VRS 245 not exciting. Keep or change

[stever750]

If it was my money, then a Fiesta ST, if you can't handle the ride, then you're asking the wrong questions maybe, and stick with the Octy. I've had a remapped Leno Cupra 280 previously, stupidly fast, but ultimately boring as way too quick for UK roads, unless overtaking slower traffic is your thing. All VAG chassis the same, safe and predictable, but ultimately anodyne and not very unadjustable. The only way to tell that you're at the limit of grip is the sound of screeching tyres, as the balance and steering won't give you any clues.  FWIW, I've been thinking about remapping my 245, but frankly can't be bothered, the thrill of just acceleration in a straight line soon wears off, and all you are left with is a paranoia of premature engine failure. 

Edited 23 June, 2021 by stever750

[Ecomatt]

2 hours ago, PetrolDave said:

Neighbour over the road has an Abarth 595 - as soon as it starts up in the garage I know about it, the exhaust sounds like a completely empty piece of pipe and nothing like any of the other cars in our road!

On the plus side at least they have an exhaust sound unlike the Octavia sadly. They do sound nice as you can hear the turbo spooling and are great fun to drive.

[ima]

Thanks all. Really helpful food for thought. I had a polo gti 1.8 and loved that and it although not the fastest was more fun than having more straight line power. I used to have a fiesta red edition with only 140hp but it was a joy to throw about. I tried mk7 fiesta ST but it made my kids feel sick as it pogoed down the road. Apparently mk8 more rounded and the noise it makes appeals as does go kart handling. I do so few miles now that a hard ride seems a decent compromise. Mind you my 245 has no DCC and some of the reviews complain its too hard and I think its soft! 

[Col46]

I’ve just sold the fiesta st performance edition (the orange one) which had coilover suspension 

it was a bit more passenger friendly over the standard st

plus you could adjust manually the settings to your personal choice to fine tune 

I found it was a car that made me smile every time I drove it

fast in corners and in a straight line or track day if your that way inclined 

i only sold it because I had an offer I couldn’t refuse from a dealer 

plus I needed something bigger as my circumstances had changed 

good luck with your search

I don’t envy you with all the great cars out there,

 

[Towelie]

I had a fiesta ST mk7 and as mentioned above it always put a smile on my face, bang for buck they’re hard to beat on a good B Road. Only reason I got rid of mine was it was completely out of its depth commuting 80mile a day. They’re not that hard riding though, but that’s all subjective. I’d have one back in a flash if the commute / practicality wasn’t an issue. 

[Gti Jazz Blue]

On 21/06/2021 at 11:44, Gissin said:

might not be everyone's cup of tea, but i had a abarth spider on holiday  it was tremendous fun and sounded great 

 

2018 Black Abarth 124 Spider 1.4 MultiAir Spider Auto 2dr for sale for £19250 in Petworth, West Sussex (autotrader.co.uk)

We bought one last August as a shared 3rd car for fun in the Sun. A bit tight for me in the passenger seat (6'1" tall) but great fun to drive, not too much power 168PS RWD, LSD and a very fruity exhaust note - we love it - on a run it will do 44MPG - much nicer looking than the MX5 it is based on and not too many of them on the road. That is the dealer where ours came from Nick is a good bloke.

[FlyingGecko]

On 21/06/2021 at 16:56, stever750 said:

If it was money, then a Fiesta ST, if you can't handle the ride, then you're asking the wrong questions maybe, and stick with the Octy. I've had a remapped Leno Cupra 280 previously, stupidly fast, but ultimately boring as way too quick for UK roads, unless overtaking slower traffic is your thing. All VAG chassis the same, safe and predictable, but ultimately anodyne and not very unadjustable. The only way to tell that you're at the limit of grip is the sound of screeching tyres, as the balance and steering won't give you any clues.  FWIW, I've been thinking about remapping my 245, but frankly can't be bothered, the thrill of just acceleration in a straight line soon wears off, and all you are left with is a paranoia of premature engine failure. 

 

One hundred percent this. 

[cheezemonkhai]

Not in the same league, but honestly I had far more fun driving an R57 mini one than anything from VAG that I've driven.

Much lower power, but it was basically a go-kart for the road.

 

It was always fun to drive and pretty much as comfortable with only 2 up.

[ChoonDoode]

2 hours ago, cheezemonkhai said:

Much lower power, but it was basically a go-kart for the road.

 

That's how I'd describe their handling. They're a somewhat twitchy car. Some may say precise steering, but I felt it was darty when I was a passenger in a Cooper S.

 

Sounded decent and went well. It's a B road blaster, but not a car I'd wish to be in for a length of time

[cheezemonkhai]

21 minutes ago, tunedude said:

 

That's how I'd describe their handling. They're a somewhat twitchy car. Some may say precise steering, but I felt it was darty when I was a passenger in a Cooper S.

 

Sounded decent and went well. It's a B road blaster, but not a car I'd wish to be in for a length of time

 

Maybe the Cooper-S was more of a handful on the road, but the one was easy to be in and live with and we regularly did hundreds of mile motorway journeys in them without pain/issue.

 

What I took from having driven that car, was that actually the power didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

On a twisty country road you could keep big wagons such as an AMG with oodles of power behind you and even in a lowly diesel you can reach the speed limits far too fast to have any real fun.

 

At the end of the day fun really comes down to what you want from a car, be that super fast straight line, or a go cart.

If the Octy 245 doesn't do it for you, I probably would have a drive of a wide range of cars before looking again at similar cars on the same chassis.

[Redboy]

4 hours ago, cheezemonkhai said:

Not in the same league, but honestly I had far more fun driving an R57 mini one than anything from VAG that I've driven.

Much lower power, but it was basically a go-kart for the road.

 

It was always fun to drive and pretty much as comfortable with only 2 up.

If you can’t fit anything in it you might as well get a 2 stroke go kart and thrash around a track, at least you won’t bump into any speed cameras or tractors. 

[nidza]

The timing can't be worst to replace good and reliable car. The only exception may be if you find something already on stock at the dealers. 

 

Otherwise it's a horror. I hear more and more people whose car instead being delivered ends in the airstrip waiting for some missing semiconductor component. We can assume quite stressful period is coming for manufacturers and customers.

 

My advice, Stage 1 and keep it until 2023.

[VRS_White_Hatch]

Superchips +55 bhp make it a bit more fun, and help the local economy with tyre and petrol spending. 

[Gti Jazz Blue]

7 hours ago, VRS_White_Hatch said:

Superchips +55 bhp make it a bit more fun, and help the local economy with tyre and petrol spending. 

Definitely, which reminds me I need 4 new tyres - mind the OEM set has done 20K now so they have lasted well. Stage 1 would be fun and the 245 has the VAQ Diff as well, which is the only thing that my 230FL could do with. 

[ima]

On 23/06/2021 at 09:42, FlyingGecko said:

 

Yes thanks all i can see a Fiesta ST has over 6 month lead time now. Definitely looks a bad time to buy a new car with the semiconductor crisis. Stage 1 looks like it will bring 300hp upwards which is leon cupra territory before i try non vag cars next year as car will be up on its PCP then.

[FlyingGecko]

You quoted me then didn't? 

 

 I was 100% behind stever750's comment - 

 

"The only way to tell that you're at the limit of grip is the sound of screeching tyres, as the balance and steering won't give you any clues.  FWIW, I've been thinking about remapping my 245, but frankly can't be bothered, the thrill of just acceleration in a straight line soon wears off, and all you are left with is a paranoia of premature engine failure."

 

 

I don't claim to be the most experienced driver on Briskoda but have owned or driven cars with over 400 bhp and many years ago motorbikes that could crack 6 seconds 0-60.  Just because I draw a pension doesn't mean I'm senile.

In a wider context (been there, done that) if the car you have isn't powerful/fast enough then don't waste money on tuning,  just get a different car.  (Or a more powerful model in the same range.)  Fine if all you want to do is see what you can achieve, but in the end unless you're throwing over a ££grand at it then your money's better spent elsewhere.  One learns as one grows older that purely for road use and within legal driving parameters then the set-up by manufacturers will invariably be better than whatever the amateur tuner (that's the end user, not the tuning company) thinks they can achieve.  It's taken me decades to acknowledge that you don't need to have several hundred bhp, or torques, as Clarkson says, to enjoy driving legally fast on public roads.  And here I mean minor A and major B roads not motorways etc. 

 

At one time we had a Citroen AX, 1100cc, 60 bhp, and a Peugeot 1.9 309GTi (widely regarded as the best, if not prettiest, of that generation of fast Peugeots) with more than twice the power at a heady 130 bhp.  There were many times when I preferred the Citroen to the 309.  Both could manage the back roads of north Wales and the likes of the Snake Pass between Glossop and Sheffield at illegal speeds, but when discretion was needed in some of the more challenging stretches then the Citroen was much the better car.  The pleasure and skills needed when driving a car at ten tenths were and are far more rewarding and demanding than driving a car at six or seven tenths along the same road.  And that holds true today, when the 130 bhp of the 309 is regarded as an average output for a family hatchback.  The current comparison still holds true - we have a 75 bhp VW Up, and a 150 BHp Karoq.  The Up is usually far more enjoyable over the same roads, for the same reasons.  And also when compared to my previous Octavia vRS over the same roads.

 

I agree, a surfeit of BHP comes in handy when joining motorways and some idiot thinks 35 mph is the appropriate speed to join traffic travelling at twice that, but generally for the better than average driver (isn't that all of us?) the ability to use what you've got is more important than what you've actually got. 

 

I write as someone who since the millennium had 220 bhp (and more) to use every day but for the past year just 150 bhp, and while it took some months to adjust I really don't feel the need now for the extra power.  My enjoyment is seeing what I can do with what I've got.

 

On a slightly separate note, If someone wants to drive at really high speeds then there are plenty of private racetracks for that, many offering "track days".  Youtube's full of videos of people wrecking their pride and joy at the Nurburgring.  At least there, they're only risking their necks rather than those of innocent road users

 

 

 

[PetrolDave]

11 hours ago, FlyingGecko said:

The pleasure and skills needed when driving a car at ten tenths were and are far more rewarding and demanding than driving a car at six or seven tenths along the same road. 

Second that - which is why even when I had an Audi RS4 I kept my Citroen C1.

 

Totally different driving experiences but just as involving, the C1 got driven at ten tenths whenever possible and always made me smile but the RS4 usually got driven at less than five tenths.

[FlyingGecko]

23 minutes ago, PetrolDave said:

Second that - which is why even when I had an Audi RS4 I kept my Citroen C1.

 

Totally different driving experiences but just as involving, the C1 got driven at ten tenths whenever possible and always made me smile but the RS4 usually got driven at less than five tenths.

 

And you've got some excellent roads in north Devon, around the Barnstaple/Tiverton/Minehead/Combe Martin area to do it.  I had a great weekend there with my old motor club some twenty years back.

[PetrolDave]

45 minutes ago, FlyingGecko said:

 

And you've got some excellent roads in north Devon

... when the grockles don't clog up the roads driving at 40mph

[TheWanderer]

2 hours ago, FlyingGecko said:

 

And you've got some excellent roads in north Devon, around the Barnstaple/Tiverton/Minehead/Combe Martin area to do it.  I had a great weekend there with my old motor club some twenty years back.

 

Yep. But let's not mention them by number or route otherwise it'll get around and plod will be out there with patrols and speed guns galore!

Edited 25 June, 2021 by TheWanderer

[FlyingGecko]

30 minutes ago, TheWanderer said:

 

Yep. But let's not mention them by number or route otherwise it'll get around and plod will be out there with patrols and speed guns galore!

 

Ha,  4th to 6th October. 1991,  another of my motor club weekends.  Guildford, Horsham, Crawley, Leatherhead, and all B roads in between.  Didn't need to exceed the speed limits to frighten myself that Saturday night

2 hours ago, PetrolDave said:

... when the grockles don't clog up the roads driving at 40mph

 Not many around at midnight on a Saturday night...

[ima]

Well dilemma solved. Just put deposit on BMW 128ti. What a car and all the excitement I would ever need and the amazing positive equity in the vRS icing on the cake.

[NZ100]

Took you long enough 🤣😉. 

[FlyingGecko]

Good choice.  Really.

 

You'll just have to learn to travel light, no chance of getting a week's luggage for four in that boot!

[Swirly182]

I'm sure you'll love the new 2L front wheel drive automatic hatchback much more than the old 2L front wheel drive automatic hatchback it replaces. 

 

Sorry couldn't resist.