Hello

I am looking to buy my first Skoda and like the look of the MKII Octavia Elegance.

The dilemma I have is that I need something that is economical and reliable but am finding conflicting information. The DSG's sound good but are these less economical than a manual and also is Diesel better than Petrol (I only do around 8.000 miles Per Year).

I have seen a few Petrol cars for sale and these are cheaper than the Diesels and also have lower mileage which makes me think people are not keeping them as long maybe due to running costs.

Any advice would be appreciated.

For 8k a year it's not worth the expense of a diesel to save a small amount on fuel.

I drive a similar mileage (8500) per year in a diesel. Even though it's all country roads at reasonable speeds and distances, the car is plagued by over boost and consequent limp modes. Sooner or later I will have to buy a new turbo. More modern diesels have the added worry of DPF which also do not like low mileage.

If I could I would have bought petrol but the tax regime in Ireland precludes that possibility. I would suggest that any money you save in fuel will be lost in the extra cost of the engine and then the likely extra costs of repairs when you don't do the mileage and speeds required to clear its throat.

Just my thoughts, your mileage may vary. :-)

There are some long term issues that apply to the diesel but not the petrol - twin plate clutch and dpf for example. The petrol TSI is a great engine - shame that the 1.8 is no longer available but the 1.4 is also a good engine. The petrol also warms up much more quickly and if many of your journeys are short ones it is really the only suitable engine choice. I would not be put off by the lower purchase price - it is because people want low fuel costs but it could be a false economy when they work it out properly. At 8,000 miles per annum it is a no-brainer.

the car is plagued by over boost and consequent limp modes. Sooner or later I will have to buy a new turbo.

I had that. A local Indy removed the turbo, sent it for a full re-rub and re-fitted it. A lot cheaper than a new turbo.

They also said change the oil every 10K (I was on variable) and give it some welly when its hot. Car good for another 100k miles they recon.

At 8,000 miles per annum it is a no-brainer.

This is something lots of people say but it's nonsense.

From a financial point of view it doesn't matter how many miles you do per year, it's how many miles you do in the total time you'll have the car.

At todays petrol prices, a petrol car doing 30mpg will cost ~21p per mile to fuel. A diesel car doing 45mpg will cost ~15p per mile.

So for every mile you drive you will save 6p.

You only have to pay the extra premium to buy the diesel car once.

So if the diesel costs £1000 more to buy you'll need to cover just under 17,000 miles to make your money back.

But that's not 17,000 miles in a year, just in total.

So you could do 20,000 miles a year but if you are only keeping the car 6months then the petrol might make more sense.

Or you could do 5,000miles a year but as long as you keep the car 4 years then the diesel will be cheaper in the long run.

And that is not taking into account the fact that if the diesel costs more to buy, you'll also get more for it when you sell it......

Diesels aren't for everyone and cheaper running costs aren't everyones priority when buying a car but the fact is that the vast majority of people will save money over the period they have the car if they buy a diesel, regardless of how many miles they do in a year.

Edited 14 March, 201313 yr by Stevoraith

Its not all about the finacial costs,covering only 8000m a year a diesel with DPF would be a nightmare(unless thats 8000m of highish speed motorway runs). Short local journeys are not good for modern diesels fitted with dpf.

I love the assumption of 30Mpg. Even in winter my avg is 33-34 on commute of 10 miles of A road and 37-38 in the summer. That is normal driving with a few squirts if required. Motorway avg speed at 70-75 according to satnav with i39+ Mpg I am not a saint and this avg includes using the power sensibly to clear traffic. At 8k per year with normal use it seems reasonable to buy a petrol. If I had a long daily commute I too would have a diesel.

I have seen other pretty poor petrol figures and these owners must have very congested / slow commutes or have a heavy foot.

All I am doing here is trying to debunk the myth that you need to do X number of miles per year to make driving a diesel the most cost-effective choice. That is nonsense as I have explained above.

Mikey, I also think the DPF problems have been blown a bit out of proportion. There’s no doubt that doing only short journeys isn’t good for a car fitted with a DPF- but 8000miles is a lot of miles to cover purely in town so my opinion is that the OP would not have a problem at that sort of milage. We’ve covered less than 19000miles in 2 years in our vRS CR (so not much more than 8k per year) and I’ve never even heard the DPF do a regen, far less cause us any problems.

We also only covered 45k in 5 and a half years in our Fabia vRS TDI without any issues at all.

If you want to go down the road of reliability then have a search for timing chain failures on the TSI engines- it seems to be as big a problem as DPFs on diesels (i.e. in reality it’s a tiny problem that gets blown out of proportion by internet forums ). I wouldn’t go choosing one fuel over another based on reliability.

Redboy, I wasn’t comparing petrol and diesel vRS- just generic petrol and diesels. If you want to compare vRS’ then going on the official combined figures and list prices, you would need to cover 23,000miles before you start saving with the diesel. Most people keep cars for more than 23,000miles. And then of course if you look at used prices you’ll see that you’ll get the £800 (if not more) extra back when you sell the diesel……

I’m not petrol bashing here, people chose cars for different reasons and running costs are only one consideration. In fact I’m actively looking for a Golf GTI (petrol!) just now to replace my old Golf GTI TDI, it’s just frustrating when people look for advice and the same old rubbish about having to do x amount of miles per year to justify a diesel is trotted out.

My take on the matter is simple.......buy the one you like the most, because if you are planning to keep it for a number of years you may as well enjoy the ownership period. Sure a diesel will be cheaper to fuel but there are so many other factors that need to be taken into consideration that getting an accurate reflection of the true costs is almost impossible and you will be making a huge number of assumptions along the way. Personally I buy petrols because I prefer the way they drive, doesn't matter to me if I do 8k or 20k a year, I enjoy all of the miles as I know I bought the right car for me.

I think the problem is people dont tend to consider the other positives of buying a diesel over a petrol. In the case of the Octavia, diesels are more expensive to buy than their petrol counterparts both new and used but what people are quick to forget about is the fact that a diesel will be worth considerably more than a petrol one after 3 years of its life. My cat is set to be worth nearly 9k after 3.5 years, i know its likely to be worth more like 10 or 11k trade, whereas the petrol was going to be worth about 6.7k and maybe worth 7.5/8k trade at 3 years. I bought mine on PCP and because its projected future value was so strong by comparison despite it being a good 2k more to buy than the petrol its actually costing me less a month on repayments.

Also CR cars do not suffer with major DPF issues, did 50k in my last car (Golf MK6 CR 140) and not once did the regen light come on. Also dual mass flywheels......lots of cars have these now and youre unlucky if you experience issues with one with low mileage; they usually go as a result of heavy clutch use or abuse.

Problem for me with most TSi's is that they typically burn an unnatural amount of oil, was doing a litre every 6k in my Fabia vRS and thats considered very good, also regardless of how it was driven couldnt ever get near the 45mpg quoted average, early mid 30s was about the best it would do in mixed conditions and over 11k it quoted a 32mpg average. My Octavia vRS 170 CR is quoting 40mpg and it doesnt even have 2k on the clock yet and it hasnt used any oil at all.

I know for a fact the 1.4 TSi 122hp is no different, my Dad had an Audi A3 with this engine, burnt oil and never returned great MPG, had stop/start too!)

I love the diesel CR engine in my car. I've had both Petrol and Diesel in the past, no particular preference now (used to be petrol), like them both - deal was good on mine which swayed it.

As someone has said, find a car you like, drive it, if it feels good and has good history go for it.

I got a 1.8 TSI pre FL octy estate and for me the fuel consumption seems grim at the moment as i'm only getting about 29-31 mpg on my 10 mile commute to work which is a mix of small built up back roads and A roads. The official mpg figs for mine with a bzb engine are 28 urban - 38 average - 48 extra urban, however i have only ever seen 39 mpg one time driving it as smooth and economically as i can. I bought the car in mid january and on reflection now i wished i'd paid a bit more and gone for a late model 1.9 TDI, even though i only do 10k a year..

I once had a 1990 1.8 8V Golf GTI, and after that a 323 bmw and both could do better mileage than my present car which i can see myself parting with if my MPG does'nt improve with better weather.

Edited 14 March, 201313 yr by Gazman

I'm not mechanically minded but as pipsyp said, is PDF problems not associated with the older PD diesel engines rather than the current generation CR.

Was the CR engine not designed more with the PDF in mind.

I do 6,000 miles a year and have a diesel - only because of the Blackline deal. No complaints with the car so far.

I think that only the 2.0 diesels had DPF's fitted, not the 1.9's, i'm sure however someone will correct me if i'm mistaken..

I cover around 13k a year in my petrol vrs,however if i was to replace it in the next year or so id be looking at a cr vrs as i dont want the worry of the tensioner failing on the tsi & the road tax of £250 is getting a bit of a pain nowadays.

Unfortunatly you haven't said what your budget is so it's difficult to give any specfic advice on the diesels apart from suggesting you avoid any PD that has a DPF fitted to it. PDs without one are fine as are the more modern ones with. As you've found petrol engined ones are cheap while diesels are more expensive initially but do hold their value better so the gap isn't as big as it seems. The TSI engine is nice and smooth and my 1.4 did over 40mpg in the 12 months I had it, but I drove it quite economically and over 6000 miles it used less than 1/2 pint of oil. It was quick to 40mph, but IMO lacked mid range torque for overtaking which is somewhat confirmed by SUK as the latest 1.4 in the lighter Octy III now has 140 PS as opposed to 122, but that may not be an issue for you. The PD diesels are noisier, the CRs less so. The PDs create most of their go low down and feel faster than they are while the CR spreads this more over it's rev range and is quicker than it seems. Alot will depend on your driving style and types of journeys you do. Best thing you can do is have a good test drive to see which you prefer covering the type of journeys you do and have it loaded similarly too so you get a feel of how it'll perform in real life for you, e.g. don't test drive it by yourself if it'll be full to the gunnels. If they have maxidot/a MPG computer reset it before you go out so you can see what MPG you get. Typically they fib a bit by a couple of MPG but will be the same for both. I'm sure you'll b happy with which ever you choose as they are great cars and offer excellent value for money but are a quality bit of kit too. A proper test drive is the key- don't let the dealer fob you off with a quick run up the road and back

As you've said the DSG's use more fuel, but on the plus point they are good if you do a lot of stop start motoring

Its not all about the finacial costs,covering only 8000m a year a diesel with DPF would be a nightmare(unless thats 8000m of highish speed motorway runs). Short local journeys are not good for modern diesels fitted with dpf.

This is complete rubbish. My vrs derv does a lot of short journeys and ive not seen my dpf light for months! Its also working out to cost half what my petrol civic was costing me to run in fuel even without getting the most mpg all the time.

As Stevoraith is saying, its a complete myth all this you need to do X miles to warrant getting a diesel. If it was true why can you buy tiny engined diesel city cars.

Very few people look at the cost over the time you have the car. Its the cost each time you fill up at the pump which people really look at as its all you really notice. You expect to fix parts so even people saying diesels will cost more to maintain is not quite as important as people make out

As its been said, the OP needs to see what they prefer best - diesel or petrol.

We only do a relatively low annual mileage but run a diesel as we prefer the every day economy. Most of our journeys are town use in which the diesel increases its fuel economy over most petrols (I used to average low 20's in petrols with mid to high 30's in diesels). My old Vectra 1.9 cdti had both a DPF and DMF and I never had any issues with either in 44k and 5 years of motoring.

I was initially disappointed with the economy on my DSG Blackline going by the onboard computer but now it has a few more miles under its belt (and resetting the computer) its improved loads and with a mixture of both town, A road & motorway use is averaging about 46mpg according to my Fuelly app.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

I can't help too much with the petrol vs diesel economy comparison, but the figures bandied around above sound entirely reasonable. Even taking economy out of the equation, I would still choose a diesel. I love the low-down torque, it is just in the right place for day to day driving. You need a far bigger petrol engine to get the same feeling of grunt.

But I can help with comparing DSG to manual economy. We (GF and I) have run an Octy 1.9 PD (2005) with 6-speed DSG for the last three years and ~30,000 miles. We are quite consistently getting 52 to 55 mpg. The computer on board is a little optimistic, by around 6mpg. It has been a very good car for us, no issues whatsoever.

I have recently started commuting via M5 and required a second decent economical car for myself. So I bought another Octavia. The new one is a 1.9 PD (2004) with manual 'box. Bear in mind I have only owned it for a week, so haven't done accurate calculations yet. But the computer has so far registered between 68 to 74 mpg. Assuming the computer calculations are similar between cars, that means I am getting 10 or 12 mpg better economy from the manual.

But it is a PITA changing gear by hand, I have to say.

(Rant alert.) The DSG box is nice to drive, with smooth and easy changes. For low speed manouevring though, it is pap. The best auto 'box I have experienced is Merc's 7G, which was fitted to an SLK I owned in a previous more affluent lifetime. The gearchanges were smooth and intuitive, and manoeuvring was so easy. AND, most importantly, the auto SLK is more fuel efficient than the manual. It just makes me wonder - what the hell is the point of a DSG box ? Where are the advantages over a modern, refined, torque-converter box ? Certainly not in the fuel economy. And TC autos have been around for many decades, it is a proven and well refined design. With the mechanised twin-clutch DSG 'box, you have unproven new technology (though like I said, no probs with ours).

Steps down off soap box.

P.s. Can't be certain, but I think no DPF on ours as tailpipes get a bit sooty.

Edited 15 March, 201313 yr by Will777888