so, a little comment or three on the Octavia.
Backstory: I used to rent lots of cars through work. I've driven lots of Octavias (they were a favourite in Sweden), including diesels, petrols, and the old auto. I've driven other DSGs, autos, manuals. My daily is an A2, petrol, manual.
The bad bits first:
It is IMPOSSIBLE to get a clean start from hillhold. The only way I've found, (which defeats the object) is foot on the brake again, handbrake, then release, slip into D and go. HH always lets go with a judder. Bleh.
Why is the getaway so slow? If I drop a cog or three, I expect it to be held: no, the DSG "knows better", sees I've pushed the pedal to the floor and instead of letting the torque take over at 2k rpm @ 60km/h, it drops at least one more cog and lets the revs go to 5.5k. Okay, I pushed the pedal. Still, the thinking took half a second. Excess drama which was not required.
Winter in this would be truly awful. Lots of waiting around for ESP to do its stuff and then no absolute certainty of the gear you're in. Maybe "sport" would sort this, but still, I didn't really get the opportunity to test that. Meh.
I understand the power when it's there, but why does it take so long for the 'box to decide what gear to use and then to release the clutch? Unnecessary delay...
Water also drips into the boot when the door is wet. Why? It slides off the curved sides of the glass. Stupid.
Tacho / cruise: why no 5km/h increments as on a Passat? Why no speed limiter bongs, as on said Passat (and that was three, four years ago)?
Why does the BT Audio reset the volume after *every single track*? this must be among the most annoying things ever.
Nav? OK-ish. GRA still doesn't motor-brake - why not? - and engine braking is very difficult.
The OK bits:
- I quite like KESSY, though tis wierd and I wasn't sure if the car locked itself - and one one occasion, it hadn't. Would need to test some more.
- OK seats, pleasantly quiet, decent engine
- decent sound system, though a sub would be good as there's no sub bass or anything under 70Hz or so.
the good bits:
- wow, what a boot!
- Great space in the back.
- the rear screen in the liftback doesn't need a wiper. Woohoo!
- decent automation of wipers and lights.
Overall? I'd be interested, if the hillhold was deleted, I don't need all that power, and I want a slightly more-solid ride (my A2 rides much better over teh bumpy stuff if it's half-laden, as today).
But my wife disliked it. I couldn't drive it smoothly and she's become very accustomed to that, whether she articulates that or not.
So I think I'll be looking at 1.4 Superb Combis from Germany shortly...
the price of the Octy here - without leather, but with Xenon, Columbus, and in Elegance trim, was €32k. An old one would have been - without the Columbus - around 26, IMO.
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