[gururajrv]

Hi Sivadas - spotted your car last noon just opposite to my office in VTP. Your car was parked near the bakery next to Paradise hotel around 4pm.

I should say RED grabs the attention instantly

[Latheesh]

Spotted again today!

[sivadas]

Originally Posted by Suraj25

I know exactly what you are talking about! My car and many other vRS have this front passenger door issue. Seems like an alignment issue with the door handles. So what you have to do is pull the door handle straight and not at an angle.. if pulled at an angle the handle gets stuck and seems as if the car is locked. Stupid issue to have on a 30 lac car but hopefully it should get better with time. Mine is better now compared to when the car was brand new.

Originally Posted by Nikhilb2008

You dont need to press or touch anything to unlock the car. Just insert your fingers between the body and the handle and it will sense your presence and unlock automatically.

Only to lock it, you need to touch the notch on the door handle.

Absolutely Suraj, what you said is true. I also figured out that only when you pull the handle at perfect 90 degree angle , it works. Else, it has its own mind!!
Nikhil, issue is not about unlocking which works very well. It is to do with actually opening the left front door.

Originally Posted by gururajrv

Hi Sivadas - spotted your car last noon just opposite to my office in VTP. Your car was parked near the bakery next to Paradise hotel around 4pm.

I should say RED grabs the attention instantly

OK!! You will see a Blue vRS (of my colleague) parked at the same spot more often!! We come to a near by restaurant for Tea!

Originally Posted by Latheesh

Spotted again today!

Thanks neighbor!! I am sure, you will agree that our road is not vRS friendly!!

[avira_tk]

Originally Posted by sivadas

Thanks neighbor!! I am sure, you will agree that our road is not vRS friendly!!

I live in the neighbourhood, you're very brave to run an RS on this stretch. The road is suited only for bmtc, construction trucks and tractors, except when elections are around the corner. Too bad that it rained almost immediately after the elections this time.

[venom_op]

Originally Posted by sivadas

Thanks much Gururaj!
I have just done a 9H ceramic coating and hope that helps this cause.
Will do another post on it with details.

Congratulations on the beast! Wish you many miles of joy!

Unfortunately Ceramic coating people are making severely false claims about the protection that ceramic coatings provide.

Ceramic Coatings will only give you High Gloss, Water Repellency and Swirl mark resistance to some extent. No scratch protection.

I would recommend getting the PPF installed despite the coating. Although they will have to remove the coating by buffing to get the PPF to stick to it.

[Ashish0485]

Hi Sivadas, Based on your recommendation am getting ceramic coating for my Octavia vRS done at Esperto. Have given the car today. Will post some pics and my initial impressions once the job is done. Thanks.

[sivadas]

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.

[bharatbits]

Nice review, very well maintained and excellent photos. Is the Octavia TDI available in the same colour?

[sivadas]

Originally Posted by bharatbits

Nice review, very well maintained and excellent photos. Is the Octavia TDI available in the same colour?

Thanks bharatbits!
No, I don't think regular Octavia is available in Red colour.

[itwasntme]

Originally Posted by sivadas

Thanks bharatbits!
No, I don't think regular Octavia is available in Red colour.

Nopes, the vRS is Corrida Red. Previously, the regular Octavia came in a darker Audi red called Rio Red but soon discontinued. The Superb Sportline has been launched in Velvet Red.

All of them are stunners!

[bharatbits]

True that. They are all stunners. Only hope these careless bikers and taxi guys don't touch them often.

[sivadas]

Forgot to mention, I got my best FE so far while "limping" on the space savers from Chennai to Bangalore! It almost touched 16Kmpl, I have a photo taken at 15.8.

[sachin1981]

Originally Posted by sivadas

Did 9H Ceramic coating for my car last week. Since I know Ojus of Esperto Car Care personally, did not think too much. And of course, great work by their team!!
It takes overall a day for them to complete the entire process including the heat treatment. After doing the coating, they advise not to apply water on the car for next 3 days. Now it is quite easy to remove the dust from the car, I am using Jopasu duster which works perfect! Yet to try/experience the hydryphobic features of this coating.
Today took some photos of the car within my apartment complex. Posting few of the decent ones!!

Hi,

Can I know how much did you pay for this coating ? Also, what is your opinion after using it for some time now. Do you think it is worth going for the ceramic coating ?

[sivadas]

Originally Posted by sachin1981

Hi,

Can I know how much did you pay for this coating ? Also, what is your opinion after using it for some time now. Do you think it is worth going for the ceramic coating ?

Did you get the Ceramic coating done? Sorry, I missed this for some time.

[sivadas]

I know it is a long time since I have updated anything here on my car. That is partially to do with the Covid impact and also because of my work related challenges. But lot happened in the last 4-5 years and car has clocked many thousand kilometres, travelling across South India including countless trips to Kerala (native town), many official journeys to Chennai and one memorable drive to Hyderabad also.
Though car has covered almost 70K kilometres, it still looks and feels very new. When I say this, you need to really trust me Though I have owned another beauty from Skoda family earlier (Laura 1.8 TSI), vRS is evidently ageing lot more graciously. In summary, even after 6+ years of (meritorious) service, car feels almost like brand new.
Not sure if I had mentioned this in the earlier threads, I did change the stock tyres to PS4s. Sadly, one of the PS4s had to be changed to JK Levitas as it got bursted (due to mega pothole) on my way to Hampi. May be its time to change/upgrade the wheels and Tyres to 18", need to decide this soon. Engine is in stock condition, which is the plan anyway.
Coming to the exterior, car was treated to Ceramic coating during the first year by Esperto (Esperto Car Care-Ojus Vaishak) which had a major role in the fresh look of the car even after 6 years. Recently, Esperto has redone their ceramic treatment and car looks fabulously fresh and shiny. Thanks much to Esperto team for their attention to detail and outstanding customer service!!

I know if I say "vRS is a thoroughly enjoyable, exhilarating and very practical daily drive car", that becomes too obvious for most of the people here.
For the same reason, it is very difficult to find an apt replacement/upgrade for vRS. So, any meaningful upgrade would result in spending tons of money and still compromise on some of the practicality aspects.

Sharing few recent photos, after the beauty treatment at Esperto!!