Good evening! I'm looking to join the fold of Skoda Octavia owners! Last year I rented an Octavia 2.0TDi estate for a week and absolutely fell in love with it. Due to financial reasons, I'm still in my old Astra MkIV (although I do love it!) but now things are changing, I'm looking to go for the Octavia VRS hatchback. I do however have two main questions. I'm finally at a point where I can spend a little more on a car, and also fancy something with a fair bit of poke so my two questions are:-

Diesel or Petrol?

DSG or Manual?

I probably do around 1000 miles a month and it's a big mix of single track rural roads, A roads and motorways. I live in Mid Wales so have the pleasure of some of the best driving roads.

 

I'd really appreciate your input and anecdotes. Tragically being so far out of the way, being able to get hold of one of each to test drive means at least a 200 mile round trip so I'm trying to narrow down my options before arranging a test drive.

Thanks!  

Mid Wales, good rally country!

 

Petrol - manual.

 

I'm biased though as that's what I have  :clap:

The Manual will be cheaper. What budget do you have as that will have an impact on your choice. You will get a newer petrol car for your money but it will cost more to run in fuel/tax but will be quicker and quieter. If you want a diesel don't go for the earlier PD engine. Petrol will return low to mid 30s if you're sensible the diesel at least another 10 mpg. If you search the mk2 section there's loads of threads on the vRS and what to look for. You won't be disappointed with either. Good luck

It certainly is good rally country  

I'm looking at around the £13,000 mark and I'll be honest... I'm feeling young and foolish so I'm happy to spend more on fuel for the sake of a bit more poke to it. What attracts me to the paddleshift DSG is simply the fun factor of it. I'm just wondering what it's like to actually live with rather than just a novelty.

Ah DSG.....it's very much a marmite thing, but it is apparently well suited to the TSI petrol engine though I've not tried one myself. You'd need to try one and see if its what you want, but the 6 speed manual is very smooth and slick and the manual is cheaper. They are very good in heavy traffic and save your left leg from the clutch but beings you're in mid wales there isn't that much congestion. I'm old school so prefer the manual but each to their own.

Petrol vs diesel

Manual vs DSG

Such a personal choice IMHO. Test drive both and see how you feel.

For me DSG because it's great (had a mk2FL dsg diesel). This time petrol because I mostly do around town driving now and worry about DPF issues. For you I'm sure that won't be an issue as you probably don't get the same traffic as in London.

It certainly is good rally country  

I'm looking at around the £13,000 mark and I'll be honest... I'm feeling young and foolish so I'm happy to spend more on fuel for the sake of a bit more poke to it. What attracts me to the paddleshift DSG is simply the fun factor of it. I'm just wondering what it's like to actually live with rather than just a novelty.

I wouldn't buy a dsg just for the paddles, yes they work fine, but you'll probably rarely use them, if at all.

it's just a lot easier to leave it in D, or S if you prefer to hang onto a gear a bit longer, as the gearbox is so good.

 

personally I wouldn't go back to a manual box.

 

if you decide to go for a dsg, you'll find there's not a lot of good low milers out there, and dealers obviously know this, so demand top dollar  

Edited 14 August, 201510 yr by seve88

I've driven my MY16 TSI DSG for about 1000 miles now and the DSG box is great for the normal daily driving in traffic etc.

 

When you need a bit of extra acceleration or manual control pull a paddle and the box temporarily goes into manual mode. It will stay in manual until there is no further input for 1 minute or you pull and hold the up paddle for 3 seconds and then it's back to fully auto.

 

IMHO the absolute best of both worlds :sun:  :sun:

Just watch the DSG on a used car, there have been problems. Make sure the oil change has been done.

Also consider the 0% finance, and get at least 10% off list price of a new one.

41k miles in and no issues with my DSG box, plus over 20k miles of that has been on a remap running over 330bhp.

 

Would definitely recommend the TSI engine as quite a corker of a unit when mated to the DSG (pre or post remap) and surprisingly economical when you want it to be.

 

My work maybe changing their car policy, however the next car I have would include the DSG box, fingers crossed they don't change the policy though!!

I'm a new skoda VRS owner for the past 3 weeks now & I'm absolutely loving the vehicle to bits, I purchased a DSG & I find driving now so much more pleasant I asked a few questions in a thread linked below: hope you might find some useful information

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/364270-any-advice-on-buying-a-skoda-iii-vrs/#entry4335947