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Skoda Octavia vRS 2.0 TDI DSG AUTOMATIC

Old habits die hard, I guess. I was pretty confident that we’d turned a page with Skoda, as all was going to be well after our somewhat problematic Octavia estate that preceded the vRS. After all, and I’ve said it before, the perceived improvement in build quality of our vRS is really noticeable. It’s a sorted car. I’ve had the same, very odd, error messages pop up momentarily, but disappear as quickly as they came, so I had no concerns. That said, during the last month, things have taken a turn for the worst, with the same error messages that both James Fossdyke and I encountered with the estate, and briefly with the vRS, have reappeared and hung around. Parking sensor errors, front assist, SOS emergency call failures and the climate control not working are all annoyances, but not the end of the world. Maybe the car is just getting confused. 

A new error message popped up the other day, while driving up the M1. But this one made me take a closer look, as it said, ‘Oil sensor faulty, please visit workshop’. Urgh. I drove on for a bit, dismissing it as another phantom problem, but curiosity got the best of me, so I pulled into the next services area to check the oil. And it was a good job that I did, as the dipstick wasn’t showing any of the black stuff, which was a little concerning. Time was getting on, so I didn’t have too much time to think about things, and so a trip to the garage shop resulted in me paying an arm and a leg for a litre of oil, oh and a packet of Hula Hoops for me. With that dispensed into the car, I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on that level more closely.

My first encounter of LED Matrix headlights was on an Audi A5 Sportback that the lovely Sue Baker ran a few years ago. They’re a wonderfully cool design idea that really works well. For those that haven’t got a clue what I’m on about, it’s a fancier version of automatic high beam that recognises traffic in front and blocks the high beam from dazzling the individual vehicles, whilst still lighting up the other traffic free areas of the road with the high beam. Individual LEDs make it possible, and I find the technology amazing. Our vRS has these fancy Matrix lights fitted, but they don’t seem to work as well as they should. They’re easily confused, blocking out parts of the road without cars, dazzling other drivers, and almost continually hunting around that makes it seem like you’re attending a Jean-Michel Jarre gig. You can switch them off, of course, and resort to the standard main beam, but it’s got the Matrix headlights, so it would be nice to use them. Definitely a case of first world problems. 

Despite these niggles, life is still good with the Octavia. 99% of the time all is good and well. The 1% doesn’t cause any big problems, but are frustrating. It does maybe make you question how things might be three, five, or ten years down the line, when the technology is getting towards the end of its life. But ultimately, I can’t really moan when my 197bhp sweet handling vRS is averaging nearly 60mpg. That buys it some leniency in my book…

Date arrived 17th June 2021
Mileage 9,104
Economy (WLTP combined) 55.4-56.5mpg
Economy (On test) 58.9mpg

What's Hot

It’s really lovely walking out to this car in the morning. It’s a car to be proud of.

What's Not

Electrical niggles are spoiling the party.

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