Agree, not much room there.

23 hours ago, Yogi-Bear said:

 

It has never been standard on the vRS in the UK (at least not on the facelift one, no idea about the pre-facelift diesel variant).

The TDI Diesel had it as standard. Been told that it has been omitted since last year due to semi-conductor shortage. I guess because of this the rear-cross alert is also history. These are essential in such a big car. 

Same for the Canton system, not available.

 

As a plus point(s) - 3 zone climate control, electric passenger seat are standard. But will miss the storage compartment under the passenger seat.

20 hours ago, Yogi-Bear said:

 

The million dollar question.

 

It's not quick. It is let down by a bloody infuriating gearbox - or, to be more precise, the programming/mapping on the gearbox - and a throttle pedal that is as quick to react as a sloth who has OD'd on sleeping pills. It's never in the right gear and it takes too long to change down. Doesn't help that it is a 7-speed box so you invariably need it to change down 2 or 3 gears instead of the 1 or 2 that you would in a 'normal' 6-speed box. Sport mode is pretty much unusable around town unless you like driving round in a low gear and everyone staring at you for the resultant noise (although you can partly solve that by using the 'custom' mode and turning the noise generator off). On the other hand, sport mode is the only one that has an even remotely responsive throttle... it's a shame the 'drive' component of the 'custom' mode controls both the gearbox and throttle response - if you could change them independently then it would be a whole lot better.

 

Having said all of that, learn the gears, hit 'sport' and shove the 'box into semi-auto, then point it at a typical UK B-road... and it can make very rapid progress, and for what it is (a big lump, not a sports car), it's a pretty decent drive and can be good fun. I've no idea what the power curve actually looks like, but keep the needle up above 3k-3.5k revs and it's responsive enough. Overtaking with a full load doesn't require a second thought (don't be stupid though), and if you keep the engine purring at the higher revs, you can end up going faster than you realise pretty darn quickly... but that's the biggest problem that I think most (if not all) large SUVs suffer from, they just don't have that sensation of speed because you're high up off the road.

 

If you need something big enough to fit your family, dog, and enough crap (sorry, luggage) for a couple of weeks in the south of France, and still have a bit of fun now and then, I've yet to see something that offers the same package for less money. I love mine, and don't regret getting it at all. If I end up keeping it past the end of the PCP (I probably won't, just because I like new cars), then I'd look at tuning it (it's the venerable old Golf GTI lump so there are plenty of options) 😎.

 

(Edit: tl;dr - not quick, but fun (and practical) nonetheless).

Here's the difference of the Diesel in my experience although I have not yet test driven the TSI.

 

The TDI will move really fast without you noticing it .  Rarely does it rev beyond 3500 rpm in normal mode, so you dont realise the speed until you look at the speedo.

In sport mode too, the gear box upshifts at 4k , so no sport car feel, but still going fast and you feel cocooned. The sound generator in my opinion feels good too. If you switch it off, the other passengers too do not realise the speeds you are doing. This is a real boon too. SO no calls for going slow  . I do regular trips to the mountains, and after learning the way the car behaves, it is such good fun. Overtaking is what feels so good, as well as others wondering does something so big go like that in the curves. 

 

The gear box is lethargic in normal mode and in the city, if you want to make a quick dash, you wait a sec which feels like eternity after flooring it. When it gets moving it moves. As you said, to get it moving is the hard part. 

In normal, you can put the gearbox is sport by pulling it down, gives quicker downshifts and everything else stays "normal".

 

 

Now look forward to the TSi, and hope it can be as much fun. Not used to revving hard, will have to re-orient my driving style.  

Edited 9 February, 20233 yr by ThreeSixty

On 09/02/2023 at 18:47, linni said:

Only downside is too short first gear.

That’s what I hate about the diesel RS. 0-100 time would be significantly less if you could launch from 2nd gear.

 

On 10/02/2023 at 01:18, Dappernut said:

I note the TSI VRS is fitted with the DQ381 rather than beefier DQ500 gearbox.  DQ381 is lighter but also has a lower spec'd torque limit of 'only' 420NM.  I personally find that uncomfortably close to the 370NM put out by the stock TSI engine to consider much in the way of tuning.  YMMV.

Doing a DSG tune will increase the clamping pressure of the clutch packs - once this is done then the DQ381 will easily handle 500NM+. My old Golf R had the DQ250 with a 400NM torque limit and 470NM was perfectly fine once it was tuned. Not bored of the stock 7.5R power yet so haven’t tuned it yet.

On 08/02/2023 at 20:07, bigmeg said:

So Yogi. How quick is the VRs. On paper seems nippy but heard a few reports saying it’s not that quick. 

Guess you'd have to say it's ok, not a rocket ship - although I've got the 2.0TDI 200 4x4 instead - couldn't quite make the numbers work for the VRS when I ordered my second one.

Video here from CarWow, although I'm fairly sure they didn't realise it's got launch control, which they normally use on these videos. That said, it's a lot heavier and less aerodynamic than the new Octavia VRS next to it, yet still holds its own reasonably.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fyxs2hVUiuw

36 minutes ago, Scratch113 said:

I'm fairly sure they didn't realise it's got launch control, which they normally use on these videos

 

My guess is that they deliberately didn't use it as it would unfairly disadvantage the cars that don't have it. They also don't have 'every Skoda vRS' as the title claims... no idea if they're missing any others, but they don't have the original TDI Kodiaq vRS. Would have been interesting to compare the two against each other.

 

I'm pretty impressed by the Enyaq given how heavy that beast must be (it did well on the brake test too) - but seriously, how much $!?

Petrol RS is about half a second quicker to 100kph with only the driver, but evens out once you have passengers because of the torque deficit. 

On 12/02/2023 at 13:20, ZacDaMan72 said:

Petrol RS is about half a second quicker to 100kph with only the driver, but evens out once you have passengers because of the torque deficit. 

Agree with this.

I have had both versions of the VRS Kodiaq. TSI for a year now after the diesel. I swapped as our government policies on diesel looked to be going pear shaped plus I got sick of the regens and wanted better headlights.

I don't agree with written further above in the gearbox being different apart from that the petrol just revs out further because it can, it is the same gearing otherwise.

The diesel was indeed stronger low down and uses higher gearing when it can vs what the petrol does as the torque made it easier.

The petrol is faster when overtaking as doesn't slow down in acceleration like the diesel does after 150kph.

I had a peddle box on the diesel as the throttle pressure required to do anything was too slow and long. I don't need it on the petrol one, it doesnt have lag and I have set the linear setting on both using OBD11.

Canton is better than previous version, you can still change things using OBD11 too, and the Matrix headlights actually work and are superior in width and height to the previous dual LED set up. 

I'm getting around 8.5l/100kms now after 10,000kms which isn’t far off what the diesel did and with diesel with taxes and petrol being similar priced here I'm not missing the regens.

The steering wheel is superior too in feel and has two ways of engaging adaptive cruise control now too.

Handling is better as the front is lighter so turns in better and DCC feels similar to before in all the different settings. The brakes have better bite too but that may have just been my diesel's brakes weren't quite set the way I like them.

So overall I missed the low down torque initially and had forgotten about revs, but the new one is just as quick, revs out nicely, is quite refined, better specced, and handles better so no looking back now.

Edited 2 March, 20233 yr by snala