This is a tricky one.....

Most will be buying this as a 2nd car, runaround, with a handful of people buying as they main everyday car/something they do alot of miles in.

My wife has other ideas (as shes stated categorically she doesnt want another new car when our Octavia Mk3 is either handed back or sold) but I would be quite keen on an SE, SE-L or MC spec 1.2 TSI hatch...either 90/110ps to replace it.

My thoughts are that for the purposes the car would be used (ferrying the wife and kids around locally, little Motorway work and likely less than 5k/year miles) the 90ps would be just fine.

10.9 secs to 62 and 113mph are hardly shabby, nor is the claimed MPG....it would be entirely adequate and having driven a Mk2 86ps version which I was impressed with...with a better, slightly more powerful motor and less weight it can only be better still.

.....but Ive also driven a Mk2 105ps version and it was a little better......then comes the PCP cost.....the 110ps SE only costs about £1.50/month more in the calculations ive seem so going with the 110ps for the 6th gear and extra performance.....rather a no brainer.

Its kind of horses for courses really though....as a runaround I think the 90 is entirely adequate...as a daily runner doing a few miles the 110 probably makes that bit more sense particularly given the negligible cost difference.

Edited 26 November, 201510 yr by pipsypreturns

Each has their own reasons for choosing one above the other, but for us it was simple: 90hp is group 8 insurance, 110hp is group 12 insurance.

As ours was bought for our 20 year old daughter, the 90 was really the only option to keep insurance costs down. As we went for the 90, we went for SE-L trim, but had we gone for the 110 it would probably have been SE spec instead.

Recently test drove a TSI 110 SE with just shy of 5k on the clock, which felt like it had less go then my Spaceback TSI 105 even when new. Slightly disappointed as I'd have expected a 16v motor to be at least on par if not better than an 8v of the same capacity but in this comparison at least it was not the case.

 

 

TP

 

Agree. I think the new one is comparable when the turbo kicks in but it doesn't have as much spunk as the older engine before the turbo kicks in. I guess this is because the new one is 16v which tend to deliver their oomph higher up the rev range.

 

Thus I find the new engine significantly less driveable in start/stop traffic than the old one. On cold startup you could drive the old engine with no throttle at all and it would take off at an alarming rate of knots, new one needs revs.

Feelings can be deceiving and numbers usually don't lie as they say - http://www.autoevolution.com/carcompare.php?id1=21214&id2=19346&u=metric

 

But with VW you can't put your money on the numbers either these days 

 

Still I think the new 110 looks slightly better overall...

I think that the comments made about 8V versus 16V are fair, ie at low revs, the 8V will pull away a lot better than the 16V at revs where the turbo has not got going. Annoyingly I've found that "dead" zone a few times when pulling away at a junction, though I'm sure that I could have avoided it if I had used more revs!

Feelings can be deceiving and numbers usually don't lie as they say - http://www.autoevolution.com/carcompare.php?id1=21214&id2=19346&u=metric

 

But with VW you can't put your money on the numbers either these days 

 

Still I think the new 110 looks slightly better overall...

 

Yes, the overall figures are all better. It's just the driveability in the non-turbo zone I find not so good on the newer engine.