Evening all

 

New member here, been having a look through the site and found it very informative.

 

I'm looking to buy an Octavia in the near future. My budget can stretch to around £12,000 and I'm looking at a 2013/14 hatchback in Elegance trim. I was initially drawn to the 2.0 diesel because of the extra torque and bhp it has over the 1.4 petrol, as well as the lower tax and better MPG...

 

However, I've read a few worrying things about the DPF in the diesels; I do a mixture of long runs and short trips around town, but sometimes there's a while between the long runs. I don't want to be hit with a huge bill shortly for parting with that much cash and I don't want to have to be constantly worrying about what sort of driving/distance I'm doing. I probably only do 10-12k a year so maybe a petrol would make more sense? The problem is I'm struggling to find a 1.4 TSI with the winter pack (heated seats and windscreen) though. Anyone know why this might be, or have any advice generally? I understand that for a time the winter pack wasn't an option on the petrols?

 

Thanks in advance.

Edited 1 February, 20179 yr by Satuok

Winter pack is fairly rare as its an option on all models.

I'd advise to test drive both engines. The 1.4 turbo is impressive and will acheive over 45mpg easily,  without any dpf worries, so it is a good option. 

As long as you're aware of the DPF issue it's unlikely to catch you out. The car takes 15-20mins from warm (some distance in winter) to complete a dpf regeneration cycle and does this every 200 miles or so. You need to pay attention to tell when it's doing a regeneration (idling at 1000rpm) and if you let it finish that cycle more often than not rather than turning the car off you really shouldn't have any problems with the DPF.

You can have my petrol vRS for £12000! New one comes next Month!

Thanks for the replies. £12,000 is the top end of the budget and I'm not sure I could talk the Mrs into the extra insurance cost for the vrs! Thanks though!

 

Am I right in thinking though that the DPF will most likely need replacing at 70-90k at a cost of over £1000?

22 minutes ago, Satuok said:

Thanks for the replies. £12,000 is the top end of the budget and I'm not sure I could talk the Mrs into the extra insurance cost for the vrs! Thanks though!

 

Am I right in thinking though that the DPF will most likely need replacing at 70-90k at a cost of over £1000?

 

Clearly insurance costs are dependent on personal circumstances and I wouldn't dream of pushing an opinion on anyone else; however, to give you my own personal experience (for what it's worth) moving from a 09 plate Mkii Octavia 2.0 Diesel Elegance Estate to a 65 plate Petrol vrs Hatch saw a very small increase in insurance costs (50 quid per annum., mainly due to a pending SP30). Your Mileage may, of course, vary, but if the possibility of something a tiny bit more spicy attracts you, it might be worth a call to your insurer..

I'm pretty sure that the heated windows were not available on the very first of the Mk 3 cars, heated seats certainly were though and were the one option which I would have liked to have had on my car but couldn't get at the time due to time constraints, i.e. I needed a new car within weeks, rather than months! Saying that if you particularly wanted heated seats, there are a few companies that can install them into existing cars but that tends to be more expensive than what it would have cost as an original factory option. However, if you can get a good deal on a suitable used Mk 3, it might still be viable if it is something which you would really like to have.

 

With my own car I am probably going to have to VT it later this month as I have a new PCH car arriving in March, it is under 30,000 miles and in near mint condition, it would not be very expensive to buy at that time as there would only be about another month for the 3.5 year PCP deal to have finished anyway.

8 hours ago, Satuok said:

Thanks for the replies. £12,000 is the top end of the budget and I'm not sure I could talk the Mrs into the extra insurance cost for the vrs! Thanks though!

 

Am I right in thinking though that the DPF will most likely need replacing at 70-90k at a cost of over £1000?

No problem. No DPF as it's petrol!

I'm fairly confident that I'd do enough long runs to keep the DPF in good shape, maybe combined with the occasional dose of Shell V-Power/BP Ultimate and some fuel additive. But I've read that even if looked after, a DPF will eventually need replacing anyway which seems like it would wipe out any cost saving that I might have enjoyed over running the 1.4TSI?

6 hours ago, AllanDJ said:

I'm pretty sure that the heated windows were not available on the very first of the Mk 3 cars,

The heated windscreen wasn't available in most petrol Octavias until at least the middle of 2015. The May 2015 brochure says "* Not available on TSI engines (excluding vRS)".

Do you have experience of the Octavia 3 with heated screen?

 

Have to say I don't and have only limited experience of any heated screens.

 

Reason I ask is that while many folk are not particularly aware of the elements others are quite aware and annoyed by them.

 

 

Go one in mine and can't say I really notice it at all.  You have to look really closely to see the wires and even then it's a push to see them.  In use the whole screen warms up really quickly and turns a frozen solid screen to mush you can just wipe away in 1-2 minutes tops.