A bit of feedback for anyone interested: I picked up my new Octavia RS Wagon 162TSI last week, and yesterday, I gave the wagon a good run through some mountains (for the Brisbane locals here, Nebo, Glorious and through to Somerset, then back to Samford, and then city driving before home.)
The car performed flawlessly and brilliantly. A good spread of revs, gears and load points. From gentle cruising to giving it a bit of stick to load things up - perfect way to run a new engine in, as was suggested to me by my engine-builder in my previous STi Liberty.

I haven't looked at all the data yet, but I think I achieved an average of 7.9L/100 over 300km, which i think is pretty good considering the spread of revs and work it was doing. Will keep an eye on the consumption figures to see if things improve further with time. I notice on the fuel flap it only recommends 95RON minimum, which I suspect is all the dealership filled it with prior to delivery. I topped it up with 35L of 98 BP Ultimate before the run, and 98 is likely to be all I ever run in it, unless there's simply none available.

Suspension-wise - I'm definitely impressed that it handled so well. It certainly wasn't an AWD Liberty by comparison, but that's to be expected. The suspension crashes a bit over the hard stuff and there's definitely a fair amount of road noise inside the cabin - being a wagon resonates that noise a little, but it's no noisier or harsher over bumps than the "old-man car" I traded in for the Octy (a diesel Mazda6 sedan) which suffered from horrendous road and wind noise, and was as harsh on the road as the Liberty with Bilsteins!

The Mazda was so uncomfortable to drive with crappy seats with insufficient support for big people (I'm 6'6 and 115kg) I could only drive for about 30mins before aching and feeling like a cripple. After solid 2hour stints in the Octy, I just didn't want (or need) to get out to rest - only to pee! And I felt as refreshed and comfortable as when I started the drive. Adaptive dampers would make the full package in this car I'm sure..... pity I just missed out on that, according to the rumours I've read in here. (Wonder if you can retrofit that?)

Brakes - very solid feel when cool but definitely had some fade after a few spirited downhill sections. With ACC on (on flat sections of highway, not the mountains!) it takes some getting used to with manual braking, as it's prefilled the pedal pressure, so when taking over the braking manually with what you consider to be normal pedal-pressure, you tend to headbutt the windscreen! But overall pretty good brakes. I'd never say any car doesn't need bigger or better brakes though.....

Tyres that came with the car are Potenza something's. I couldn't read them in my dark garage last night when I got home so I'll check that out later today. Very solid feel, no squirming or understeer/oversteer during some pretty spirited driving. Lost traction a few times in the front, but that's the torque beating the TCS through some corners.

Electronics - everything in the cabin works well once you get used to the new control positions. I've only put the wipers on instead of blinkers once so far!
Didn't get much time to play around with controls myself while piloting, but my passenger was fiddling around with things as we went.
A few concerns/questions: as mentioned in previous posts, annoyed that the "screen blank after 10secs" setting unticks itself every time the car starts. Either a bug or deliberate?
There's significant glare off the infotainment screen under certain sunlight conditions. Makes viewing the reverse camera screen or satnav almost impossible in some instances. Better anti-glare coating on the screen might help, or perhaps angling the screen slightly towards the driver?
The reverse camera is certainly lower quality than what the Mazda had. I've played with the contrast and brightness settings, but it's quite difficult to see clearly when reversing at night. Obviously the reverse lights aren't positioned very well for the camera to utilise, or the camera is just cheap? Definitely better resolution in the Mazda but it's a minor thing.
Voice recognition is as hopeless as any other car I've driven with it. I realise it must be a difficult thing to program but I don't have a weird accent, I speak like anyone else and they just can't understand what I say. Especially when giving an address to the satnav.

The satnav is very different to the TomTom in the Mazda and will take some practice and getting used to before I can judge it. I don't understand why they all seem to search alphabetically for the street name you say/input, throughout the whole country, rather than the closest one to your current location. If I search for smith street, it will bring up smith streets on the other side of the country as first preferences, rather than the one 5km away! But the TomTom was like that too.

One thing I love is the fact the satnav will not get "locked-out" from making manual inputs while moving.  The TomTom would lock the screen from most inputs once you'd started moving (for safety, fair enough), but it meant that any passenger with you couldn't do the satnav programming on the move. At least in the Octy, my passenger did all the searching for addresses while I did the steering.  I haven't tested the Octy if I'd be locked out WITHOUT a passenger, perhaps it's another of those simply clever things.

Can't work out how to get the voice control working with Siri, when my phone is connected through Apple CarPlay. Haven't fully read the infotainment book yet though, so hopefully it's in there somewhere. And confused why the car would allow wifi connections or to use as a hotspot, if the SmartGate function isn't active here in Australia. Can't work out what purpose there is for the car having wifi - which presumably uses data from your connected device (in my case, my iPhone). I would assume that if SmartGate isn't available here, they would also just remove the wifi hotspot from the available settings too? I don't understand why wifi would be an option in the car - why connect my iPhone to the car, to provide a wifi hotspot to the rest of the car (any anyone else driving around beside me - apparently it's easy to hack into) - when I could just hotspot my second device directly to my iPhone?

Also can't work out the blend of connectivity in the car - bluetooth to my iPhone seems to be disconnected when I plug into cable to get CarPlay activated. So how does the phone connect to the car then? But there's so-few available apps in CarPlay that I don't think I'd ever use while driving, I don't think I'd bother with connecting it to the car.  Except perhaps when I want to use the Apple Maps instead of inbuilt satnav, if updating maps is too expensive or difficult to achieve.  Again this all comes down to reading the infotainment manual, which is my homework for today.

Overall though - very VERY happy with my purchase! Best decision I've made in a long time and I'm sure I'll only get happier with the car as time goes on.

Nice write up! Quick comments on Smartlink for you:

When connected via CarPlay, hold down the 'voice' button in the steering wheel for Siri. Quick press = the (terrible) Škoda voice stuff -- Long press = the (awesome) Siri.

Wifi seems to be purely for connectivity to CarPlay? New versions of iOS and CarPlay allow for 'wireless' connectivity - but that requires wifi in the car, not just Bluetooth from what I understand.

My MY16 SE L (in the U.K.) has no WiFi, and I can't do wireless CarPlay. I'm convinced this what all MY17 Octavias now have wifi....?

Edited 2 October, 20169 yr by danbt79

Ahhh thanks danbt79.

 

I understood my CarPlay wouldn't connect without being physically connected via USB cable.  At least this is all I've managed to achieve so far.  I'll have a play around with the wifi later today.

 

And I didn't know that about the voice control.  I'll play around with the long-press too.

 

Thanks for the heads-up.

Hi Guys

 

Good wright up, thanks spinifex!

 

I'm due to collect mine early October hopefully although I've heard there is a delivery delay with the 4x4 diesel VRS in the UK (I tow a large caravan hence the Diesel) can't wait!

 

Current car 07 Mk11 VRS tdi hatch, race blue, 105000 miles - she's been great hence the reason for ordering a new one.

 

New car Spec: SKODA OCTAVIA DIESEL ESTATE 2.0 TDI CR vRS 5dr DSG 4x4,   Options: Canton sound system, Black design plus pack, Winter pack, Special paint – Corrida red, Crew protection assist and rear side airbags, Towing bracket – removable and lockable, Leather – Black with red stitching + heated front seats, Space saver spare wheel and Service pack.

 

Looking forward to the extra traction of the 4x4 especially as the Scottish Winter is nearly upon us!!!

 

Happy Driving!!!!

 

Is the Vrs 4x4 still available in the UK, only it doesn't seem to be in the configurator any more.....

No skoda pulled plug along with 230

Is the 4x4 what everyone calls the "combi" ?

Because we don't have that option here in Aus - only the Superb with the 206KW engine, if we want 4x4.

 

But I can't work out what these "combis" are that I see on the various intarweb forums.

 

Or is that another name for wagon/estate?

Is the 4x4 what everyone calls the "combi" ?

Because we don't have that option here in Aus - only the Superb with the 206KW engine, if we want 4x4.

But I can't work out what these "combis" are that I see on the various intarweb forums.

Or is that another name for wagon/estate?

Combi is what some people call the estate. Not in the UK but in some other countries.

Combi is what some people call the estate. Not in the UK but in some other countries.

And in Aus they call them wagons.

That's a shame. I was quite looking forward to ordering one next year. Guess it'll have to be the standard one then :-) The Combi is the wagon/estate in the UK.