Bhp/tonne is very important however the Top Gear challenge was putting up two cars which cost circa the same price and were both aimed at the warm hatch market.

The mini lost on the straights but gained ground on the corners.

Clearly a Cooper S would have beaten the vRS round the track however it is a lot more £ new and really a totally different car. The vRS is a proper 4 seater and has an ok boot while the Mini is really a 2 seater + midgets in the rear actually go shopping and the rear seats act as your boot.

Out of interest the Top Gear show did show that too much torque forced the traction control & ESP to constantly kick in do any of you who have ESP & remapped cars suffer from this?

I know the O.P. asked for unbiased reports but there does seem to be an awful lot of negatives coming through here !

Not really the guy wants to replace his Ford Puma with something that is much fun to drive. The fabia is good at many things but that is not one of its strenghs.

To be fair for some who does under 10k miles a year the fabia is not the best bet.

Stick to petrol (a real hot hatch) and something that is light and "chuckable". If on the other hand you want to pile on the miles in something that can be fun and cheap to run. Then a Fabia could be what you want.

Anyway Chris loves the fabia he was just telling me the other day that he wanted one again :P

Anyway Chris loves the fabia he was just telling me the other day that he wanted one again :P

He was also telling me he was thinking of buying a whole fleet of fabia...

but then started muttering about sledge hammers and a challenger II tank, or a cheap chieftain from army surplus.

How about buying a nice £5-6k M5 or an N - T Reg M3 Evo 3.2ltr 321bhp very very good VFM, ignore the lower fuel costs as the depreciation of these will be significantly lower than any mainstream car + you will keep it for longer as the performance is very very good + it is a highly desirable car. Therefore you avoid the buying & selling costs of a car so in the long run it will be cheaper for you.

Imagine down the pub what do you drive? M3 Evo with Nappa Leather - derestricted (which will mean the std Evo will do nearly 180mph).

That's a very interesting comment Welshy as I've been looking at M3 Evo's of that age! My only concern is the high price to pay if something goes wrong!

And Mike and Mark :orb_toung

Chris

Well the timing CHAIN on the M3 Evo (post E30 model) only needs changing at 160/200k appart from that its normal servicing. Avoid main dealers and use specialists or service it yourself.

Clearly you can change the oil, oil filter, air filter, fuel filter. spark plugs, tyres (costco etc), brake pads & a new exhaust is easy & cheap to do down kwik fit.

Air con regas can be done anywhere and anything else which goes wrong well it could happen to any car of that age + milage.

I'd suspect in general these cars would have been serviced more frequently & generally looked after than run of the mill cars & also driven pretty hard (else why buy one).

Anti Villa i see, me to.

"Who Are We Blue Army"

Welcome to Briskoda. I do under 10,000 a year and im currently running a 2004 vRS octavia, lovely car.

Its best to weigh up the pro's and con's for each car, test drive few and weigh way up the pro's and con's again. Thats how i do it.

Yeah , blue army that went awol against stoke .

Theres only one blue army and it aint you bin dippers !