Hi all!

To very briefly summarise - i'm sort of in the market for a new (used) car, with an Octavia being one of the top contenders. Current spec I'm looking at is a VRS estate, 2014/2015MY, 2.0D with DSG. Still trying to work out what options would be nice/required/irrelevant. Other top contenders are Focus ST D estate and an older (2012ish) A4. 
Currently driving around in a 2009 Focus 1.6 Zetec S, 5 years, 83K miles and 1 gearbox worth of ownership means i've become rather fond of it. Granted, it can be a little slower than I'd like, but with summer wheels and tyres on it's tremendous fun to throw around. Family requirements however, combined with a new commute of 70 miles (60-70% Motorway, though i did average 52.3MPG for a couple of days sitting behind lorrys!) means it's time to start having a look elsewhere.
I'm a Jaguar diag tech by trade, nearly 8 years worth with a brief 3 month stint at a Bentley/supercar service centre. That does mean this will be my first proper look into VAG cars, assuming there aren't too many parts shared between Octavia & a W12 Continental GT! 

Hi there, obviously we’ll try encourage you towards the vRS but the Octavia really is a great car!  Hope you find the right car anyway whichever one you go for.  That time in the Bentley centre must have been interrupted  .

Hello Matt welcome to the Skoda forum  go for the VRS probably the most reliable but we are biast .