[abhinav.s]

Very well penned review!! Was a delight reading the crisp and to the point review! Congrats on making the jump from Aveo/Micra to the mighty vRS. Wishing you many miles on the car. Rated the thread a well deserved 5 stars!

[Hells Bells]

Trip to Pondicherry

I finally got a chance to do a holiday drive to Pondicherry (850 kms for the round trip) in the first week of Jan'18 with my better half and parents. I took the opportunity to validate a few things about the car:

1. The "cruising" feel of the car
2. The rear seat comfort for co-passengers
3. Driver comfort over longer drives with no breaks

I could start off the drive only by 1 PM and after navigating the initial traffic till Attibele toll booth, the roads opened up for the car to settle into a rhythm. The roads all the way till Arcot are great for cruising and as I had experienced in my earlier drive till Ambur, the car settles down really well for a stress free drive. The engine is humming at 1800 RPM for 100 KMPH and at 2200 RPM for 125 KMPH. This makes the drive feel very relaxed as there is oodles of power and torque available at tap for quick bursts of acceleration. Even while driving on 2 lane state highways, my confidence in cruising at high double digits was way higher than my earlier drives.

When I have done similar drives in my Micra, the same stress free feel is available at around 85-90 before I become conscious of any quick steering changes or the need to slow down dramatically for random barriers/intelligent life forms on our roads. In vRS, there is a fair amount of headroom left in terms of cruising feel even at 2200 RPM with steering feeling suitably weighted and brakes providing tons of bite. The lowered ride of vRS does add significantly to planted feel of the car and gives you good confidence at those long highway corners. If anything, I realized that one needs to judge the others at not being same corner carvers. A truck in front of me ended up nudging my lane while taking a fast corner in parallel as it was definitely not cornering on rails, unlike me. A lesson which I have stowed away at the back of my mind.

A special mention of the brakes - I have said so earlier too and I say so again - they have phenomenal bite and add exponentially to one's ability. Having lived through scary moments in Aveo with no ABS, I was able to come down to 40s from 100s in a matter of 2-3s with no drama or stomping on brakes.

I did the drive with a couple of breaks thrown in as I had my parents with me and yet made it in the same time as was shown on GoogleMaps. Later in the evening, I inquired on what they thought of the car suspension without offering a prelim opinion on "sportiness" of the same. To my surprise, they said it felt very comfortable. With no sudden bobbing movements and a planted feel even at corners, apparently the car is actually a good ride for co-passengers. The stiff suspension's characteristic actually has more positives than negatives even beyond the driver. My wife also commented that this particular Pondy drive did not felt tiring. I will probably put it to two factors - ability to reach my destination faster and ability to do that while feeling planted. The seat fabric (alcantara) feels comfortable even if the car is exposed to hot sun and does not polarize people like leather.

As for my own comfort, I think the seats are superb in their bolstering. I do feel that the dead pedal can be a bit more comfortable in their angle but I do not know if it has more to do with my driving position than their ergonomics. There was zero tiredness after a 7 hour drive, albeit with a few breaks, and I am sure I would love the Goa drive I drove the car within Pondy and it was more manageable in the crowded bylanes than how I had thought. I still do not feel comfortable pushing into crowded lanes but push comes to shove, it is maneuverable.

Overall, the car earned full 5 stars during the drive for both driving feel and passenger comfort.

[Santoshbhat]

Originally Posted by Hells Bells

Trip to Pondicherry...

Overall, the car earned full 5 stars during the drive for both driving feel and passenger comfort.

What about sound? Did the drone from the exhaust bother the passengers?

[narayan]

Honest and crisp review.

Good decision sticking to the stock tyres. It makes total sense to get to know the car fully well, its limits, capabilities etc before starting off on the mod journey. And its not as if the stock tyres are all that crappy.

Good pts on the ride quality. Its a subjective term and to a certain extent, you might be liking it because of your immediately previous car. Also if your usage involves mostly usage of front seats, the impact of poor ride may not show up much.

On you Pondy trip, did you manage to drive atleast partly via ECR ? If not, do try to take some detours during the Goa trip to test out the car in the country roads. I recall Google maps showing us some alternate routes when we went from Chennai to Goa ( via Blr ) and we loved some of the smaller winding roads which had a good surface. And this was in a 2.5 tonne Storme. So I'm sure you will have a blast in the Skoda.

[Hells Bells]

Originally Posted by Santoshbhat

What about sound? Did the drone from the exhaust bother the passengers?

Honestly speaking, no. Even I do not find the drone very obtrusive and it could be that I am not yet driving in the RPM zone Driving at 1800-2200 RPM gives me a pretty silent ride and the drone is more audible either when one is accelerating or when at lower RPMs.

Originally Posted by narayan

...
On you Pondy trip, did you manage to drive atleast partly via ECR ? If not, do try to take some detours during the Goa trip to test out the car in the country roads. I recall Google maps showing us some alternate routes when we went from Chennai to Goa ( via Blr ) and we loved some of the smaller winding roads which had a good surface. And this was in a 2.5 tonne Storme. So I'm sure you will have a blast in the Skoda.

Unfortunately, no. My parents are not exactly the driving holiday types so did not have opportunity to venture out at Pondy though would love to do an ECR drive.

My last trip at Goa had me staying at Fort Tiracol way up in North Goa (actually at the tip of GA-MH border). Any trip towards Panjim had me driving on some lovely country roads which we thoroughly enjoyed and I am thinking of vRS being equally awesome on those roads.

One comment as a negative:

The lights are pretty bad for a night drive in this car. While I tend to avoid driving at nights, I ended up driving a wee bit in this Pondy trip and I realized what others have been speaking of for vRS lights. Driving at twilight was particularly tricky as the lights didn't exactly cut through the low light. I am equally skeptical of how would they behave when driving through rains.

Mod Note: Please use the EDIT or MULTI-QUOTE buttons instead of typing one post after another on the SAME THREAD!

To know how to multi-quote, click here.

[itwasntme]

Originally Posted by Hells Bells

One comment as a negative:

The lights are pretty bad for a night drive in this car. While I tend to avoid driving at nights, I ended up driving a wee bit in this Pondy trip and I realized what others have been speaking of for vRS lights. Driving at twilight was particularly tricky as the lights didn't exactly cut through the low light. I am equally skeptical of how would they behave when driving through rains.

Concerned to hear that even the new LEDs are falling short in twilight and in rains. I don't enjoy driving my pre facelift 1.8 during such times. The lights are just not intense enough!

[Hells Bells]

Agree @itwasntme. My Micra's halogens are way better than the LEDs and while I have not experienced a whole lot of night driving on my RS, this particular experience is not confidence inspiring. I believe it is more pertinent for cars such as your 1.8 or this 2.0 as they end up running at higher speeds even when being driven easy which is very dicey for night driving.

[devilwearsprada]

Lovely review but wouldn't recommend filling 91 RON.
The fuel quality in most pumps except COCO is terrible. If you can, get Speed97 or IndianOil 99 Octane.

The tantrums the DSG will throw later will be drastic with regular fuel.

[Hells Bells]

Quick update how the car is running lately -

I got a chance to head out over an extended weekend and picked up Chikamagalur for a weekend of quiet and peace. Started off early on Friday to beat the Bangalore traffic and was greeted with nice open roads once I waded through the Yeshwanthpur traffic. The torque and power on tap is a great boon on our roads for the elementary ability to complete overtaking manoeuvres without taking undue risks.

The biggest change in my itineraries is now my ability to put in a good time on highways without stressing the car. Most of the times, I would barely get to do 90 kms in first 2 hours of my drive which would include getting out of Bangalore even with early starts. This time, I was pleasantly delighted to see I had munched through 140 kms without making an effort to do more in my first 2 hours! What was even more fun was seeing an average of 14.1 for this leg This is the highest I have seen on my car who has had the misfortune to do daily up-downs in Whitefield for most of its life so far. You would be blown by some of the mileage figures the vRS owners are sharing in our WhatsApp group! Read that as "extremely wallet friendly" numbers. Of course, that takes a specific kind of road or drive but it is heartening that this 2.0L turbo engine can stretch that drop of fuel if really needed.

My stop after 2 hours of smooth cruising.



My biggest concern was what if I have to navigate some tricky roads while getting to my coffee plantation end destination. My worst fears came true when I saw the road in the final stretch. The vRS cleared the hurdle of a typical coffee plantation trail road with not even a single under body scrape! Does that mean I would do an "endeavor" with vRS? Nope. I did baby it up the road but was able to drive up the trail (it was a climb) at 11-14 kmph with no stone scraping the underbody.





The overall trip delivered a nice mileage of close to 13 while keeping me thrilled with the torque and power taps on the highway.

Used the sun roof for the first time on highway and while it feels nice, there is a fair bit of wind noise. The downer though is that you do not get long enough stretches to use as you inevitably hit a dirt/smoke zone sooner than later on our highways. However, it surely adds a reasonable amount of cheer to the cockpit.

So far, there are no rattles in the car but I am keeping an keen ear out for the infamous sunroof rattle and have already bought gummi pfledge bottle for the rubber beading squeaks increasingly infamous in the MQB platform.

[Jatin247]

Hello
I have loved Octavia since the day I first saw it and VRS is the car I wish to buy some day. Recently went to Buddh International Circuit and saw a beautiful VRS in nardo grey.
I would really like to know how the VRS is in the long run? Please tell what niggles you faced with car and is it easy to maintain?
Thanks in advance