Hey everyone, 

 

I have been sitting on my butt long enough and finally im going to get behind the wheel of a 2017/2018 Octavia vRS Estate (Petrol) , ideally in black or meteor grey.  But i have a couple of questions for everyone.

Tuning, i am looking at going down the Revo route, just for Stage 1, as i think around 300bhp should be more than enough for me and maybe chuck in a new airbox too.

Lowering on H&R Springs.. are the dampers already good enough as stock ?  and also, if running the 19's, are 40mm springs too low, or are there 25-30mm springs ?  

 

Now the big question.. i prefer the front end of the Octavia mk3 vRS, however i much prefer the interior of the 3.5 vRS.  Does anyone know of anyone that has "retrofit" the older front end to the newer facelift model ?  What needs replacing?   Is it just headlights and bumper ?  or do you also need bonnet and wings ?

 

Thanks in advance for any/all information.

 

Steve

The bumper and bonnet are certainly different. I’d wager the wings are as well. Not sure about stuff under that, fixing points etc. 

What about the interior of the FL do you prefer? The glossy radio screen, climate panel and seats can all be fitted to a PFL and it’s much easier than worrying about the major changes that are pretty much impossible on the outside. PFL to FL has been done by one unconfirmed source I’m aware of but it’s not been done backwards. If you get an MY16 or 17 PFL the screen swap is plug and play. 40mm H&R springs work well with 19’s and plenty of stage one maps for the TSI will see you over 300 bhp. The hardest thing by far is finding a car that ticks your boxes. Petrol Estates are rare enough never mind looking for a specific spec or colour.

 

For reference, here’s mine with 19’s and 40mm H&R springs with standard shocks also running 20 front and 25mm rear spacers. Most people do 15/20 but I need 20 front with the Xtreme’s to clear my brakes.

Thanks for the reply SashaGrace, the stance on yours looks exactly right and what i would go for. good to see what the 19s and 40mm drop looks like.  Very nice car by the way.

 

Yeah the interior bits (seats mainly) are what is swaying me to the newer model, but i just cant get on with that god awful front end, IMO obviously, the split headlights look rubbish in comparison to the mk3 front end, just looks a lot meaner. 

So maybe i need to start looking down the route of interior swapping.. as the seats/touchscreen look a lot nicer in the newer model.

Seats are cheap enough but the PFL came with the pinnacle of Octavia seats, full leather ones as an option, which mine has so I’ll never swap those. The rest is doable though.

 

 

You would lose the ambient lighting and key personalisation though and my screen isn’t a plug and play upgrade as you’d need the MIB2.5 base unit to match, though this is true for the FL too. If you have a MIB2 radio with the older screen you can plug and play the 5E0919605M glass FL Amundsen screen. This is not the case for the earlier MIB1 cars.

Personally I specifically went for a pFL 230 as I wanted the leather seats, the single light front end and also wanted the electronic diff.  For me, they're the sweet spot of trim.  

 

The screen is a bit small, but if I'm really that bothered I'll pick up a glass 8" screen.  Tbh though, I'm generally looking out the windscreen so that kind of stuff isn't a huge concern for me.

Sasha, out of interest, as I just googled that part number and found they're not that expensive...   

The glass one has an 'app' button rather than a 'traffic' button.

What does that button do if you swap from the old screen to the new one?

36 minutes ago, Alex-W said:

Sasha, out of interest, as I just googled that part number and found they're not that expensive...   

The glass one has an 'app' button rather than a 'traffic' button.

What does that button do if you swap from the old screen to the new one?

Nothing, unless you port 04xx firmware onto the radio unit (if you have the right radio) and then it shortcuts to SmartLink. The backlight still works in any case.