Picked up my car last Wednesday evening with 6 miles on the clock and I have to say the Octavia is the best car I have had.  Its things like the Fabia glove boxes needed lining to help with rattles, on the Octy they are already lined including the door pockets.

 

My mileage will be dropping to around 11000 miles a year and for the first time in a long time I have gone to petrol, having a DPF was too much of a risk - I did test drive diesel and petrol.  I chose the 1.4TSI DSG Estate in Elegance spec over an SE with options as the Elegance would have a better residual.  I ordered the car in white with ACC, three spoke wheel and power boot, then due to an ordering issue got a spare wheel and life shine.

 

I have spent the last few days running around town going to work and taking the kids where they need to go.  The ride is quite firm compared to the Fabia but the seats are much better and give good support with their bucket style and lumber support.

 

When I read in the manual that ACC was best used on the motorway I did wonder if I had made a mistake – oh no I didn’t.  ACC and DSG in town are a dream team together for the lazy driver.  Set the ACC and the car accelerates and decelerates with the cars in front including to a stop and away again, for longer stops you need to use the break and reset ACC - you do have to be aware of coming up to stopped traffic as the system will not see the stopped cars etc.  Front assist has not been an issue and has not kicked in with brakes, just an image on the colour maxi dot; then again it might be because I am lazy and use ACC. 

 

The Sat Nav seems to work well and integrates well into the car system, up till the Amundsen system I used Navmii on my iPhone and I really liked the Google search feature of that system which I cannot see on the Amundsen.  I purchased an SD card to put music on and have decided not to bother using it as the Bluetooth with my iPhone works well enough for me and the sound is really good. The radio is OK and it’s nice to have the station logos on the preset buttons. The phone setup worked first time, not sure I am going to have pics on the system for my contacts.

The boot is massive, but there was more storage space for bits in the Fabia estate partly due to the Octy having the spare wheel that the Fabia didn’t and the side cubby holes in the Fabia.

 

Auto wipers and lights work well except I might have a problem with AFS, I live in a semi rural area and decided to take the Octy down a dark (pitch black) country lane and had no full beam and had to set it myself and then turn it off when I came to a light area.  Checked the manual and yep set the lights correctly and went for a second run and no full beam – hum.

 

As part of my running in I took the car for a blast yesterday down the A50, which is a dual carriage way between Stoke and the M1 that has quite a few roundabouts along it.  At this point I am reminded that I am glad I didn’t go for VRS for the sake of my driving licence. The little 1.4 can shift when wanted, going into the roundabouts in drive then moving to sport mode and on the way out booting the car, at this point I am reminded that the salesman said I would not need the paddles and I am starting to think that he might be correct.

 

The most important thing is my two autistic kids love the car and along with the wife love the power boot and think it is the best bit of the car.

Nice one - and you are one of the lucky ones to get Front Assist and ACC!

When you say AFS do you mean beam assistance as afaik AFS is the swivelling of the lights with the steering input, which is great when I'm driving but makes me feel sick as a passenger.

Great review. Enjoy your new car. Glad the kids & missus like it too!

When you say AFS do you mean beam assistance as afaik AFS is the swivelling of the lights with the steering input, which is great when I'm driving but makes me feel sick as a passenger.

I don't have the swivelling lights, set the car lights to auto, flick the indicator back against the spring and main beam should be auto.

 

For me it's a bit hit and miss, I drive down a dark lane that needs full beam, but you can see street lights in the distance no full beam or a high beam short of full, then it will come on when I don't think it's going to.

Odd, mine seems really good, and reacts as fast as I can to turning the main beam off.

Picked up my car last Wednesday evening with 6 miles on the clock and I have to say the Octavia is the best car I have had.  Its things like the Fabia glove boxes needed lining to help with rattles, on the Octy they are already lined including the door pockets.

 

My mileage will be dropping to around 11000 miles a year and for the first time in a long time I have gone to petrol, having a DPF was too much of a risk - I did test drive diesel and petrol.  I chose the 1.4TSI DSG Estate in Elegance spec over an SE with options as the Elegance would have a better residual.  I ordered the car in white with ACC, three spoke wheel and power boot, then due to an ordering issue got a spare wheel and life shine.

 

I have spent the last few days running around town going to work and taking the kids where they need to go.  The ride is quite firm compared to the Fabia but the seats are much better and give good support with their bucket style and lumber support.

 

When I read in the manual that ACC was best used on the motorway I did wonder if I had made a mistake – oh no I didn’t.  ACC and DSG in town are a dream team together for the lazy driver.  Set the ACC and the car accelerates and decelerates with the cars in front including to a stop and away again, for longer stops you need to use the break and reset ACC - you do have to be aware of coming up to stopped traffic as the system will not see the stopped cars etc.  Front assist has not been an issue and has not kicked in with brakes, just an image on the colour maxi dot; then again it might be because I am lazy and use ACC. 

 

The Sat Nav seems to work well and integrates well into the car system, up till the Amundsen system I used Navmii on my iPhone and I really liked the Google search feature of that system which I cannot see on the Amundsen.  I purchased an SD card to put music on and have decided not to bother using it as the Bluetooth with my iPhone works well enough for me and the sound is really good. The radio is OK and it’s nice to have the station logos on the preset buttons. The phone setup worked first time, not sure I am going to have pics on the system for my contacts.

The boot is massive, but there was more storage space for bits in the Fabia estate partly due to the Octy having the spare wheel that the Fabia didn’t and the side cubby holes in the Fabia.

 

Auto wipers and lights work well except I might have a problem with AFS, I live in a semi rural area and decided to take the Octy down a dark (pitch black) country lane and had no full beam and had to set it myself and then turn it off when I came to a light area.  Checked the manual and yep set the lights correctly and went for a second run and no full beam – hum.

 

As part of my running in I took the car for a blast yesterday down the A50, which is a dual carriage way between Stoke and the M1 that has quite a few roundabouts along it.  At this point I am reminded that I am glad I didn’t go for VRS for the sake of my driving licence. The little 1.4 can shift when wanted, going into the roundabouts in drive then moving to sport mode and on the way out booting the car, at this point I am reminded that the salesman said I would not need the paddles and I am starting to think that he might be correct.

 

The most important thing is my two autistic kids love the car and along with the wife love the power boot and think it is the best bit of the car.

I disagree with that salesman - I won't have DSG without the paddles.  Keep both hands on the wheel and change down before overtaking or a sharp bend - DSG stays in Manual mode.  Change up and hold the paddle for more than a second or so and DSG goes back into Auto mode.  I have never used Manual Mode on the 'stick'.  As I have a VRs TDi the Sports mode is useless as it holds the gears well over the max effective revs of the diesel.  However, I do use Sport mode to hold a lower gear on long steep downhill descents.

I've had a DSG without paddles (Scirocco) and one with (Fabia vRS) and would choose paddles every time now.  You might not need them very often, but it's so handy to have the control at your fingertips when you do want it.