1st Year's Ownership Update
It was this time last year when we bought our Graphite Grey Octavia Home. With the first anniversary, I would like to share some of the brief updates and experience with the car.
Tyre Upgrade
Ever since the car was delivered, I had the itch of changing the tyres but it wasn't something very high in my priority list. However, sometimes things don't go as planned and few things are bound to happen. During the 2nd month of ownership at about 1000kms on ODO, we were venturing on a road trip where we stumbled upon a gigantic ditch in middle of a national highway and I lost both left tyres in no time. What followed was a horrendous experience but I end up changing the other 2 tyres as well with all
Michelin's Pilot Sport 4 225/50/R17 tyres. The trip was screwed up but the blessing is the switch to better tyres which increased the car's steering precision and handling by multiple leaps and bounds. The steering started feeling more sharp but there was a significant increase in stiffness in suspension owing to sporty nature of these tyres.
Aesthetically, they fill the wheel arch better and look flush with the body.
I think Michelin's Primacy 4 STs could have been a good consideration too which provides the needed softness but its an individual's choice. Given PS4 low tyre life (I reckon reading 25000-30000kms), I still decided to go with these and I am quite satisfied. wrt fuel efficiency, its needless to say but there has been a drop 1-1.5km/l owing to fatter rubber.
Speed Chime Removal
I dont drive recklessly fast but the acceleration of the Octy is such that you often toggle around the 80km/h mark especially during overtakes on bigger roads and it becomes annoying to hear that chime along with the home minister constantly asking to lower the speed even the roads are clear and the speed limit was obeyed. Decided to get rid of both chimes.
Although its great to enjoy your car building speed without those irritating chimes, but there is a degree of consciousness which is also stolen away and I am not completely happy with that either. For instance I felt chime at 80 a bit intrusive but I would have been happy with a single chime at let's say 120 to be more aware. This wasn't available with coding but I found a hack, you can set a warning for "winter tyres" from the settings menu which will notify you with single chime whenever you cross the set speed. I now use with setting at 120km/h and it was pretty useful on KMP western peripheral expressway during one of my recent trips.
Enabling of dynamic mode and increase in mileage.
Along with speed chime removal, I also got new VRS like tachometer and dynamic mode. There isn't much to talk about VRS layout other than it making the cockpit look more engaging. However the underdog was the dynamic mode. With dynamic mode, one can immediately feel the difference with a slightly better and responsive throttle input. This has translated into slightly less pedal work while still maintaining same acceleration and I am happy to say that the drop in mileage which we saw due to tyre upgrade has now been compensated by this enhancement.
![Smile](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/images/smilies/smile.png)
Earlier where I was averaging 7.5-8.5 in Gurgaon traffic, I am now able to see 9.5-10+ often. During my recent 300km round trip, I was driving between 110 to 130 on the KMP expressway and I was able to get an overall average of 15km/l, I personally find it quite good. I would have easily fetched upto 17 if I would stuck with cruise control at 100km/hr, but its an Octavia you want to stretch its legs from time to time.
Paint Scrape
It is that one sub-section for which I always hoped that I never need to write about but bad things happen and they are inevitable. During the last one year, I had always tried my best to keep my car in best shape for which I often wore a devil's hat which involved not sharing the steering with anyone including the dear wifey. However, I myself did the deed in doing something which we do every time we come back from a drive, i.e. while parking the car at the usual spot in my house. Its a narrow aperture which widens inside but the mind becomes so habituated to those parking sensors and buzzers that you tend to misunderstand when the car is actually making an impact. End result, scraped front bumper from a side.
Is it big enough to claim insurance? HELL NO, but is it an eye-sore, HELL YES. Considering like a self imposed evil eye on the car, I kind of lived with it for a few weeks but eventually decided to get it fixed this week. I went ahead with an FNG who has more experience with repainting/detailing 1Cr+ club cars with more finesse than any of the OEM ASC of Skoda. Hoping to see great results soon.
Annual Service.
Due to an eventful year on the personal front and owing to our WFH routine, we couldn't use our car much and covered ~6000kms. With the completion of the year, the time came for the annual service. Visited Ring Road Skoda's ASC. The business was as usual, only essential stuff added, nothing unusual offered to bloat the invoice and free a labour in first service was applied. I opted for a few add-ons and paid about Rs 8500 for the first service. A few good touches, first, the car was dropped in promised time, although I expected a few followups but they weren't required. One can say that the first service doesn't require a lot of work either. Second, I was having some niggles with UPI payment on my side, they promptly sent a Card machine along with the driver and the overall experience was smooth.
PS: I didn't opt for SMP and since the first year labour costs are NIL, I am not sure how much value SMP would have added over the individual service considering the money getting blocked for 4 years.
I was also thinking around buying the extended warranty but realised that the charges for extended warranty as of today stays the same from 7th month of ownership until 47th month. Didn't see a value of buying it now either given we have a standard warranty for 4 years anyway.
Overall it had been a bitter sweet experience with more sweetness and I am looking forward to clock many more miles on this wonderful car.
![Skoda Octavia 2.0 TSI DSG Review-img_20221216_103852_008.jpg](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/attachments/official-new-car-reviews/2390995d1687054401t-skoda-octavia-2-0-tsi-dsg-review-img_20221216_103852_008.jpg)