having just got back from my holiday to the french alps i thought i'd write a little down here about how my 1.2 tsi 105ps monte performed out there

 

we started off by driving to dover, from where i live in bournemouth, the car was relitivly smooth although the condition of the english motorways (down my way at least) do make for a bit of a bumpy ride on the montes slightly harder suspension. not uncomfortable by any ,means but you do notice the bumps. the engine behaved itself (as it should do!) and the cruise control was a great thing to have when going through the average and variable speed camers.

 

once off the ferry and into france the climate control air con really started shine, 29C outside and on auto set at 18-20C the car was cool and stayed like it! once we got onto the french motorways i was amazed at how good the french roads are compared to ours back in england. there was little or no road noise at all and hardly any bumps. the tsi was reving quite high (around 3000rpm at 80mph) but it was bearly audiable and once i had my music going i could jut sit back and drive, once again utilising the cruise control.

 

350 miles in and we reach our pit stop for the night in reims. by this point my fuel guage is starting to get a bit low having brimmed it before we left so a quick top up the next morning and i'm ready for the second stint.

 

once again a lot of motorway driving heading down towards geneva, my average mpg since leaving is showing as 46mpg which is pretty good i think considering i have the air con going and the car is fully loaded including a second person (to pay tolls and generally keep me company!)

 

after about 300 miles of more motorways from reims, we leave he motorway and head off into the alps. my god this engine is good. pop it into second and accelerate out of a hairpin and the car just keeps on pulling. all the way up to about 4000rmp and i make the change to third and it takes off again. even my mate behind in his 1.9 octy deisel remapped to 145bhp is struggling to keep up. it has plenty of get up and go for when overtaking is necessary as well.

 

it holds its own in the bends and stays flat as well. the supportive seats are a nice addition here as they really hold you in when going round a particularly tight bend. a bit of understeer did occur when really pushing it but nothing that wasn't easily brought back under control. the fuel economy did suffer at this point, i was getting low 30s on average but this was to be expected

 

on the downhill bits the breaks also worked well and didnt fade at all. i did think that the front disks on the monte were quite large when i got the car but i can see the benefits of this now.

 

having driven 700 miles from home we eventually arrived at our chalet in les gets. i did get a chance to see how dirty the back of my car had become, we had a bit of rain on he way down and the fabia does have a tendancy to vortex at the back and suck stuff in and this showed on the back of my car :P i think the white paint didnt help either!

 

during the week we were there we spend a lot of time driving around and exploring and without all our luggage in the car the engine performed even better. the car was very easy to drive around the small french towns and it was easy to see out of and manouver.

 

at the end of the week it was time to turn around and head for home. we took the same route back which was easy enough and the car worked well. had the aircon on auto again but this time only averaged 40-42mpg. i belive this was down to the fact i had to get a set of new front tyres while out there... let just say low profile tyres + big pot holes x 40mph = bad occurances :(

 

the new tyres i got were uniroyal rainsport 2s which perform well but were not my first choice... sadly it was all the garage had in my size. a bit more noisey than my old dunlop sp maxxs but not unbearable.

 

i got through roughly 5 and a bit tanks of fuel during the trip. two to get there, two to get back and one for during the week.

 

overall a very good holiday and i beieve the car was fantastic considering its engine size and cost. 1800 miles is a long way to drive and i took the right car for it

 

esssay over i just thought there were quite a few vrs posts like this and not enough monty ones! :P

 

cheers!

 

andy

Great report but wheres the trip photos? Glad the Monte did well.

Thanks Will put some up soon hopefully but the 1mb allowance is proving tricky

Rainsport 2 are very good tyres, don't feel shortchanged.

 

I was well impressed with the 1.2TSI roomster I had as a courtesy car once, much punchier than my old 1.6 Focus with similar power on paper. They should stick it in a Citigo VRS!!

Had similar when we took our TSI 86 Monte to Switzerland; great small car than can handle long runs, as in our case we went without a overnight stop on the way.

 

 

Tp

They should stick it in a Citigo VRS!!

 haha the citigo would fly! bit small for me though... i have my sights set on an octy diesel as my next car

Had similar when we took our TSI 86 Monte to Switzerland; great small car than can handle long runs, as in our case we went without a overnight stop on the way.

 

 

Tp

 yeah the engine worked so well for me too. when we got to the overnight stop i realied i probably could have kept going but haven't driven tha far before in one go