1.5TSI Estate SEL 1000 miles in.. :o)

[AlexBlue]

Collected the car then took it on holiday for a week

Ive come from a 9 year old Astra diesel that I felt was coming close to needing all sorts spent on it. The Octy is the first new car I’ve bought.

All my feedback is relative to my old car!

Good things:

               Smooth and Quiet – wow. I don’t drive it like it was taken without consent, the ride quality is awesome. There’s no torsion beam noise that I can discern, just that of the tyres at the front at speed, if I were to try to pinpoint it – nothing out of the ordinary there. Gear changing is a pleasure. Only real noise is the bumps going over joints on concrete roads, but the road itself was surprisingly quiet.

               Frugal – over two full tanks I’ve covered the near 1000 miles, calculated average mpg is 51mpg, trip computer long term average is 50.5. I’ve benefitted from not being stuck in heavy traffic though. Nonetheless, this is a good start. The ACT comes in and out regularly and I don’t notice any difference.

               Comfortable – alacantra seats are very comfy (if not wasted in the back with the kids in their boosters). The soft ‘leather’ is delicious, and the steering wheel is a joy to behold. I’m tempted to just sit out there in the evenings, nice to have something to hold like that in middle age.

               Spacious – coming from a ‘mid-size’ estate to another I’m not completely overwhelmed (in fact the Astra’s minimum boot width was 10cm wider than the Octy), but everything went in comfortably for holiday. The false floor was also very beneficial to layout suits and dresses for a wedding. Plus room for all the shoes and kids scooters! Whether I keep the roof bars (when I buy them) in the specially designed slots or not I don’t know, but that was an interesting design feature.

               Loud – the stereo. Very good quality (from the perspective of a non-audiophile!). I typically play from my phone via Bluetooth. I haven’t prepared the SD slot for in-car playing yet.

 

Not so good things (and I’m being really picky here!)

               Satnav – this is so-so. My wife was running google maps in parallel, which came up with better options – presumably as it had access to live traffic data. I think I need to update the maps in any case (I used the new Norwich distributor road which wasn’t in the database). A couple of times when it wanted me to come off at a junction only to return back to the mway. So some quirky things that wouldn’t make me not use it, but remain aware of where I’m going.

               Boot catch – this is a little iffy, boot not always closing fully unless I give it a good slam. I’m keeping an eye on this, maybe it could be adjusted at first service.

               Wheels – being super picky, I was hoping to avoid spokes on the wheels with narrow gaps cos they’re more of a pain to clean when the time comes! Should have gone for an SE perhaps!

               Gears – 6 seems one too many. On a flat road, at 40mph the computer is telling me to be in 6^th.

               Engine braking – or lack thereof. There’s one hill in particular on my commute that I used to stay in 3^rd and roll down at 30-35. This is no longer possible due to the way engines are designed these days. I guess I’ll be replacing brake pads a bit more often now.

               Android Auto – nothing to do with the car. I did try the gmaps for navigation, and it’s ok with simple things, but it didn’t have the same functionality as on the phone. Shame it doesn't work via bluetooth.

 

There’s so much left to test out, how the bike rack affects the ride when it’s on the tow ball, getting Android Auto working with the library of music on my phone (need to find a decent app), how the driving modes work, seeing if VCDS is worth getting – and if I really want the friend of my sister who is a mechanic to remap the engine because he reckons he can…

As for pimping it up familyman style, I have some sill protectors, rear bumper protector, front mud guards and a PVC boot mat arriving imminently (I hope). I’m debating paying for either protection film or clay polish to help with keeping the paintwork tidy and easing any future cleaning.

Overall really pleased. The jump back to petrol was a bit daunting given that I was spending oodles of money on new, but after 1000 miles I feel much happier that I made the right choice.

Bought the car via carfile.net, it was £700 less than via carwow. I’d recommend carfile.net, if only that they have the pricing upfront and you don’t need to register or anything first. Downside was 160 miles to go to collect but was worth it.

[shyVRS245]

Agree with a lot of your points so far had a Superb with the older 1.4Tsi ACT engine and it averaged 50MPG giving a range of over 700 miles from the 66 litre tank. Also had to ignore Octy satnav as it wanted me to turn off the motorway when there was no need to!

[ahenners]

6 gears seems one too many?!

 

Said no one ever. If anything, 6 isn't enough. Drove a 330d with the 8 speed ZF auto box the other day and it was wonderful. I'd love my VRS to have a 7th for motorway cruising.

[AlexBlue]

10 minutes ago, ahenners said:

6 gears seems one too many?!

 

Said no one ever. If anything, 6 isn't enough. Drove a 330d with the 8 speed ZF auto box the other day and it was wonderful. I'd love my VRS to have a 7th for motorway cruising.

 

Says 1 person.

Fair point though, what I was probably after is that the gearing seems to be too close together. If top gear was a motorway cruiser gear then that'd be different.  In an automatic then the more gears the better, but then you're not reaching out for the stick.

[YMe]

On 27/07/2018 at 10:17, AlexBlue said:

Gears – 6 seems one too many. On a flat road, at 40mph the computer is telling me to be in 6^th.              

The 1.5 SE L ACT DSG has 7.

[Gerrycan]

My old mk2 1.9pd manual only had 5 gears but I never had any complaints about the ratios. They all seemed appropriate for the power and rev range.

My 1.4tsi has six gears and I have never complained about the number but ideally I would adjust their spacing for what is an relatively wide rev range engine.

I have posted this before but I would have 2nd gear a little lower (reducing the gap between 1st and 2nd) and 6th gear a little longer (not much but probably the same as the dsg 7th gear so a 300 rpm reduction at 70mph) and then 3rd to 5th balanced to suit.

I do a lot of short-shifting jumping 2, 3 or even 4 gears because there is so much overlap.

[AlexBlue]

Maybe I should edit my original post to make the clarification I made in my subsequent post a bit more obvious.  What greyscale gerrycan says, perhaps spacing the gearing out a bit would be preferable.

[Falmouthboy]

Coming from a diesel to a modern small engine petrol I’m not surprised you have noticed a significant difference in engine braking, but that is perfectly normal and only to ne expected.  Have you got ŠkodaConnect working yet?  If you have (red globe top and centre of the nav screen turns white) you will get more dynamic navigation linked to traffic conditions.  Depending on when the car was made, there may be an on line map update available (you need to take the SD card out and do it in your PC).

[themanwithnoaim]

On 27/07/2018 at 12:59, ahenners said:

6 gears seems one too many?!

 

Said no one ever. If anything, 6 isn't enough. Drove a 330d with the 8 speed ZF auto box the other day and it was wonderful. I'd love my VRS to have a 7th for motorway cruising.

Shoulda got the 245 instead of the ordinary vRS then, having a 7th gear really, really helps fuel economy  !!!!