If my math serves me correctly A Sport works out around

Yes! I was looking at buying a car in Portugal last year, as i'm constantly over at my girlfriends place. But i thought, it's not worth it.

21.5 % Tax?

Just ouf of interest bosnjo, Where in Portugal are you?

Like I said, the Portugal 'Sport' sounds like our L&K spec.

So I guess the prices sound about the same if you take the tax difference into account.

Paul, I'd be interested to hear how you think the handling of your Octy Sport compares with the Fabia vRS you used to have.

Yes! I was looking at buying a car in Portugal last year, as i'm constantly over at my girlfriends place. But i thought, it's not worth it.

21.5 % Tax?

Just ouf of interest bosnjo, Where in Portugal are you?

South, Algarve region

Rob,

Handling wise I'm quite impressed - it is relatively firm compared to the normal octy II suspension but you definately feel the difference round the corners. I alway found the fabia fairly wallowy around the corners - the strut brace helped with that but I don't find the Octy any worse - I would say if anything its a little better and feels tighter - though I realise my 3 yr old fabia was probably a little loose anyway after 45k and countless speed bumps etc.

All in all I've not had a great deal of chance to really test it out but I like the combination of firmness and comfort - as I did with the fabia BTW

Sounds good Paul. I've only driven a vRS once and at the request of the owner I didn't exercise it fully. My PD100 on standard suspension is very wallowly, although it was better with 16" alloys and strut brace. It's gonna be agony during the break in period with the Octy...... then I'll christen it on the A54.

That money in Portugal is not spent for all those extras, but for the tax we have to pay. How much is Elegance? So here Sport is

So the sport is only £100 cheaper than the vRS . . and to my knowledge is approximately the same spec, except the vRS has better seats. . . oh, and another 50bhp. :confused:

There's some good deals out on them at the minute - I got over 4k off the list as it was a pre reg 06 with delivery miles - another dealer offered me 3k off a 56 too. Certaintly at full list price it makes more sense to get the diesel vrs (think its only 30bhp up though) but I couldn't afford that unfortunately :( but am well happy with the Sport and who knows maybe I'll look into a remap for this one sometime...

... and I bet you can't wait till december Rob. I reckon you'll be impressed by the smoothness of the PD140 if you haven't already driven one. I'm just waiting for the running in period to finish in mine and some dry weather and open roads to give it a proper test and compare it with the fabia.

Yeah, I took one with 15k miles on it for a test drive - I was indeed impressed! I took it up the lower half of the A54 (no it didn't leave the ground for those who were wondering:D) then across the lanes, down a duel carriageway and back through town. In every situation in peformed very well indeed! I think my only slight criticsm (sp?) is that below 2000rpm it didn't have very much go, whereas my 1.9tdi will pull quite strongly from 1400rpm. Not a requirement as such, but if you have to slow down for something a bit more than anticipated it required a cog swap that I could get away without doing on my current car. Then again my 1.9tdi has little left in it past 4000rpm, whenas like mannyo, I found the one I drove to sail around to 5000rpm quite happily.

I'm planning to drive all over the place when I get it to break the engine in, going to visit Scotland and maybe Wales as well over a weekend.

So the sport is only

I deffinately think the octy is a better handling car than my Fabia Vrs and most certainly than my Golf 1.8T (thats was like a boat)... its not a patch on something like SWMBO's Clio 182 but its comfortable and does everything I need it to, feels really solid on corners where the fabia had a little too much roll for my liking.

But most people who have fabia Vrs's lowered them anyway so I imagine that they don't have the best stock suspension whereas I havent heard much talk of people lowering the octy