Upgrading S/Wheel and Sound?!

[TomRi87]

Hey all! Looks like I'm joining the Octavia Mk3 club!! I've just paid for a 2018 1.5 TSI SE (although haven't seen it yet...) and I'm here to talk about steering wheels and sound systems. 

 

It seemed a good price to me, but when looking at how various websites valued it, it was down compared to other similar Octavias for sale, I can only imagine it' s because of the trim. 

 

I don't mind the SE, because I don't fancy many of the add-ons included in other trim levels, but I do think (from sitting in similar Octavias), that I won't be happy with the steering wheel or sound. 

 

I sat in two Octavias, one a VRS which seemed to have a great sound to me (though apparently not Candon), and a nice wheel. 2nd Octavia seemed to be completely missing midrange sound (almost to a point where it seemed faulty, but I hear its a thing) and had a cheap feeling wheel. So my questions... 

 

Has anyone replaced or stuck a cover on their wheels? You can get genuine leather stitch on covers for like £20, probably beats paying £250 for a second hand VRS wheel. 

 

And the other question is can you get in to modern sound systems?!! Back in the day I would replace the head unit and run amps off RCAs, but I can imagine that's likely the right route these days?! I will do some research, but any help helps massively! 

 

Excited to get the new car, but I think I'll only be truly happy when I've ironed out one or two of its flaws...

 

Cheers all! 

 

[General-Melchett]

Hello Tom and welcome.

 

have you thought about getting the wheel re trimmed?  I had a VW Amarok and got a 2nd hand wheel from eBay, had it recovered  in Alcantara and loved it.

 

I even had the original wheel re trimmed  and sold it on eBay to recover some of the costs.

[TomRi87]

Why had that not occurred to me as a possibility?! Google says there is a very good car retrim place fairly local to me, I will ask for a quote today, hopefully not too scary pricey. 

[TomRi87]

£220 apparently... if it were £150 then I'd probably go for that, but as beautiful as it most likely turn out, that might be a little steep...