Getting fed up looking for a car now, so I’m widening my search and have started looking at 2006 Skoda Octavia VRS’s.
Does anyone have any idea what they’re like, or what other similar options for £4k-£5k are around?
Cheers in advance.

decent motors, go on briskoda to get a lowdown on common faults and things to look for

Great cars, but I would personally avoid any with a DSG gearbox if out of manufacturers warranty.
Drove to Scotland and back in a vRs 170 diesel estate a few years ago. Very comfortable, plenty of space and it handled very well. Just an irritating gearbox (DSG). For some reason it didn’t seem well suited to the car, and I have heard of (expensive) problems with older ‘boxes

Pretty good actually.
I take you are looking at a 170bhp Deisel engined estate?
Not owned one but have done 150,000miles in Pd engined Passats, plus a mate has a Fabia VRS.

Probably one of the best cars on the mpg V smiles chart.

There were some issues with the newer ones , but the 06 – 07 were pretty sorted from the get go.

Can be very easily re-mapped for a few more hp and silly torque figures , and apparently incresed mpg if driven by your mum.

Diesal or petrol?

I have a pd170 vrs estate …. Mines a 56 plate now on 111k.
Great car. Plenty of space. Mine carries 2 labs and a baby all over. Plenty of go and 50mpg.

Beware of the DPF….

The pd engines in these earlier cars are not great with the DPF. The weren’t designed for a DPF – The newer CR engines work much better with them,

They are said to have a 100k lifespan….mine went in December so I had it removed and the car remapped at the same time. The car has never ran better than it does now.

As mentioned, checkout the Briskoda forums .

If you do get a dSG box, make sure the oil has been changed every 40k miles. It’s a £150 job , but prevention is cheaper than cure

Thanks for the briskoda recommendation. Will check it out later. Was actually looking at the 200bhp petrol hatchback because I didn’t realise there was an estate version. At least that gives me another option. Not sure what a dsg gearbox is?

DSG is their twinshaft ‘automatic’ gearbox

It’s a direct shift gearbox , which is simple terms is an automatic with twin clutches that holds the next gear up and down ready for selection. Can change gear quicker than I could . In sport mode in my old boy Octavia 2.0 diesel it was good for beating little boy racers at the lights

I looked at both the mark 1 and 2. In the end I bought a modified mk 1 not by choice mind. It looked bog standard but had a host of stuff done 230 bhp re map etc. Very quick car in a straight line with a poor chassis. I don’t think the mark 2 is much better. Mine was always throwing up engine management light warnings, the mk2 has even more sensors and the dash can look like a Christmas tree. It’s usually nothing nasty but it becomes a bit of a pain. If your handy with a labtop Vagcom diagnostic software is your friend. I think they are chain came engines and can have a few problems like most manufacturers get on the forums and make sure you know what you’re buying. Estates will hold their value better. Performance wise not much comes close for the money and the economy is great for a petrol just buy the best you can based on condition and check the history with skoda if you can. Briskoda is the best resource.

Had 2 petrol including current and 2 diesels. The diesels are pretty economical but dull to drive, petrol is much nicer to drive and feel considerably quicker. All have been flawlessly reliable over the time i have owned them. I prefer the estate as super pratical and the hatch has a really annoying habit of water spilling into the boot when you lift the lid after rain.

I have a mk3 petrol etstate. It’s ace.

We had a couple of 170ps mk2 VRS diesels at work. I always thought that i’d like one as my own car, but after about 50k they all started going sick with porous heads and DSG problems. They got rid of them in the end with about 100k on the clocks, which is nothing considering the old BMW’s we had would stay until 170k

I wasn’t massively keen on the DSG box either, it always seemed like it couldn’t make up it’s mind what gear it wanted to be in.

That all said, i’m still considering putting a deposit down on a new mk3 VRS estate. Petrol and manual though

Me too sc-xc, massive improvement over the mk2 (which is a good car itself).

And yet another petrol Mk3 estate here. Fabby car but beware the official Skoda mpg figures, so far after 8.5k mls I get an average of 32mpg for commute but up to 38mpg on a long m’way run at 70-80mph.

I’ve got a brand new Petrol estate vRS on order right now 😀

Well it took 24 weeks for mine to arrive biglee1, I hope the build times have improved for you. Look forward to it, it’s a real peach.

ta 😀 it`s supposed to be build week 8 which is about now, came down from bw 11 so I’m happy 😀

Another quick question. Is the hatchback relatively easy to get a bike rack on, or does the boot spoiler get in the way?

I had a 2007 vRS Petrol from new until 90k approx. 3 years later.

Didn’t put a foot wrong engine wise and always put a smile on my face.

The handling is good but not Golf Gti good although it is a great car if you enjoy driving.

Economy averaged at around 32mpg and closer to 40 on long motorway trips.

The only issue I had with mine was that it ate rear tyres and feathered the edges. Never got to the bottom of if and Skoda blamed the tyres.

Would have another in a heartbeat.

I had one for nearly 3 years. Good car – ace boot, great engine… Lots of stuff is easily retrofittable so the rubbish standard stereo isn’t much of an issue – £400 for a used Kenwood DNX520 and you’ve got sat nav etc in a factory fit box.

Mine was mildly played with and I’d suggest if you want to turn into more of a drivers car, get the suspension sorted. Standard is crap and wallowy. I fitted AP coilovers to mine and it was absolutely brilliant on A and B road blasts.

I’d get another…

Almost made my mind up to get one now due to lots of good reviews, so thanks for that. Even the wife has relented on her ‘no Skoda’ policy.
Fingers crossed, one will be arriving on my drive in the next couple of weeks.