[Arjun Reddy]

0-8000 in 45 days must be the fastest Skoda on earth. Who needs 0-100 and 40-100 timings?Enjoy your ride. Hope to catch up soon.

[bb8778]

Hey Nikhilji,

A couple of queries regarding the RS.

1. I got mine with the Skoda Octavia manual and not one specific to the RS. How about you? Is it supposed to be like that or did the dealership mess it up?

2. I did not find parcel shelf or storage compartment under the seats in my RS?

3. Did you get rubber mats for front and back apart from the boot mat along with the essential kit?

My essential kit is as below:
Rubber boot mat.
Two charging cables.
Two RS cushions.
Two mud flaps for front only.

Regards,
BB8778

[Nikhilb2008]

1. Need to re-check but yes, it's a general Octavia manual which is common for all Octavia variants. There is information there about the 1.2 TSI, 1.8 TSI, etc etc etc

2. Rear parcel shelf is the shelf behind the rear seat headrest. and yes, the brochure is wrong about the storage compartment under the seats. Someone should file a class action lawsuit against Skoda India for promising us features but not giving it.

3. No rubber mats. Only the fabric ones. I got 3D Kagu Spider mats or whatever for an extra cost from outside.

Essential kit is whatever you mentioned. Just that. Nothing else.

[lancer_rit]

Originally Posted by Nikhilb2008

2. Rear parcel shelf is the shelf behind the rear seat headrest. and yes, the brochure is wrong about the storage compartment under the seats. Someone should file a class action lawsuit against Skoda India for promising us features but not giving it.

As I posted on the Superb thread, storage compartment under front passenger seat is not possible if passenger seat is electrically powered. It exists in Superb Style (manual front passenger seat) and doesn't in L&K. So, since vRS has powered front passenger seat, its not present.

[shibujp]

Originally Posted by Nikhilb2008

A small video I made documenting the transformation from dirtiest vRS in India to one of the cleanest (at least for a brief period of time before it hit Bangalore roads again)!

The detailing also ensured that a simple wash got rid of all the dirt and made the car look spectacular.

That is some mileage your are putting on the car!! Using the TSI as it should. The way the car cleaned up was amazing and as your rightly pointed out a testament to the detailing job done. I wax my cars by hand using regular wax and they almost never stand up to pressure washing more then a couple of times so much so that I stopped using pressure washes on my cars. But to see the finish still retain much of it's original nature means that the ceramic detailing is doing it's job.

Have been following this thread since inception and looking forward to hearing more great experiences!!

Drive on,
Shibu.

[Nikhilb2008]

Tyre Change:

Let me get it out of the way. I changed the stock Hankooks to MRF's new Perfinza. I stuck to the OE Size, 225/45-17.

The MRF Perfinza is rated 91W. W speed rating = 270 kmph!





Treadwear rating: 360, Traction Rating: A and Temperature Rating: B.




The only thing that worries me is the Temperature rating. What it means is that the performance degrades at higher temperatures. How much? It is very subjective.




The first thing on your mind right now must be something on the lines of... "MRF? why? Have you lost your mind? Spend 31 lakhs and then get MRFs? " And maybe a few more expletives!

You may be one of the many people who had that reaction. Some snippets on whatsapp....









Well, let me be honest and straight.

MRF has a bad rep amongst the enthusiast community. To a large extent, rightfully so. They havent catered to us. They have a stranglehold on the lower end of the market catering to people who dont know or care much about cars and tyres and just want something that can run long and hard without any damage. MRF is the KING in this market. That is undisputed. Look at their marketshare, share price, financials and you know I'm right.

However, after consolidating their market, they decided to take it up a notch with the ZLO and the Z Sport a few years ago.

The ZLO was something I tried after seeing the tyre. It felt soft and nice to touch and I gave it a shot. I was thoroughly impressed with it.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/tyre-a...ml#post2572412

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/tyre-a...ml#post2573320

Anyway, coming back to my vRS....

MRF read my post in the Perfinza thread and offered me a set of tyres free of cost for testing. So, basically, I dont spend any money, but I get to use a set of tyres at someone else's cost, and if I dont like it, I can go back to my Hankooks or any other tyre of my choice!

Apollo too used to be considered meh until a few years ago when they decided to go head to head with the foreign brands with their Acelere and then their Alnac series. Today the Apollos are very well reviewed by enthusiasts as well as they are considered more or less on par with the Michelin/Yokohama/Continental tyres. Subjective differences aside...

So, I decided to give the Perfinza a fair and honest shot. Be rest assured my review wouldnt be biased in any way. There could be subjective differences between opinions though.

The tread pattern itself on the CLX is nothing special. I personally dont find it attractive. It looks chunky and solid.

What feels nice though is the tread rubber. Feels soft and supple. Almost like a Michelin or Continental. You'll also notice that the "bristles" or "hair" found on most MRF tyres are conspicuous by their absence. This hair is a by-product of the manufacturing process. There are vents during the manufacturing to allow air to escape. Some molten rubber also get into these pockets and solidify causing these bristles. Most high end manufacturers like Michelin, Continental take the effort of shaving/cutting them off to give a much cleaner look to the tyre.

Looks like MRF too has gone down that path. It makes the tyre feel very premium and soft.





To review these tyres fairly, I had to be able to compare them to the Hankooks. The tyre pressure is the same, the tyre size is the same, the car is the same, the alloy wheels are the same, the roads I drive on are the same. The only thing different is the tyre itself.

As soon as I installed the tyres (yes, I actually installed them myself!), we road force balanced them. A nice surprise here! The MRF's Road Force Variation readings were lower than I expected. Normally Road Force Variation for a low profile tyre is a bit high. And the MRFs typically have a little more road force variation than some of the expensive stuff... However, in this case, I was happy to see the Road Force variation readings.

As it turns out, 3 of my rims are bent and out of them, one is quite badly bent. Video is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fqV...ature=youtu.be

My first impressions.... coming up...

[Jaggu]

Originally Posted by Nikhilb2008

However, after consolidating their market, they decided to take it up a notch with the ZLO and the Z Sport a few years ago.
====

As it turns out, 3 of my rims are bent and out of them, one is quite badly bent. Video is here:

My first impressions.... coming up...

I remember the Z series I put as last set when I had the swift, they were quiet good for the moderate speeds that I drive in. Best part was they could take quiet a bit of abuse and held well also. Rather cheap at that time.

Jeez can you fix the bends? or is that what the new alloys for? And you said no unwanted spent on this

[Nikhilb2008]

Some more information about the Temperature/Traction/Treadwear Rating....

The temperature rating - an indicator of how well the tyre withstands heat buildup. "A" is the highest rating; "C" is the lowest.

The traction rating - an indicator of how well the tyre is capable of stopping on wet pavement. "AA" is the highest rating; "C" is the lowest.

The tread-wear rating - a comparative rating for the useful life of the tyre's tread. A tyre with a tread-wear rating of 200, for example, could be expected to last twice as long as one with a rating of 100. Tread-wear grades typically range between 60 and 600 in 20-point increments. It is important to consider that this is a relative indicator, and the actual life of a tyre's tread will be affected by quality of road surfaces, type of driving, correct tyre inflation, proper wheel alignment and other variable factors. In other words, don't think that a tread-wear rating of 100 means a 30,000 mile tyre.

Thanks to: http://www.carbibles.com/tyre_bible.html


My first impression of the MRF Perfinza is extremely positive.

The ride comfort has gone up substantially. Keep in mind, the air pressure is the same. There is a certain plushness in the ride that I normally associate with Michelin tyres! Very surprising!

Over broken roads, the car feels a bit more composed and bounces around a bit lesser. On very sharp potholes, speed breakers, the car's stifer suspension still throws the car around a bit but it feels a bit more damped with the MRFs than I experienced with the Hankooks.

On rough roads (you know, the type where the road is broken, but there is no pothole as such, you can still drive at the same speed you were doing earlier, but the tyre noise is much more and you can feel more vibrations), the MRFs are in a different class compared to the Hankooks. The Hankooks transmitted a lot of the harshness into the passenger cabin (both, by sound and feel), but the MRFs do a great job isolating you from the harshness.

Road noise at 120kmph is much lesser on the MRFs. However, there is still a hum or a whoop whoop noise which is audible around 120. It was much louder on the Hankooks.

At other speeds too, the MRFs are a bit more silent and I'm enjoying that for sure.

Performance:



This is the critical one. Unfortunately, I do not have anything concrete to say about this. I havent pushed the car around a bend to really see what these MRFs can do. I did do about 160-180 kmph on a closed road (people familiar with NICE Road-Clover Leaf junction will know this) and the MRFs braked very well. No fuss, no drama, no ABS kicking in. The car just stopped smoothly but quickly.

I've taken a few highway curves around 80-100 kmph and the MRFs didnt break a sweat.

The true test would be when I go on a proper highway drive. Hopefully it will happen in a couple of weeks.

I shall update the thread when that happens.

Important Note:

I removed the suspension blocks in Calicut and once I returned to Bangalore, I could really feel the difference. The roads I drive on in the city are roads I'm very familiar with. I've driven my Civic, my vRS with the suspension blocks and now the vRS without the suspension blocks. The vRS' stock suspension is beautifully designed and works very well. It is a bit stiff and bad roads arent really something I can glide over but they are a thousand times better than earlier.

Even before I changed the Hankooks to MRFs, I really started enjoying the ride of the car and started looking for reasons to drive, even within the city!

So, I did experience the lovely ride of the car with the Hankooks and that is what I am comparing with the Perfinza.

Drawbacks?

Frankly, cant think of anything at the moment. As I mentioned previously, my only concern is how well they hold up under sustained highway high speed cruising. Higher temperatures generally lead to poorer tyre performance and I'm curious to see how the MRFs perform.

My old Hankooks:


It was a shock to see one Hankook tyre(I'm not sure where it was running) having a cut on the beading. It could be due to an impact (given how much I've driven), but it's unlikely. In any case, it's yet another proof of Skoda's poor decision to give these tyres with the car. A clear case of trying to save a few bucks. What really riles me up is the behaviour of Skoda. Each and every media car talks about the Michelin PS4 and how great the tyre is. But all customer cars have been delivered with Hankooks, thus robbing the paying customer of actually getting the best available tyres. And to save what? 20k per car?

I wonder why Autocar or Overdrive or any of these publications even pander to such nonsense? They should jsut mention in their reviews that the test car came with Michelins but customer cars are being delivered with Hankooks and keep silent about it.




Anyway, apart from that, the other tyres are in good shape. It is very evident that the front and rear are worn differently.

The below pics show one front and one rear tyre. You can see the front tyre is worn more. The edges of the grooves are sharper. The rear tyres on the other hand have more rounded edges.

Originally Posted by Jaggu

Jeez can you fix the bends?

Alloy wheel bends cannot be fixed. Period.

The MRFs arent cheap as such. At least not in this size. They are somewhere close to 11k or so. Need to recheck. Michelin PS4 ST in the same size costs 12,210/-. So, the MRFs are about 10% cheaper than the Michelins. They have a big task ahead of them at this price.

Originally Posted by shibujp

Have been following this thread since inception and looking forward to hearing more great experiences!!

Drive on,
Shibu.

Thank you Shibu!

[itwasntme]

Originally Posted by Nikhilb2008

It was a shock to see one Hankook tyre(I'm not sure where it was running) having a cut on the beading. It could be due to an impact (given how much I've driven), but it's unlikely. In any case, it's yet another proof of Skoda's poor decision to give these tyres with the car. A clear case of trying to save a few bucks. What really riles me up is the behaviour of Skoda. Each and every media car talks about the Michelin PS4 and how great the tyre is. But all customer cars have been delivered with Hankooks, thus robbing the paying customer of actually getting the best available tyres. And to save what? 20k per car?

I wonder why Autocar or Overdrive or any of these publications even pander to such nonsense? They should jsut mention in their reviews that the test car came with Michelins but customer cars are being delivered with Hankooks and keep silent about it.

Very right! I had a mini rant on the other thread:
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...ml#post4294065

[ajmat]

Originally Posted by Nikhilb2008

As it turns out, 3 of my rims are bent and out of them, one is quite badly bent. ...

Looks like VAG alloys are pretty fragile. As your team have pointed out, I have bent rims on my Jetta also

[AMG Power]

Originally Posted by AMG Power

30psi would be severely compromising the load curve / safety levels during high speed / long distance driving. Use 34 on long drives and 32 for city at the minimum for 2 people travelling.

My earlier post indicating the risks of your under inflating the tyre to 30psi.

You have used tyre pressures way below the MINIMUM recommended pressure and over long distances, bad roads and high speeds. Those cracks are out of impacts on your going below the minimum recommended tyre pressure. So now to blame the tyre and car manufacturer for defects caused by your usage pattern isn't right.

You have also had problems with 3 alloys in 8000 kms whereas no such problems have been reported by other VRS owners. The alloys have also been damaged because of the under inflated tyres.

You are pretty lucky that you discovered the cracks before they landed you in trouble.

Hankooks are OE even on some Audi R8's so they cannot be too bad as a brand and the same problems would have happened even with Michelin if you were using them below the minimum recommended pressure over long distances, bad roads and high speeds.

[Nikhilb2008]

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

15.4kmpl from Mumbai to Pune, up across the ghat???
I have never managed this in my humble 1.8 TSi...and Mumbai Pune Mumbai is my home ground...

Is 2.0 TSi more efficient than 1.8 TSi at triple digit speeds?

Originally Posted by Santoshbhat

Exactly what I was thinking! I could never manage anything more than 12.00 Kpl over any long journey in my 1.8 TSI over the entire ownership period. Is it the DSG? Or CC? wider torque spread from lower RPMs? Either way those are amazing figures for 230 hp 2.0!! Gotta love these TSIs

Originally Posted by itwasntme

Agree, I have also never managed more than 13 on say a mixed speed drive like BLR Madurai Munnar BLR.

I would have thought the extra gear in the 7 speed / 1.8 combo would equalize the extra HP and torque in the vRS but obviously not.

I've been doing some thinking.

I feel the huge amount of torque available with the 2.0 TSI makes it more efficient when driven gently and calmly.

It doesnt downshift as much as a smaller engine.

In 6th gear, if I slow down to 70kmph and am in no hurry, the car doesnt downshift. The huge amount of torque ensures 6th gear itself is enough.

Something similar in 5th as well. Around 40-50kmph in 5th and it just pulls comfortably. So, there's no need to downshift to 4th or 3rd.

I think this also explains the huge difference between a calm drive and an aggressive drive. If I am hard on the throttle and give aggressive inputs, it obviously shifts down more aggressively and consumes more fuel.

350NM of torque isnt something to be sneezed at!

Also, at high speeds, if I'm cruising at 120-ish, my throttle input is minimal. So, the car is just maintaining a high speed with minimal throttle input. So, I guess that also aids fuel efficiency.

Originally Posted by AMG Power

My earlier post indicating the risks of your under inflating the tyre to 30psi.

You have used tyre pressures way below the MINIMUM recommended pressure and over long distances, bad roads and high speeds. Those cracks are out of impacts on your going below the minimum recommended tyre pressure. So now to blame the tyre and car manufacturer for defects caused by your usage pattern isn't right.

You have also had problems with 3 alloys in 8000 kms whereas no such problems have been reported by other VRS owners. The alloys have also been damaged because of the under inflated tyres.

You are pretty lucky that you discovered the cracks before they landed you in trouble.

Hankooks are OE even on some Audi R8's so they cannot be too bad as a brand and the same problems would have happened even with Michelin if you were using them below the minimum recommended pressure over long distances, bad roads and high speeds.

I've used 34 for the entire trip. 32 in the city.

So, everything you just said doesnt apply to me.

Also, it's not fair to compare an 8.5k km run car with other vRS's most of which havent finished their "running in". That's absurd. Secondly, I know the kind of impacts my car took. Couple of them were so hard that my wiper got switched on as the wiper stalk moved due to the impact. I drove in some very bad rural areas. I am pretty sure any wheel with any pressure would have got bent with the kind of impacts I had.

Pretty wrong of you to sit on a pedestal and judge me without knowing the kinds of roads I've driven on.

Also, where have I blamed the tyre or wheel manufacturer? I know another vRS in Bombay which had a similar cut on the tyre. But at the end of the day, I am not making a fuss.

[AMG Power]

Originally Posted by Nikhilb2008

.. road force balanced all 4 tyres and filled 30 PSI of Nitrogen in each of them.

I found the ride comfort to be far more bearable after this. Bearable isn’t the right word. It felt quite good actually. When I hit the highway after this, I was a happy camper.

Originally Posted by Nikhilb2008

I've used 34 for the entire trip. 32 in the city.

Don't know which of the statements are accurate here.

[Nikhilb2008]

That was more than a month ago

I did change it later. I have tried a lot of pressures. Started with 30, then 32 and then 34 for the highway trip.

[nileshch]

Hey Nikhil, firstly, thanks for a wonderful detailed account of your vRS on this thread! Have been following it very closely from the start.

Originally Posted by Nikhilb2008

I've been doing some thinking.

I feel the huge amount of torque available with the 2.0 TSI makes it more efficient when driven gently and calmly.

It doesnt downshift as much as a smaller engine.

I think I have had the same observation in a different environment. I have a dieseltronic box on my Vento. I tend to get better fuel efficiency in the P1 mode at relaxed speeds that the eco mode. Initially, I was confused by this but then realized that higher torque might be leading to lesser need for shifts which reduce fuel efficiency.