Hello

 

I just became an owner of a spanking new Octavia vRS mk 4.5 and I'd like to share my first impressions but before that a bit of a background story.

 

Last year I was looking for a new car to replace my Ford Mondeo Titanium S from 2009. It served me well but it was time for something newer.
I guess my criteria mostly were that the car had to be practical but also a bit sportier than the previous one.
Initially I was looking at Cupra Leon Sportstourers (also estate) but I was eventually mesmerised by a velvet red Octavia RS mk4 liftback.
I thought I got a pretty nice deal on it as it was just barely used (~3000 km), so no new car tax to pay for me anymore, and it had ton of extra equipment as well. I was super happy with it.
Then in February the facelift was announced and I admit that I didn't think much of the RS facelift at that moment. I was definitely thinking that the front lights were cooler on my current RS, I mean the fog-lights were a separate unit and the front bumper was also much more aggressive and edgier.
Also nothing really bothered me too much about the infotainment system. But....as time passed the design of the facelift had started growing on me and in addition some of the improvements here and there (a bit more power, newer infotainment system).
And by July I managed to convince myself that I want the facelift RS, so I ordered one! It arrived at the end of September. However, by that time I still hadn't found a new owner for my mk4. I had some offers but nothing good enough yet so I asked the dealership to wait a bit and give me more time to sell my mk4.
Then I finally found a buyer and told the dealership as well that I'm now ready to receive the new car. But I guess I jumped the gun there a bit as the deal to sell the old car hasn't been quite finalised yet.
So that means that I'm in a unique position where I currently own a mk4 Octavia vRS and a brand new mk4.5 Octavia vRS and they are both velvet red! But it's a good opportunity to compare them. So finally, here are my thoughts on the differences:

 

The specs
Both of my cars have a ton of extra equipment but there are slight differences (just some quality of life extras really). I really liked the extra features on the old car so I mostly copied them when speccing the new car as well. But most notable ones:

• Both cars are liftbacks
• Both are velvet red
• mk4.5 has 20 extra horse power but cannot test it yet if I can actually feel the difference (still break-in period)
• Both have DCC, Adaptive Lane Assist
• Both have Suedia (leather) seats (as part of Challenge Plus package on the old mk4, separate option on mk4.5)
• Both have 19" wheels (Altair on mk4, Elias on mk4.5)
• Both have a Heads Up display
• Navigation was a separate option on mk4 but I think it's part of the base RS spec now.
• I couldn't spec preheating for mk4.5 in my region (wasn't available in the spec sheet and still isn't in the configurator)
• I added Canton sound system on the mk4.5 (yet to review it properly)

 

Exterior

• The biggest difference between mk4 and mk4.5 is the front part of the car (as you've probably seen from pictures yourself). As I also mentioned above, it took some time for the new design to grow on me but I really like it now.
• The rear lights are also a bit different (the shape/light bar of the turning signal is now horistinal and straight, see picture). Also the stripes/trails within the rear lights seem to be illuminated (more).
• The design of the 19" wheels is different. I don't like the aero cover (or however you call it). I think the Elias wheels look much better without it so I removed the covers. However, beware that if you decide to remove the covers you need to purchase a set of centre caps and lug nut covers. Otherwise it's a bit ugly still.
• the vRS logo is different, I think the new one is better in the sense that you can actually understand that it says vRS (I remember one of my friends asking what VIRS means and the old logo can absolutely be misinterpreted that way)
• Door sill protectors have "Octavia" written on the, not vRS.

 

Interior
Interior design is mostly the same but there are more and less noticeable differences:

• The biggest difference (literally) is the size of the infotainment screen. It's 13" on the new one vs 10" on the old one. However, the larger screen size is in any way disturbing. The upper edge is still below the dashboard and isn't blocking the view in any way. Coupled with the upgraded infotainment system it's a really nice upgrade.
• Some of grey coloured pieces (door handle, the plastic around the gear shifter, rotating knobs on the steering wheel) is dull/matte whereis it was shiny on mk4.
• The design of the wireless charging pad/compartment has changed a bit and it feels like it's holding the phone a bit better in place.
• The icons on the physical buttons have changed a bit.

Infotainment system/Virtual cockpit
That's the big change on the inside and in short, the improvement is huge.

• The infotainment system is very responsive.
• The new style feels a bit more modern
• The digital instrument cluster is a more customisable as well (The right arrow on the steering wheel now switches between different display modes eg map, trip info, gear info (D, S, M), while the left one chooses between display style (with tacho and speedometer or without)
• No custom vRS animation on the instrument cluster when entering the car anymore, it's mostly black with SKODA fading in. 😞
• The gear information (D, S1-S7 etc) can now be displayed with a huge font between the tacho and speedometer (vs being displayed in the bottom left corner on mk4). That's super awesome now. The normal gearbox mode (D) will still display only D and not D1-D7.
• The Adaptive Lane Assist button is now gone from the steering wheel but the option to switch to it from ACC is now hidden in the same menu (left upper button on the right side of the steering wheel). When I first saw that the button is missing I thought that they forgot to install it and actually had to double check that it's there.
• There's now always an indicator bar visible in the speedometer dial that shows how much range you have left to go, so now you can select something else to display in your speedometer dial.
• The physical button for selecting your driving modes now toggles through driving modes, that's nice!
• There's a ton of customisable shortcuts at the top and at the bottom of the screen (eg can set shortcuts for car, assists, lane assist, heated front windshield at the top; media, phone, navigation, android auto/carplay shortcuts at the bottom)
• The widgets on the infotainment screen are slightly less customisable but that doesn't really bother me: there's a couple of templates that you select from when creating pages/screens, previously you had more freedom here.
• I wish the HOME button was slightly bigger though. It was easier to press it on mk4 infotainment screen as it was actually a separate "button" on the left of the screen in mk4. Now it's an icon on the screen.
• The style of the integrated navigation system feels more modern but haven't used it that much as I'm more of an Android Auto user.

 

Audio
As mentioned, my new mk4.5 has Canton sound system. My initial reaction is that's it's not much of an improvement (still), let's see if I can figure out some good settings for it. I did have to check whether the subwoofer (squeezed into the spare wheel compartment) actually worked.
Yeah, you can feel and here the vibration when you open the boot but not that much in the driver's seat. I do hope that the only result of the subwoofer won't be the body panels falling off in the back and that I can at least feel the bass when that's happening.
There is an extra setting to adjust the subwoofer in the Sound menu. So in short, default settings seem a bit lacklustre but I still need to play around with settings before drawing a final conclusion.

 

Some missing features/changes
I've encountered some inconveniences on the new mk4.5 (not a deal breaker though)

• I think the biggest feature that's missing on the mk4.5 and that I found quite useful as well is the lack keyless lock/unlock on the rear doors. In other words, when you previously could unlock the car by just pulling the read door handles and it would unlock (and could also lock it using rear doors) then that's now gone. You have to take an extra step to touch the front door handle.
• Another annoyance that I found is that the speed limit warning is turned on each time you switch on the ignition. Unfortunately that's done so to comply with legislations (manual says so). However, Skoda did add a shortcut to disable it quickly (same button and place where you can disable Lane Assist).

 

However, not all has been perfect!

• When I logged in with my Skoda account into the car and added myself as the main user, it wanted to load some settings which I assume were from the mk4. It did load my seat position but also a lot of icons appeared in the infotainment menu that were just loading (had the loading animation). Perhaps there's a more clever way to solve the issues but I eventually deleted and recreated my Skoda account.
• I took the car for a first proper drive over the weekend and had a yellow/amber "Emission control system fault" icon appear in the instrument cluster. No errors/warnings in the infotainment menu (status is fine there) as well and car drives fine as well. I plugged in my bluetooth OBD scanner to see what it comes up with and it reported fault codes P2080 (P2080 Exhaust Gas Temperature Sensor Circuit Range/Performance Bank 1 Sensor 1) and P2084 (P2080 Exhaust Gas Temperature Sensor Circuit Range/Performance Bank 1 Sensor 2). So now I'm taking it back to the dealership. I hope it's just an improperly installed sensor (as per repair manual it seems that both sensors are wired into the same connector) but let's see.

 

That's it for now. Feel free to ask questions and I'll try to answer them. And some pictures as well:

 

Edited 13 October, 20241 yr by arturp
align pictures properly

The vRS models have yet to appear in New Zealand, but from your images, Skoda have done what the premium carmakers do - make the facelift noticeable but not to sich an extent as to cheese off owners of the original model.

 

Enjoy your new ride!

Edited 14 October, 20241 yr by CKO

Great read and very informative. 

How's the new exhaust sound?

I'm considering MK4.5 or Golf GTi Mk8.5 in 2026..

 

One of my pet peaves with my mk4 VRS is the complete lack of aural excitement from the exhaust system. 

Edited 14 October, 20241 yr by jaspertvrs

4 hours ago, jaspertvrs said:

Great read and very informative. 

How's the new exhaust sound?

I'm considering MK4.5 or Golf GTi Mk8.5 in 2026..

 

One of my pet peaves with my mk4 VRS is the complete lack of aural excitement from the exhaust system. 

 

Thanks!

 

I'll try to record a cold start for both cars at the same mic angle (I did record cold starts for both but I think my microphone was a bit off on one).

But my subjective opinion is that the exhaust does sound better on mk4.5 (more purr or fruitiness to it).

The idle noise measured by the vehicle/transport authorities says that for mk4.5 it is 90 dB(A) at 3750 rpm and 83 dB(A) for mk4, so the new should be louder according to that as well.

However, as it's still the break-in period I'm rather gentle on the throttle.

Edited 14 October, 20241 yr by arturp
wording

Appreciate this post! I think they are both great looking cars however not sure I like the idea of turning off the speed limiter each time but I imagine this is where most cars are going. 

 

10 hours ago, BNB90 said:

Appreciate this post! I think they are both great looking cars however not sure I like the idea of turning off the speed limiter each time but I imagine this is where most cars are going. 

 

Thanks!

Yeah, unfortunately this where most cars are going anyway when it's due to legislation. I guess eventually you develop the muscle memory to turn the traffic sign speed limit warning off. At least it feels like Skoda did understand that it might be super inconvenient for the user to have a blining speed limit sign blinking on the dash (and sound playing) and created this shortcut. I've been in situations where the speed limit that the system detects might is incorrect so it would make sense to have a shortcut to turn it off.

Quote

I took the car for a first proper drive over the weekend and had a yellow/amber "Emission control system fault" icon appear in the instrument cluster. No errors/warnings in the infotainment menu (status is fine there) as well and car drives fine as well. I plugged in my bluetooth OBD scanner to see what it comes up with and it reported fault codes P2080 (P2080 Exhaust Gas Temperature Sensor Circuit Range/Performance Bank 1 Sensor 1) and P2084 (P2080 Exhaust Gas Temperature Sensor Circuit Range/Performance Bank 1 Sensor 2). So now I'm taking it back to the dealership. I hope it's just an improperly installed sensor (as per repair manual it seems that both sensors are wired into the same connector) but let's see.

 

As I mentioned also in my initial post, I had a warning light appear on my instrument cluster. The dealership deleted the error code but the exhaust temperature reported by the sensor was way off so highly likely a faulty sensor. But they're investigating the situation further, meanwhile I can continue driving the new car.

16 hours ago, arturp said:

 

Thanks!

 

I'll try to record a cold start for both cars at the same mic angle (I did record cold starts for both but I think my microphone was a bit off on one).

But my subjective opinion is that the exhaust does sound better on mk4.5 (more purr or fruitiness to it).

The idle noise measured by the vehicle/transport authorities says that for mk4.5 it is 90 dB(A) at 3750 rpm and 83 dB(A) for mk4, so the new should be louder according to that as well.

However, as it's still the break-in period I'm rather gentle on the throttle.

Thanks for your subjective  feedback and attempt at cold start recording. 

7 hours ago, jaspertvrs said:

Thanks for your subjective  feedback and attempt at cold start recording. 

Here's my attempt at doing that:

 

Definitely slightly better but was hoping for a bit more. My wife's 1 litre Nissan Juke sounds considerably better than my mk4 Vrs to be honest!

 

Would you recommend the upgrade to the 4.5 from the 4? I'm toying with keeping mine and paying it off, swapping for a 4.5 or going electric! Can't decide.

The lack of keyless entry on the rear doors would rightly cheese me off. I used it all the time when going up to the car to put the work laptop bag on the back seat or the laptop itself in the rear pocket of the front seat.

 

The sister has an ID4 that doesn't have keyless on the rear doors and she hates it as the kids (being kids) always run up to the car to be first in and then they can't open the door.

12 minutes ago, BNB90 said:

Definitely slightly better but was hoping for a bit more. My wife's 1 litre Nissan Juke sounds considerably better than my mk4 Vrs to be honest!

 

Would you recommend the upgrade to the 4.5 from the 4? I'm toying with keeping mine and paying it off, swapping for a 4.5 or going electric! Can't decide.

Yeah, I can actually say the same. My wife's Hyundai i30 N Line does sound better when idle. However, I feel like it doesn't apply to the whole rpm range fortunately and the Octavia can sound better/pretty good as well.

Edited 15 October, 20241 yr by arturp

19 minutes ago, BNB90 said:

Definitely slightly better but was hoping for a bit more. My wife's 1 litre Nissan Juke sounds considerably better than my mk4 Vrs to be honest!

 

Would you recommend the upgrade to the 4.5 from the 4? I'm toying with keeping mine and paying it off, swapping for a 4.5 or going electric! Can't decide.

Also to answer your question on would I recommend it or not.

I'm happy myself as I dig the facelifted design slightly more, also the improvements to infotainment system and the dashboard UI. From that point of view I would recommend.

Financially of course it didn't make much sense as the mk4 depreciated more than I thought/hoped within the almost one year that I have had it.

But I also plan to enjoy the new car for a long time now.

In short, would it make you happier to upgrade and are you willing to take a financial hit when upgrading and still feel happy about it?

Thanks for the great review. I am impatiently waiting for mine to be delivered - sometime in the next 10 weeks I am told!

 

What is the recommended break-in period?

 

10 minutes ago, curach said:

Thanks for the great review. I am impatiently waiting for mine to be delivered - sometime in the next 10 weeks I am told!

 

What is the recommended break-in period?

 

It's 1500 km (no more than 3/4 of maximum rpm during first 1000 km, then can gradually increase it). The tachometer maxes out at 8000 rpm, not sure what the actual redline is.

i was thinking the same with the wheels they look much better withought the aero covers so I will be removing them

 

 

any links to centre caps and nut overs much appreciated

7 hours ago, arturp said:

It's 1500 km (no more than 3/4 of maximum rpm during first 1000 km, then can gradually increase it). The tachometer maxes out at 8000 rpm, not sure what the actual redline is.

My 18 year old golf gti with mechanical dial has 8000 max on the tacho, but the redline is at 6500. If that was the rough number then you would be talking at no more than about 4500. Is that what you are trying for? So no sport mode for the first while!

21 hours ago, Gingernick70 said:

i was thinking the same with the wheels they look much better withought the aero covers so I will be removing them

 

 

any links to centre caps and nut overs much appreciated

I can't provide any specific links for your location but you can search by product code:

Nut covers: 000071215P UZ7 (Glossy grey)

Centre caps: 5E0601151 FOD

 

Thank you for this detailed post. Just curious, 

what is the engine code? Would like to know which variant of the 888 is used. Also are there ambient light strips for rear doors?

please can you share some images of the instrument cluster? 
many thanks 

Great looking car, love the frontend tweaks and new wheels 😍

20 minutes ago, darkmatterink said:

Thank you for this detailed post. Just curious, 

what is the engine code? Would like to know which variant of the 888 is used. Also are there ambient light strips for rear doors?

please can you share some images of the instrument cluster? 
many thanks 

The engine code is DNPD.

There are no ambient light strips on rear doors. There weren't any on mk4 as well. However, there are some lights under the front seats to illuminate the footwell for rear passengers.

I'll try to find time to take some pictures of the instrument cluster over the weekend.
 

I noticed you get no sill protectors at all now on standard golf GTi, so glad we still get something

On 18/10/2024 at 21:12, darkmatterink said:

Thank you for this detailed post. Just curious, 

what is the engine code? Would like to know which variant of the 888 is used. Also are there ambient light strips for rear doors?

please can you share some images of the instrument cluster? 
many thanks 

Hello. So here's a couple of screenshots of the instrument cluster (there's also a screen for the navigation but didn't want to take pictures of that, but it's mostly the same option of layouts). Bonus picture of the infotainment screen (with some useful shortcuts at top and bottom I've set up for myself) and heads up display (with navigation enabled but stationary at the moment of taking the picture).

 

PS! I'm aware I have the "engine" light on. The dealership is still figuring out what to do but it's related to a faulty sensor for exhaust temperature. It's OK to drive and is not causing a limp mode, fortunately.

Edited 20 October, 20241 yr by arturp
align pictures properly

15 hours ago, arturp said:

Hello. So here's a couple of screenshots of the instrument cluster (there's also a screen for the navigation but didn't want to take pictures of that, but it's mostly the same option of layouts). Bonus picture of the infotainment screen (with some useful shortcuts at top and bottom I've set up for myself) and heads up display (with navigation enabled but stationary at the moment of taking the picture).

 

PS! I'm aware I have the "engine" light on. The dealership is still figuring out what to do but it's related to a faulty sensor for exhaust temperature. It's OK to drive and is not causing a limp mode, fortunately.

Wow! T
hank you so much for taking the effort to post these. I really love the infotainment layout. It is very neat and minimalistic. Even the instrument cluster views are pretty neat. Especially the fonts. Just slightly disappointed with the goodbye screen. the Mk4 has a more detailed car graphics.. 

Hi All,

 

Ordered vRS back in August but still havent heard a thing about a build date? Is it normal to hear nothing for 2 months? The only extra I added was the royal green paint as DCC would have taken us over the 40k tax bracket in the UK and I was not willing to pay that.

Any feedback greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Smoe