Tom_vRS

Had the opportunity to demo one of these yesterday, and thought I'd share my thoughts.

First of all I was kept waiting, as the car had been stood for a few weeks, and despite turning over just fine, it just wouldn't fire. Got it going in the end though with help of a jump start, but didn't inspire condidence.

I love the look of the car, this was a blue estate, the wheels look great, and its really spacious inside. The leather electric seats are the best in the business, and the Sony cd player is sublime. But unfortunately thats where the praise ends.

The interior does feel well screwed together, but the plastics are a bit scratchy, the shiny silver bits too shiny, and the dials a bit "****". The computer is a bit 1980s too.

The engine does make a nice noise, but feels pretty gutless low down the revs (under 4000rpm) compared to the 2.0TFSI in the Octavia. When wound up it does half shift, but you really have to ring its neck - and who drives like that all the time?? Its an involving car to drive hard, but a bit more flexibility in the engine wouldn't go a miss. Also, despite the lovely V6 noise, its not got a particularly sporty exhaust note, but then again neither has the Octy

Now I'll make it clear that I think the car was perhaps a bit of a lemon, but the car pulled to the left, steering felt far too twitchy, and the brakes felt very weak.

I think the straw that broke the camels back was the fact that I averaged 13.3mpg on a pretty relaxed test drive - the exact same drive in the Octy vRS yielded 24mpg.

Ho hum, I really REALLY wanted to like it, but it makes the Octy look positively excellent in every way.

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97/R BMW 328i in Boston Green.