Finally done it

Amraam · 19 Jan 2015 at 14:24

Only took me 6 months of looking, and various threads on here and elsewhere, but I've finally done it. Purchased a 2009 Octavia vRS at the weekend. £6900, 60k, private sale. Enjoying it so far

And the obligatory "Look! My toys fit in!". Mind you, that's the smallest of my models at ~1m in length (rotor disc is about 1.2m), so the seats will have to drop for everything else...

Amraam · 19 Jan 2015 at 14:28

acemastr said:
Quite pricey for a 6 year old car, no?

Don't start ha. No, not really. A better price than anywhere else, and market value is actually £7300 according to Parkers for "Private, Good", which it is. And it's only just over 5 years as it was registered 31st October, 2009.

http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/prices/used/skoda/octavia/vrs-2005/42073/?yearplate=91&vrmlookup=true

snips86x said:
That's great news mate! Now get some pics up

Cheers mate, will do when I get a chance. I won't be home until it's dark so I'll do it before work tomorrow morning.

Amraam · 19 Jan 2015 at 14:44

wingman said:
Awesome OP, get some pics up!

What a totally irrelevant point to make.

Well put it this way, if I could get a 6 year old Ferarri for £7k, then I certainly wouldn't have worried about spending too much

Amraam · 19 Jan 2015 at 19:18

Relentless81 said:
Is it a face lift MK2.5?

Yup. Looks much nicer IMO. I'll get some pics up tomorrow hopefully.

Amraam · 19 Jan 2015 at 23:02

Phil W said:
If it's a facelift MK2 that's very good value indeed!

Yup, 100% face-lift.

Amraam · 19 Jan 2015 at 23:55

mrk said:
I find the lack of VRS pics highly disturbing.

As do I, but do you really want to see pics of it in the dark?

Amraam · 19 Jan 2015 at 23:56

acemastr said:
OK, I'll comply to the rest of the site.... lovely car! good price! good job!

Why? I was not offended.

Amraam · 20 Jan 2015 at 10:44

Ok, as promise, I've add the pics to the OP. I'm rubbish with cameras and my note 2 seems to be taking crap images for some reason, but you can at least tell it's a car...

Amraam · 20 Jan 2015 at 10:55

mrk said:
Need bigger pics!

Looks nice though, those seats, are they similar to ST seats? Look similar, they have epic support but I found them a bit too hard at times.

Sorry, my phone's camera at the 8MP setting takes hires shots, but they still look crap. I just used photobucket to resize them to 1024x768. Still look crap, but at least you can see the whole thing without scrolling now

Amraam · 20 Jan 2015 at 11:00

rodenal said:
Looks like a lovely car for that kind of money

Let's just hope I have less problems than I did with the VXR. Currently, the car needs a refurb on all wheels, but that's purely aesthetics. I need to get a Hunter wheel alignment done as their is horrible loud droning noise when 38mph or less. Pretty sure it's not a bearing, especially when these are renowned for sawtoothing issues on the rear tyres. Plus, the Maxxis MAZ1 that came with it are apparently very noisey also.

Amraam · 20 Jan 2015 at 11:13

stoofa said:
As an owner of a facelift Mk2 I have to agree - nice car.
Don't see so many of them around in silver - it's one of only two colours I'd consider seeing black wheels on (the other being white).
I have mine in Anthracite and I've owned it from new (back in 2011) and I've got no intention of getting rid of it any time soon - just enjoy it so much.

Have a good check around the tyres and make sure they are wearing evenly - a whole load of these came out of the factory with incorrect geometry setup's (which is pretty unforgiveable if I'm being honest) but easily sorted.

Enjoy it.

*Edit*
Is this the petrol version?

Yup, petrol TSI. I'm tempted to get them done in shadow chrome - it's even nicer than anthracite IMO

I've had a feel of the wheels and can't feel any noticeable wear. The seller told me about this issue and had it done, but I don't think it was a hunter 4 wheel laser alignment. Trouble is, the nearest one is Edinburgh I believe.

Would you mind posting pictures of yours with the dark wheels, or sending me some via a link in trust?

Amraam · 20 Jan 2015 at 15:52

chanjy said:
Yay Amraam bought a car!

Congrats, looks like you got good value - fingers crossed it stays trouble free

So happy you said it twice

Hehe yeah, it took long enough, but didn't just anything. I'm pleased with this, so it's been worth the weight. 6 months without a car will save you a surprising amount of cash

Amraam · 21 Jan 2015 at 12:01

Kaeo said:
Is it just me, or is the rear numberplate extremely squint?

They both are. The tape needs replacing, but they're securely mounted, so I'll replace when it's warmer

Amraam · 21 Jan 2015 at 14:44

Only thing I really wish the car had was the maxidot display. There are a few things I miss like handsfree bluetooth that I can't retrofit because the car does not have maxidot.

Amraam · 21 Jan 2015 at 15:11

Howard said:
I thought you could retrofit the RNS 510 nav/infotainment unit without the need for Maxidot?

So did I but apparently the maxidot is needed for the paring process. By this however, I'm not sure if they mean pairing the phone to the BT unit, or the BT unit to the car 'system'. As you can tell I'm a bit of a novice to Skoda.

Amraam · 21 Jan 2015 at 18:17

Saint said:
Same, I wish I had it on mine vRS and can't be doing with the £400 columbus head unit

Is your's FL or pre FL? Apparently, pre FL can be done very easily, but I'm not sure about part costs. Eddie-NL over on Briskoda fits them for £60. I'm going to look into it for mine. Could be tempted if it's easy and I can find the correct dash cluster for mine.

Amraam · 21 Jan 2015 at 18:59

Jono8 said:
Shame it does not have the maxidot. I absolutely had to have one with the maxidot when I bought mine as I think the regular trip display is very old fashioned looking. It was harder than you would think finding one with it as well! Such a cheap ass thing of Skoda to do as well, especially on the facelift which came out in 2009.

Yup mine's a 59 plate :/ It's possible to fit, but getting a maxidot dash is not going to be easy. I haven't even had it a week!

Amraam · 21 Jan 2015 at 22:15

Thanks for the comments all. Mine is pretty boring spec, but I didn't want to pay any more than £6k, so even though mine was a good price, it was still over budget really. I'm just waiting for something to go horribly wrong.

Does anyone else make a loud droney sound at ~30mph? It's only really noticeable at that speed and does not get worse the faster you go, so I don't think it's a bearing. I want to get a Hunter wheel alignment done as I'm pretty convinced it's just tyre noise.

Amraam · 22 Jan 2015 at 11:55

Randell Floyd said:
From what I remember (and it's been a while now) I'm sure that sounds like the sawtoothing rumble that's been an issue for some people. Having had 4 wheel hunter alignment as soon as I got the car I've never had an issue.

Yeah that's exactly what I think it is, but it sounds like it's coming from the front, although I can't be sure. The previous owner said it had been resolved locally, but I'mm 90% sure that garage will not have Hunter equipment - I think the nearest one to me that does is Edinburgh!

Amraam · 23 Jan 2015 at 10:34

[TW]Fox;27516583 said:
Absolutely loads of places have Hunter alignment equipment, they are the most common and popular supplier of wheel alignment equipment. It's the Hunter Road Force Balancing machine thats really hard to find.

Great thanks, I've obviously misunderstood.

squerble said:
Nice car, but were they not available with xenon headlights? I can see projectors but no washers leading me to think they're just halogens...

Yeah, I've never owned HIDs as I don't like how dazzling they can be, but I'm considering some low intensity ones, as the halogens on this car are crap. To be fair, they're probably worse by the fact that the vRS does not have traditional side lights. The bulbs are there, but their functionality is replaced by the Day Running Lights which dim on sidelight setting - pointless if you ask me...

zegna said:
6 months? How rare are these cars?

I don't think I would have the patience to spend so much of my life looking for a second hand Skoda

Not exceptionally, but at this price, there aren't loads. It was a 45 min drive from Newcastle to Allendale and that was by far the nearest one available. I wasn't dead set on the Octavia. For a long time I was tied between these, the Mondeo 2.5T Titanium and the Mazda 6 2.5 Sport. In the end I think I've made the right choice. 0-60 in 7s with 30+mpg on average is pretty good in my book

Duke said:
Looks tidy. Don't forget to fit the RNS-510

I have been tempted to upgrade from the Bolero, but I really need to save money for things I need, rather than want. The average ish audio will suffice for driving, and it's got the 6CD changer and SD which keeps me happy enough. Sat Nav is provided by Google on my Note2, for which I have a Brodit ProClip en route in the post