Hi all,

So I went along to my local Skoda dealership yesterday, all hyped up ready to order my first Skoda, the new petrol VRS estate, manual. A few points came up when talking with the dealer and wanted to get a few opinions and see if anyone else has had the same issues before going ahead.

Petrol or diesel? - it turns out that the 'from £155 per month' UK finance terms advertised online apply to the diesels and I naively thought that since the Petrol is slightly cheaper than this, it would be a bit less per month. Apparently since the diesel has more residual value at the end they are cheaper per month than the petrols. Strange! Probably not a deal breaker, as I think I'd prefer a petrol as more fun to drive and average mileage of 8-9k per year I don't think justifies a diesel. Does anyone have any experience of the diesel? Does it lose any of its VRS spark?

Black styling package unavailable? - this was rather annoying. Dealer told me black styling package is no longer available on the estate model. I don't know if this is just in the UK but a great shame none the less as I was going for candy white which looks great with the black grill and mirrors. Has anyone else experienced this? And is there an after-sales / DIY pack?

Meteor grey? - I'm slowly going off the idea of candy white as a result of the above. Does anyone have pics of the meteor grey colour?

iPhone - do you think it's worth the fairly pricey upgrade to control the iPhone through the car? Does anyone have experience just with the Bluetooth or is it well worth the upgrade (I'm currently thinking not, but would be interested to know). Also does it work with iPhone 5?

Thanks all, this is my first post so apologies if its a little lengthy or has been answered elsewhere!

Pretty much all of your questions are on the first page of the Skoda Octavia III forum.

 

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/285119-buying-vrs-petrol-or-diesel/

 

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/287072-diy-black-upgrade-kit/

 

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/285820-vrs-estate-in-meteor-grey-pics-wanted/

 

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/281518-iphone-owners/

 

Hopefully you can find what you need in there.

 

If you want to have some hard facts/metrics to help you choose petrol or diesel, I put this spreadsheet together

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8667340/forums/vRScompare.xlsx open in a spreadsheet application.

 

No doubt the petrol is faster, but the break even point is nothing like what you see banded about on here.

I just ordered my vrs estate last Monday and had no prob on the blackiine.....

Iv not heard anything of black pack issues, mine best have it when it comes.

Haven't heard anything about the black pack not being available and as mine is due to be built soon I will be very disappointed if that is the case.

It could though be a confusion with the fog lights which will not be;

Cornering fog lamps

Available in black

I ordered mine last week in Romania with Black Pack, no problems there. Any BT option lets you control your iPhone or any other phone for that matter through the infotainment system. Plenty of Meteor Grey pictures on the web, google is your friend!

 

Don't ask the petrol vs diesel question on a forum, you have no idea what chaos will ensue! :P

I've ordered the black design package for mine without any issues.

 

Dump Iphone, go Android, it's less constrained and is in many cases better than Iphone (IMHO) and it can stream & swap music files with the greatest of ease and with a lot of them you can expand your phones memory & replace the battery as well, which you can't do with a Iphone.

Black design pack also ordered, but there are two different ones. One for the hatch, grille surround and mirrors. The one for the estate adds gloss black roof rails. Get the dealer to look down the list as it has a different code and is mor expensive as a result of the rail paint.

Diesel v Petrol.

 

Checkout the video drive in  Autoexpress  this week. Golf GTI v GTD .

 

Not highly detailed but useful as an initial review. 

 

vrskeith