Anyone actually happy with their MK4? 😂

[Ootohere]

Well first and foremost it is contracted out Customer Services and people who seem to be trained to refuse almost everything and let the paying customers fight for the right to have vehicles of merchantable quality. 

You have a bunch of people who might have been selling trainers in a shop recently that are now panning off Skoda / VW Group car owners. 

 

 

Edited 3 May, 2022 by roottoot

[billblacoe]

So am I happy with my Mk 4 VRS?  i think so yes ...for the most part .

 

So after buying our Mk 3 VRS at the end of its lease, as not able to get something else due to the chip issue, and failing to source a deal on Superb 280 within any sort of sensible timeframe, then we decided to keep it.

 

..and then the  Mk3 had a minor noise from the steering that Henrys in Glasgow ( excellent service ) managed to look at at very short notice, my wife took it in and there happened to  be a gun metal grey standard VRS 245 estate in the showroom .

 

Long story short we got our money back on the Mk 3 after 7y months, and got a good deal on the Mk 4 . 

 

I had told myself that there was no way I was getting another VRS due to the infotainment issues, and the fact that my deal breaker was having DCC .  I was concerned that it would just feel very tinny and lightweight ( after hankering after a Superb ).  I've been pleasantly surprised 

 

-  feels a lot chunkier and more solid that the Mk 3. 

- standard suspension is fine.  Actually perfectly comfortable most of the time, and a lot smoother than I thought it would have been on 19 inch wheels. came with very good Goodyear Eagle F1 tyres as well

- feels very solid to drive, and bigger inside

- boot even more massive

- makes me think would I ever need anything as big as the Superb 

- adaptive cruise control very good 

- recent 3 hr trip  to the lakes gave 42 mpg which is perfectly good 

 

Niggles

 

- as bigger and more comfortable it somehow doesn't feel as fast or as sporty.  I reckon that's just my impression though as it is faster, and with the new diff at the front it will corner better . Only 700 miles on it so haven't really booted it yet . Main thing though is to be a comfortable family car with a bit of ooomph , so satisfies that completely

- does slip the front tyres a bit coming out of junctions...but then any 2wd front wheel drive car with more than 200bhp will do that.   4wd would certainly have been nice 

- Infotainment - in general its just a bit faffy to use and not intuitive.   piped in engine noise is annoying, and every time I start up I need to press the central Mode button and then  press Invidiual ( set to Normal drive mode, but no piped in noise ) 

Climate control - there is just no need for this to be fully in the touchscreen, other than the fact that they had the technology to do so .  to be honest though I've gotten used to it.  Leave it in normal aircon mode with the fan on low.  Can then just turn on and off via one "button" on the touchscreen ...but again that "button" is tiny . Simple things that not sure why they weren't picked up during development 

-  SOS Crash - it happened once!   Down in the lakes and we lost all mobile signal. My wife's phone crashed as did the cars sats nav.   "SOS  call garage" etc,  and screen just loading .  parked it up and seems to have reset itself overnight 

- doesn't have proper raised roof rails, so not sure if the bike racks will be as secure 

- road noise on poor surfaces not good - very rumbly on bad bits of motorway. otherwise OK 

 

So quick overall view, and I'll update again in a few months time - feels more Superb like to drive than the old VRS,  solid and smooth.  I still reckon that DCC would be a good addition . Infotainment is a bit pants, but hopefully that was just the one system crash.

 

Still reckon I'll be looking at the new Superb mk 4 when it comes out ( 4wd : ) ) ,  but overall does everything required of it well 

 

 

PS i never fell in love with the MK3, but after changing it from Bridgestone all weathers, to Goodyear all weathers, it completely changed the ride and feel of the car...and then sold it 3 weeks later 

 

 

[Mark Hiscock]

1 hour ago, billblacoe said:

Leave it in normal aircon mode with the fan on low.  Can then just turn on and off via one "button" on the touchscreen

 

What's the single button you refer to turn A/C on or off? I also tend to leave the fan on low as Auto mode gets a bit loud and blowy in the summer months.

 

Thanks.

[billblacoe]

Hi  Mark.  When its on the normal  climate screen, up on the top right is a small circular " Clima on/off" "button" 

[alexxutzu]

After 6000 km with my 1.0 TSI Octavia, no problems and everything works fine. Ordered in April 2021 and delivered in January 2022.

[mbroad79]

Generally very happy with my experience so far.  Mk4 RS Wagon.  I'm in Australia and had my car in 3 weeks from deposit to delivery due to dealers pre ordering cars and being minimal options in Aus the spec matched what I would have chosen.

Have done about 8000km in the first few months including a 4000km road trip.  

Love the DCC.  Had it in my previous Golf and this feels like a step up.

Wish the car had a bit more engine/exhaust sound so an upgrade may be in order.

The only two issues where the stock tires - S005's.  Had a puncture soon after purchase and quickly swapped for a set of PS4's.  Quieter and grippier.
Other than that I've had the infotainment system lock up once and the slightest rattle that I am yet to investigate.

Oh...and the fake exhaust sound...will be turning that off soon!

[Mark Hiscock]

4 hours ago, billblacoe said:

Hi  Mark.  When its on the normal  climate screen, up on the top right is a small circular " Clima on/off" "button" 

Thanks. I also learned this week that on the manual clima screen you can push the auto button and select whether you want the blowers to be low/med/high! By setting it low this has resolved my issue of the HVAC being super noisy all the time.

[Hairy_Joe]

There's a 1.5TSi Manual Style at home that someone else uses. They are happy with it overall.

 

Things they are happy with

• How quiet the 1.5TSi is and it's more economical than expected
• Comfortable and very relaxing to drive
• Space. There's a lot more space than expected.
• The Style has a few "blingy bits" that make it look a bit better than the ordinary ones.

Things that surprised

• How easy the infotainment was for them to use and set up the way they like it (as they are over 70 and struggle with an old Nokia brick phone!)
• Zero crashes, foibles etc from infotainment
• Ride quality for a car on 18" wheels - a LOT better than expected

 

A few things that annoy are

• The anti-stall stuff that rises the revs for low speed maneuvering seems to switch itself off at random intervals meaning almost stalling. Previous car was a 2.0 Diesel Octavia and had enough torque at idle to manouver
• They hate the auto-handbrake. It's the first car they've had with auto-hanbrake and some adjustment time is needed.
• Virtual Cockpit has too many options/configurations for their liking.

[Paf]

I think frustrated is the best word for my view on my VRS.  It’s a really nice car to drive and there’s bits I love about it but in a year I’ve had 

• climate control system that just isn’t there sometimes when the car boots up
• random resets of the infotainment
• random switching of settings 5 minutes into a drive
• sos system failures
• a rattling glove box 
• a knocking from the boot area
• Relatively poor customer experience from the dealerships I’ve interacted with.

Its not been the best ownership experience so far which is a shame as the car is some tighter screws and better software away from being excellent. 

[Mark Hiscock]

11 hours ago, Paf said:

I think frustrated is the best word for my view on my VRS.  It’s a really nice car to drive and there’s bits I love about it but in a year I’ve had 

• climate control system that just isn’t there sometimes when the car boots up
• random resets of the infotainment
• random switching of settings 5 minutes into a drive
• sos system failures
• a rattling glove box 
• a knocking from the boot area
• Relatively poor customer experience from the dealerships I’ve interacted with.

Its not been the best ownership experience so far which is a shame as the car is some tighter screws and better software away from being excellent. 

Thank you, I also have a rattling glove box and glad to hear it's not just me!

[matrix2020]

3 hours ago, Mark Hiscock said:

Thank you, I also have a rattling glove box and glad to hear it's not just me!

Same, has anyone found where its coming from? Or how to fix it!

[inspectorman]

Solved with a little bit of sticky backed foam. The weedy plunger springs in the dash are meant to hold the lid down on its catches - but it's all plastic on plastic with no damping or softness, and scope to move L/R  / up/down a little. Hence the noise.

[mitchec]

OK, after some trepidation I bought a 21 reg 2.0 diesel DSG MK4 SEL estate.

 

Good stuff.

Nice interior and car is good to drive mechanically

 

Bad stuff.

As mentioned by a lot of people. The ACC is horrendous and dangerous. On motorways it slows you down as you pass other vehicles. Around town at slower speed its the same with the addition of slowing you down passing parked cars. On one occasion I had a motor cycle directly behind me and the car slowed abruptly while passing a stationary vehicle. Fortunately no accident. Initially I put this down to the Brake assist but later discounted this when it occurred on another occasion with the Brake assist turned off. 

 

Lane Assist is another hazourdous safety feature which stops you from drifting over white lines by automatically controlling the steering to get you back into lane. This can catch you unawares when you have to overtake a parked or purposely move over a white line without signalling.      

 

Oil level warning light coming on randomly. Had it into the garage and they tell me it's due to it being at the maximum level. Still doing the same even though the oil level has dropped slightly. Due to go back in for another check later this week. 

 

The infotainment system and layout of the functions is crap. They have removed many of the previous switches and controls to be replaced with a system that is at least 2 operations away from what you need. Previous controls could be operated from memory without even looking at them. All a cost saving exersize

 

Other minor niggle is the gearbox and throttle control. Seems to occasional over rev or is in the wrong gear for a given speed. A bit **** for fuel economy.

 

I'm hoping the newly released 1896 software update fixes much of this. 

 

 

[Mark Hiscock]

4 hours ago, inspectorman said:

Solved with a little bit of sticky backed foam. The weedy plunger springs in the dash are meant to hold the lid down on its catches - but it's all plastic on plastic with no damping or softness, and scope to move L/R  / up/down a little. Hence the noise.

Fantastic, please can you share a photo of what you did? Thank you!

[Paf]

8 hours ago, matrix2020 said:

Same, has anyone found where its coming from? Or how to fix it!

Dealer told me they think it’s a design flaw with the glove box.  Some hole somewhere that allows it to move too much and the plastic on plastic rattles.  They tried packing the hole with something but say they can’t do any more so fobbed me off to Skoda.  They reckon I need to go to another dealer for a 2nd opinion.  
 

[inspectorman]

Here you go. I had forgotten the foam tape glue got a bit tired last summer so I had replaced the foam tape with some silicone / rubber dots. 5 small ones along the top edge and one bigger one down each side. Kwality.com.

 

 

[Mark Hiscock]

1 hour ago, inspectorman said:

Here you go. I had forgotten the foam tape glue got a bit tired last summer so I had replaced the foam tape with some silicone / rubber dots. 5 small ones along the top edge and one bigger one down each side. Kwality.com.

 

 

🤣 I love a good bodge! I'll be following your example and doing the same to mine this weekend.

 

Thanks very much.

[AllanDJ]

I received my new Octavia 1.5 SEL Estate in January this year, it looks very smart in Velvet Red and is on the whole pretty easy to drive. Its a very different car to the two mark 3 Octavia's that I I've had before, better in some ways and more complicated in other ways:

 

(1) Car styling is overall better.

(2) Heating/ Airconditioning is much more difficult to use than before as there are no physical buttons. It works but even on the low setting (hard to find in itself, the low, medium, high options) the car seems to be pushing a lot of cold air into the cabin, with no way to precisely control the fan speeds, as you could with a real button. It also makes you look more at the screen than the road at times as you try to make sense of what's going on. In my view this is a less user friendly and somewhat more dangerous option than the setup in the mark 3 cars. Bring back the buttons!

(3) Handbrake or lack thereof! That took me a few months to get used to but I'm completely comfortable with it now.

(4) Infotainment system is a bit clunky to use. It managed to turn itself off once when I was trying to store a radio station. However, I didn't know what had happened as I didn't know that there was a physical button to turn it off and on. Phoned up garage and then Skoda direct as all I had were a few screens showing different clocks. No help with that from anyone, garage wanted to book car in with their master technician to sort the problem out but this was going to take weeks. Asked a question here and someone mentioned the on/off switch; problem solved! Mind you, still can't get my phone contacts to work with this system...

(5) Rear parcel shelf, this one was ridiculous! I'd just got the car in January, went to load up a lot of items into the boot but couldn't get the retracting cover to fully retract. One touch and it went half way back and stuck, meaning I couldn't remove it. Previous Octavia Estate cars fully retracted with one touch as did a Mondeo Estate that I owned before. Managed to load the car very awkwardly, with cover stuck like that. Contacted garage and they checked and sent me a video showing the cover being touched twice to make it fully retract. A small change but kind of useful to know that this had been changed, again staff didn't seem to know about this, not an intuitive or obvious change.

(6) I ordered the car with a spare wheel, was recently looking for the usual tyre pump but my car doesn't seem to have one of these. Found an old one of my Dad's and tried to plug it in to check the tyre pressures and found of course that there is no longer a cigarette lighter/ power socket in the front of the Octavia, I mean who could possibly want one in a convenient location, not Skoda obviously! Checked manual, not much help in there. Phoned Henry's in Glasgow, thinking surely someone there would know the answer to this one but sadly not, never received the promised call back. Hopefully someone at Skoda will get in touch with them and tell them where it is! Looked again online and found that there is a hidden power socket in the boot, quite far back on the righthandside, which funnily enough you just won't see unless you press the rear parcel shelf twice to fully retract it. Another small thing that would have been really useful to know when I collected the car!

(7) Gearbox is still a bit stiff with first gear in particular, hopefully that will ease off in time.

(8) Car can be a bit hesitant in lower gears when just pulling away but then so was my last car too, which had the same engine.

(9) Skoda Connect is again a waste of time, didn't bother activating it on last car and have deleted the app as it was stuck on looking for server permanently.

 

These are just niggles that could have been largely avoided with a better handover and an explanation of any major changes from the previous model. In essence the car is good but Skoda has changed a few things that really didn't need changed, just for the sake of being different it would seem.

 

 

 

[SteveTheElder]

17 minutes ago, AllanDJ said:

I received my new Octavia 1.5 SEL Estate in January this year, it looks very smart in Velvet Red and is on the whole pretty easy to drive. Its a very different car to the two mark 3 Octavia's that I I've had before, better in some ways and more complicated in other ways:

 

(1) Car styling is overall better.

(2) Heating/ Airconditioning is much more difficult to use than before as there are no physical buttons. It works but even on the low setting (hard to find in itself, the low, medium, high options) the car seems to be pushing a lot of cold air into the cabin, with no way to precisely control the fan speeds, as you could with a real button. It also makes you look more at the screen than the road at times as you try to make sense of what's going on. In my view this is a less user friendly and somewhat more dangerous option than the setup in the mark 3 cars. Bring back the buttons!

(3) Handbrake or lack thereof! That took me a few months to get used to but I'm completely comfortable with it now.

(4) Infotainment system is a bit clunky to use. It managed to turn itself off once when I was trying to store a radio station. However, I didn't know what had happened as I didn't know that there was a physical button to turn it off and on. Phoned up garage and then Skoda direct as all I had were a few screens showing different clocks. No help with that from anyone, garage wanted to book car in with their master technician to sort the problem out but this was going to take weeks. Asked a question here and someone mentioned the on/off switch; problem solved! Mind you, still can't get my phone contacts to work with this system...

(5) Rear parcel shelf, this one was ridiculous! I'd just got the car in January, went to load up a lot of items into the boot but couldn't get the retracting cover to fully retract. One touch and it went half way back and stuck, meaning I couldn't remove it. Previous Octavia Estate cars fully retracted with one touch as did a Mondeo Estate that I owned before. Managed to load the car very awkwardly, with cover stuck like that. Contacted garage and they checked and sent me a video showing the cover being touched twice to make it fully retract. A small change but kind of useful to know that this had been changed, again staff didn't seem to know about this, not an intuitive or obvious change.

(6) I ordered the car with a spare wheel, was recently looking for the usual tyre pump but my car doesn't seem to have one of these. Found an old one of my Dad's and tried to plug it in to check the tyre pressures and found of course that there is no longer a cigarette lighter/ power socket in the front of the Octavia, I mean who could possibly want one in a convenient location, not Skoda obviously! Checked manual, not much help in there. Phoned Henry's in Glasgow, thinking surely someone there would know the answer to this one but sadly not, never received the promised call back. Hopefully someone at Skoda will get in touch with them and tell them where it is! Looked again online and found that there is a hidden power socket in the boot, quite far back on the righthandside, which funnily enough you just won't see unless you press the rear parcel shelf twice to fully retract it. Another small thing that would have been really useful to know when I collected the car!

(7) Gearbox is still a bit stiff with first gear in particular, hopefully that will ease off in time.

(8) Car can be a bit hesitant in lower gears when just pulling away but then so was my last car too, which had the same engine.

(9) Skoda Connect is again a waste of time, didn't bother activating it on last car and have deleted the app as it was stuck on looking for server permanently.

 

These are just niggles that could have been largely avoided with a better handover and an explanation of any major changes from the previous model. In essence the car is good but Skoda has changed a few things that really didn't need changed, just for the sake of being different it would seem.

 

 

 

[AllanDJ]

55 minutes ago, sneal said:

You shouldn't need to read through hundreds of pages in the manual for such basic things, going by my experience, it doesn't seem as if Skoda dealers actually read the manuals either!

[SteveTheElder]

1 hour ago, AllanDJ said:

You shouldn't need to read through hundreds of pages in the manual for such basic things, going by my experience, it doesn't seem as if Skoda dealers actually read the manuals either!

Agreed, but always worth a skim read of the ‘living space’ (cockpit & luggage compartment) pages though. Then dig into the details of other stuff (e.g. infotainment system) as needed.

 

The brochure also makes reference to USB-C ports in the cockpit and 12v socket in the boot. 
 

[AllanDJ]

2 hours ago, sneal said:

Agreed, but always worth a skim read of the ‘living space’ (cockpit & luggage compartment) pages though. Then dig into the details of other stuff (e.g. infotainment system) as needed.

 

The brochure also makes reference to USB-C ports in the cockpit and 12v socket in the boot. 
 

After having the car about two days trying to put a lot of bulky items in the boot on a cold winters day, the last thing you’d expect is to be unable to remove the luggage cover because someone secretly redesigned it to be two pushes rather than one! I had the manual out too, couldn’t find it in time. As I said not intuitive, if they want to change things like that, the best way is to tell people when they collect their new car. I thought the cover was faulty and didn’t want to break it…

[billblacoe]

just off a week long holiday trip with the mk4 VRS.  Overall ( and lets just accept that the climate controls are rubbish ),  car comfy enough/fast enough  when full of kids and stuff and bikes on top.

 

One issue, which I guess is common to all higher powered front  wheel drive cars, is the torque steer if ever put the foot properly down.  I didn't notice this as much on the Mk 2 or 3 VRS, even though the Mk 4 has the fancy diff.

 

I also seems slower to kick down then either of the previous versions, and less "exciting" when it does...or maybe just because its a bit quieter.

 

I think it does emphasise that on this sort of car, which most of the time will be a family holdall, lower down torque to help efforltess A road wafting is more useful than top end revvy power ( even if the latter would be classed as more "sporting" ) .

 

DPF issues aside, I can't help thinking that the diesel 4x4 VRS would be a lovely thing to drive waft-ely  fastish 

[LSport]

I've had my Octavia VRS Estate IV less than 2 weeks.  Built Dec 2021, showroom managers vehicle for 8,000 miles of it's life before I purchased.  Was the only one I could find with the options I wanted, avoiding the long wait of a factory order.  I have already experienced the SOS popping noise and failure notification on my first outing.  Dealer didn't do the software update, although apparently never experienced this issue before (**cough**, **cough**).  Got it booked in with my local dealer instead for the end of the month who helped change the privacy in the entertainment system to reduce the notification, which has worked.  Car also missing the umbrella which the dealer I purchased from is supposed to be sending me. 

Also experienced starting the car but the entertainment system completely blank screen apart from the climate control buttons appearing at the bottom.  Turned off the car and the entertainment system came on.  It was like it never registered the first push of the start button.

Notifications of 'Exit warning system and rear traffic alerts currently unavailable' and a 'park distance control' error.  Both cleared when next started the vehicle.  I'll be asking the dealer to check them over also.

 

Electric only for the local school runs.  Lasts me 3 days before battery is flat and having to charge.  Found the motor isn't very strong compared to the wife's e-golf.  I appreciate it is a heavy car with an engine, fuel, batteries, etc... which I'm sure is a contribution.  Around town, it's not been a problem.

 

Took it on a 220 mile round trip at the weekend.  Started with a full battery, 130 miles of petrol on the GOM, air con on in normal hybrid mode.  98 miles was on the motorway.  Arrived at our destination (110 miles) with 1 mile of electricity and 90 miles of petrol remaining.  Charged using a 3 pin plug from solar panels was easy.  Around 6 hours I think it took.

On the return, I topped up with fuel partially filling the tank.  Readout was 290 miles of petrol, 37 miles of electricity.  Return route was 60 miles motorway,  30 miles dual carriageways and the rest A roads (110 total).  Again normal hybrid mode, air con was off this time round instead going with an open sunroof.  Returned with 9 miles of electricity remaining and 230 miles of petrol.  Sat nav used on both routes. 

 

Overall (early days), it's fairly comfy.  Had 2 Karoq's before so I am familiar with the seating.  Glitchy entertainment system is frustrating and having the home button on the passengers side is just daft.  Braking is sometimes guess work.  Regenerative works around town but not well on motorways.  When you actually need the brakes, they grab sharply I have found.  I love the looks of the VRS estate (in Black), ride was smooth, cruised perfectly on the motorway, economical and spacious for a family of 4 and a dog.  Boot although smaller than ICE versions, easily takes our 3 large suitcases (two side-by-side and one on top) with room for many more bags and kids stuff.  This is early days but I'm pretty happy so far.  

[SiWaiting]

I'm very pleased with the seats. I've got the ones that can be found as standard in the sportline trim. They are very comfortable. Think they're called "AH". Highly recommended!