, became a dad and bought a house.

I then decided that I wanted another nice car so bought another 306GTi, I started tarting that up with some carbon parts, a new rear beam another custom exhaust and some 16" multi spoke wheels. Then I realised that an old, unreliable, noisy french hot hatch probably wasn't the best form of tranport for the family man I had become, the 306 went (withe me losing a significant amount of money on it) and I started looking for a car that would be jack of all trades, reliable, comfy and frugal for family duties but exciting enough for me.

My search led me to Mk1 octavia vRS', then realised a high milage petrol Mk2 wasn't too much more and eventually I ended up buying a low milage diesel Mk2 which was over 3 times my original budget. ... but thats man maths for you I suppose and when I saw it I let my heart rule my head.

Here's my car in October 2011 when I first bought it.

It seemed to be all the car I needed, a decent size meaning that we can fit all the family and the baby stuff in easily, good spec list, comfy, plus it returned good miles to the gallon, was quick(ish) and to my eyes at least good looking.

I enjoyed the car to begin with but the constant re-gens made it annoying, a trip to www.map-tech.co.uk in Brigg sorted that (full update later)

The only problem is, in the year and a half we've had it I haven't exactly been kind to the car,The inside is covered in dog and cat hair (they very rarely travel in the car but we drag their hairs in on our clothes), the back seat is covered in mashed up biscuits/wotsits and milk (plus whatever else the baby drags in) and as for the exterior ... its had the nearside door run down a bollard, the rear bumper is scratched/marked from backing into a post and it only ever gets cleaned by the local hand car wash.

In short, its less than mint.

I feel like I've come to a crossroads with the car, I'm getting bored and I'm starting to consider replacements but really can't decide what I should replace it with, nothing else seems to do everything the skoda does.

So, I'm now considering having the body work sorted and modifying the car to what I want, only I have absolutely no idea what to do to it.I was thinking coilovers (but I'm not sure which at the minute) and spacing the rear wheels to begin with ... after that (and the actual details of that) I have no idea.

I've started this project journal as somewhere to keep my ideas and hopefully get help/advise from other members.

Edited 30 November, 201213 yr by darren9

I'll keep an eye on this.

I'm an old-school octy diesel driver but it's a lot of fun playing with them (and pretty addictive) when you start playing with power

Update 2 - remap

As with a lot of other people with the PD170 engine I found that the car was forcing me into re-gens far too often for my liking, it got so I was having to run the car up the motorway three times a week, time I didn't want to spend on boring roads when I could be doing other things.

I started looking at my options. I considered swapping for something petrol but owing more money on the finance than the car is worth meant that this idea was somewhat of a non-starter.

I started looking at DPF deletes. Rumours are flying that the DPF may well soon be an MOT testable item but I can't find any foundation for this rumour. There does seem to be a stronger suggestion that it may well be a visual inspection only, to keep some piece of mind I decided to go for this option.

Looking around I was initially drawn to the more established names but didn't want to have to travel far and spend the day killing time on an industrial estate somewhere, I also found them slow at dealing with enquiries.

I found, through word of mouth a company in a town close by run by a friend of a friend, www.map-tech.co.uk Garath@map-tech seemed very knowledgeable and responded quickly to emails/calls (the same can't be said about a couple of other companies) he offered the DPF, EGR delete and a "performance" map for around half of what established names were quoting and collected/dropped off the car and provided a courtesy car so we could stay mobile for the day. I decided to go with them.

The car now runs much better, the DPF issues are completely gone and its a much smoother ride. As for the "performance" map. With the DPF and EGR deleted + the map Garath estimated the power to be around 220 bhp, 50BHP from this work seems to me to be a bit of a large figure so I take this with a pinch of salt, especially since I have no RR figure and it is just an estimate.

I am very pleased though, there is definately a noticeable increase in power but it is very driveable still. The power is delivered in much the same way as when the car left the factory, there just seems to be more of it. There is no drama, the wheels don't spin up unless you deliberately provoke it by driving like an arse there just seems to be more surge and urgency, overtaking punch is particulaly improved. The MPG seems to be the same as well (though I haven't worked out the figures)

The ony downside is that there is a whistle from the exhaust and a small amount of smoke on start - up and when reversing off the drive (through this smoke) there is a smell of fumes inside the cabin.

In short I would recommend map-tech.