Team-BHP - Which Skoda to buy - the Laura or the Octavia Rider ?

What is sold in India as Škoda Laura is a Škoda Octavia that was presented on 2nd March 2004 in the 2004 Geneva International Motor Show.

It has modern technologies such as fuel direct injection for the petrol version, DSG six-speed gearbox (6 forward gears, one reverse gear), and a new multilink rear suspension.

The BorgWarner DualTronic Direct-Shift Gearbox (DSG) uses two clutches to achieve fast shifts. The engine drives two clutch packs simultaneously.
The outer clutch pack drives gears 1, 3, and 5 (and reverse), while the inner clutch pack drives gears 2, 4, and 6. While the car is in gear using one clutch pack, the next upper gear can be pre-selected on the other clutch pack. This lets upshifts occur in an impressive 8 milliseconds as opposed to the normal 1000 milliseconds, typical of ordinary gearboxes.

The Laura also has a rounded more-aerodynamic front end and larger wrap-around tail-lights
http://www.germancarfans.com/news/20...413.022.1L.jpg
http://www.germancarfans.com/photos/...04/1039big.jpg

Why should Škoda India call the new Octavia as Laura
and continue to build and sell the old Octavia as Octavia?
In other words, for how many more years will the older Octavia still be sold in India as a new car?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beemer

normally_crazy - Dost ,I hope you ve seen the car from inside ,if not then plz go and 've a look and i am sure you 'll think twice before signing the cheque ,the interior space is Pathetic(espically the width ,the shoulder room) for a car worth 18 lacs .

beemer dude ,

i never knew u were looking for a double bed with a lounge bar in the car , come on dost , the space is increased in the Laura than the old octy and still you complain ?

If you have so much of reservation about the interior space why even consider the car ?? :confused:

Also people saying that space in the old octy is less but for normal sized INDIAN adults its more than sufficient - i havent come across any sahab being chauffered in the octy complaining of less space at the back ! it wouldnt have sold if that was the case !

just my 2 cents.

If u have problems with the space and all - better go for a used accord and then in 2007 u can get the car u dream ! :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by normally_crazy

i never knew u were looking for a double bed with a lounge bar in the car

Haha thats a nice one .. i wish i could get something like that .;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by normally_crazy

come on dost , the space is increased in the Laura than the old octy and still you complain ?

Buddy , i dont care about the increased rear space (i am always on the drivers seat) but what i did expect from the laura is to give me a better shoulder room in the front when compared to the octy (i dont find any difference in the front) . I read someone in this forum saying 'i would hate a person sitting in the laura and saying "your octavia looks a little different" .
Let me put it in this way ....

Same shoulder room(nearly) , identical looks , smaller when compared to the rivals ,7 lacs expensive than the octy ....

Do you still think its a VFM ?
I agree its top on the safety ,has all the features one could ask , a new revolutionary DSG but i feel, the day the base version arrives ,all this would be a history and none of us would recommend this version(the base version would be 3+ lacs cheaper) ,a nice eg. is the octavia L&K ,now how many of us would go and buy the L&K over the accords ,sonatas ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by normally_crazy

Also people saying that space in the old octy is less but for normal sized INDIAN adults its more than sufficient

I agree ,space wise ,i never had any problems with my octavia but one has to understand that we are paying 18 huge lacs(its not a small money for me) for the laura ,now thats 7 lacs more than the octavia , so whats the fun of shelling out those extra 7 when the car is so similar in most of the fronts . I would love to go for the laura if they bring out the base version in couple of months .. that would make me feel satisfied with my expenditure .

Quote:

Originally Posted by normally_crazy

If u have problems with the space and all - better go for a used accord and then in 2007 u can get the car u dream ! :)

or the other option is to buy the red octavia rider and give it to arush for all the modds ... what say guys ???

Insane devil - i dont wanna go for the octavia L&K because of the only reason .. the resale of the L&K is not as good as the riders .

Quote:

Originally Posted by MotorMom

Please be very careful if you decide on buying the Skoda Laura... They don't have test drives Skoda Lauras and are using vehichles they are selling as Demo Cars. Team-BHPians have discussed this issue ("cars which are being sold to customers being used as demo cars") in another thread on our forum. :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by amit

MotorMom, this practice of not having exclusive test drive cars is done all over the world by all or at least majority of the car makers. Your post makes it sound like it's only done by Skoda which is not true.

amit, I am sure all MotorMom meant was that he doesn't get a car that has been used as a Demo Car and she wasn't even thinking of Skoda or any other car manufacturer as to her we Team-BHPians are what are more important than any Car manufacturer/ dealer. Furthermore, she wouldn't point people reading her post to the thread where this issue has been raised if she had anything against just Skoda doing so and I hope you realise that thread discussed all cars and not just Skoda. Amit, are you trying to say just because a few are using cars to be sold to unsuspecting customers as Demo Cars around the world, the act is legitimate if done here in India and to a fellow Team-BHPian too? If that is so, we should give a red carpet invitation to Osama Bin Laden to attack us just because he attacked America.

While I appreciate the fact that you work for the same group, you should try asking Skoda (and all other who do this) to learn a few ethics from Maruti, India instead of defending Skoda or any other car company doing something wrong. :D

Just went to the showroom to check out the laura once again but i must say i was extremely dissatisfied with the interior space of the car ,as i mentioned earlier ,the width is exactly the same as in the Octavia (i didnt find the difference even an inch) .

Quote:

Originally Posted by Insane Devil

hey all, how far is it true that the first lot of the Skoda LAURA, comes with 8 Airbags and 12 SPeaker Systems, coz of it being CBU's, and after that they will be CKD's.

coz i heard, the one they are going to give is 6 Airbags and 6 Speaker System as a standard fitment.

I confirmed this from the dealer ,the initial stock indeed is having 8 airbags with 12 speakers and the next lot would not be the same .

p.s TBH ,a red octavia rs was standing right next to the Laura and i must say ,the Red octavia Rs looked way better than the silver Laura(it may be due to the silver color which does not look good in the Laura) and even in the bright sunshine its very difficult to identify these two cars atleast from the sides ,its only the front that makes Laura look differnent !

Quote:

Amit, are you trying to say just because a few are using cars to be sold to unsuspecting customers as Demo Cars around the world, the act is legitimate if done here in India and to a fellow Team-BHPian too?

Bombastic, I never claimed that the practice of not having exclusive test drive cars is right or wrong. The point I was making is that the Indian car scene is as mature or as immature as the more supposedly matured car market in western countries. People believe that abroad things are very professional and organised and I was only trying to say that things here are as worse and in the case of domestic car companies much worse then India. The way GM sells pre-owned cars here for example would make us Indians put our companies like TATA, Fiat, MUL on a pedestal. Just like Osama will not get a red carpet treatment , me , you and members here will not get red carpet treatment from car makers just because we are from team-bhp. So there is a very good chance that you may end up with a car used for test drives a couple of times. Again, lets not get into whether it's right or wrong because I believe it is wrong but thats what happens.

Quote:

While I appreciate the fact that you work for the same group, you should try asking Skoda (and all other who do this) to learn a few ethics from Maruti, India instead of defending Skoda or any other car company doing something wrong.

I know Maruti has exclusive test drive cars but not everyone is given a test drive in that "DEMO' car. Few years back, I had gone with a friend to help him decide on a car he wanted. The Maurti dealer in Chembur had a demo Alto Vx which was out on a test drive. I got a drive in a car that was up for sale. IF they were so ethical they could have asked me if I could wait for the car to come back. My friend had to decide between Wagon R and Alto. Oddly the dealer only had a DEMO Alto. When we asked for the Wagon R, a car up for sale was brought out. Shouldn't they have demo cars for all the variants?

Why such a issue happens all over the world? Sometimes you have to put yourself in the other persons shoes to understand his position. For years I was in the buyers shoes. Last few months, I have been in the seller's shoes and I am getting a unique view of the business of car selling. I, still, don't know the dark secrets of the business as it takes time to learn any kind of field but yes, today I have a much more sympathetic attitude towards dealers. Not GM ones though and definately not the service department.

People think they are paying too much to buy a car. Trust me, the real rip off happens in the service. And it's way more a bigger rip off then you can imagine. The service advisor's and engineers are the real wolves not the sales guys. Anyway, this has gone off topic. But I hope you get my point.
Disclaimer: The last paragraph is based on how things work here. I don't know if the service set-up works in the same way in India.

Here is something else for you guys to think about. Even if a dealer has a demo car, what makes you people think that another car in stock was not ripped by the dealership staff on one of their test drives? Yes it happens and it's happened in front my eyes. This generally happens when a new and more powerful variant is launched. You could well end up buying a car with only 20kms on the odo and feel happy that the dealer had a demo car and you didnt get a test drive car. But maybe 10 out of those 20kms, the car was ripped and driven at 140kmph redlining at 5000-5500rpm. Think about it.