Re: Life is too short not to drive a Skoda Octavia vRS! Another vRS story In another couple of months, my vRS will become 1 year old! Can't really believe it!
During last 10 months, it has covered more than 12K Kms which is not very high, but cannot be called low as well . Most of these trips were Bangalore-Chennai-Bangalore ones (for work purpose as some of my project members are in Chennai) and some were weekend trips to near-by places. Let me share few incidents/observations from these trips. An incident!
During a recent trip from Chennai (to Bangalore), I had hardly covered some 70Kms. I couldn't avoid front left tyre hitting a pothole (which was actually a small one created by removal of the top layer of taring), but the resulting sound was unusually loud and I could feel car loosing direction and struggling to move. Though I was deep into triple digit speed zone, could maneuver the vehicle out of the road and park safely. When observed the front left tyre, it was torn badly at one place (close to the alloy). How can such a small pothole tear up the tyre this way? Then I realized that tyre could have been already partially damaged (weakened) by an earlier incident where same tyre hit a much bigger pothole while coming back from Calicut
few weeks back. Suddenly one person approached me offering help. He happened to be a truck drirver and was kind enough to help me with changing the tyre. That made things quite fast and Mr. Haroon Al Rashid (yes, he had Khalipha's name!!) was such a kind person who only wanted to help and did not accept anything from me. Now came the real problem! As you may know, vRS only provides a space saver with size 125/70 R18 which is no wider than a bike tyre and maximum recommended speed is 80 Km/Hr. I have another 200+ Kilometers to negotiate and it is not practical to buy a replacement tyre on the way. Only option I had was to somehow manage with the spare tyre. Had a word with Rahul (of Harmonix) who gave me reassurance and advised to take sufficient breaks in between (break at least after an hour's drive) and maintain some constant speed. It was quite painful to drive slow continuously and let every other car (including Altos, I20s and even Boleros) go past the vRS. I am still running stock tyres (Hankooks) and didn't want to buy a single new tyre (plan is to updgrade to Michelin PS4 eventually). This time, Nikhil (of Madhus who is writing one of the most popular ownership report here in TBHP!) came as a savior as he had few Hankooks which were hardly used, this is from vRS owners who had upgraded to Michelin on day 1 itself. Price offered was reasonable and I was happy to do alignment and balancing at Madhus. When I checked with others in our vRS Whatsapp group, there were few other incidents of Hankooks giving way that too. Surprisingly (not sure about it), people having Michelins (many have done this upgrade) did not face this issue much.
Overall, my feel is that the low profile (225/45/R17) tyres that comes with vRS are definitely vulnerable on our Indian roads. Rattling Issues
This is quite notorious with vRS and even the regular Octavias. I was OK with the occasional clattering sound from sunroof, but now it is more prominent and even some sounds are coming from doors also while driving on bad/hard surfaces. Will have to try GummiPflegeStift at the earliest. Oil change
When the car completed 8000 Kms, I had done a basic service (mainly oil change)at TAFE, experience there was very pleasant, thanks Sanjeev and team.
They also helped me to clear couple of scratches on the body with touch-up. Planning to do the annual service by March next year. Ceramic Coating
Also did the Ceramic coating (follow-up iteration) from Esperto a month back. Trips
As said earlier, I did many trips to Chennai. Once you cross Krishnagiri, you will have the beautiful 3 lane road up to Rannipet. Except for the few small towns in between (where you have to slow down), it is great to drive on this part and there are many restaurants serving really tasty food.
Apart from Chennai, I did go to my native town couple of times which is not so exciting as I have to negotiate the Mysore road! But few other trips to places like Panchapalli, Markonahalli, Anchetty, Denganikottai etc were great!! Especially, Panchapalli can be a great half day picnic target for anyone from Bangalore. Pending actions
Name Place change is long pending, and I will be doing it soon. Also paining (black) the butterfly grill is also pending from quite some time.
Posting few photos from the recent trips. |