Ok, it's been a long time since I updated this topic and this will be a long post so you may want to get yourself a cuppa before we begin!
It's been a bit of a testing journey with the vRS since GTI International, my wallet has taken a little bit of a battering (when doesn't it with cars!) and I've started to question my ownership of the car.
First
problem I had was 2 months ago, the car started to wobble and shake when going over 60 mph. Motorway journeys were getting to the point where I felt like I wasn't in control so I took it to my local tyre place who fitted my springs. I asked them to check the tracking and balancing, they both came back fine, which threw me a little. The fitter started to check the tyres and found the
problem, one of the Vredstein's had warped and had a massive bubble in it. There wasn't a lot of tread left on the front pair (they had covered 10k miles) so I decided to bite the bullet and get 2 new ones fitted. The only tyres in 215-40-17 they had in stock were Eagle F1 GSD3 so I took those.
They seem to have a lot of grip like the Vredstein's but I haven't had chance to test them properly yet.
A week later I had the car booked in with Vindis Skoda in Cambridge to have it's second service done, another cost but it needed to be done. The car has just hit 25k miles so it was needed ASAP. When I took the car into them I asked them to also check the oil usage, the car has used
19 litres of oil since new and of course I was worried.
The service was done at a very good price but they discovered that when I has my car lowered it seems the fitter had caught the CV boot. Instead of telling me about this at the time they just replaced it with a non OEM part, unfortunately it had split again! As it wasn't replaced by an OEM part warranty wouldn't cover the repair so I had to pay out for that to be fixed, to be honest though Vindis did it at a good price.
I took the car back the next week for the repair. While it was having the CV boot replaced it was decided that my car needed to have an oil consumption test carried out on it to test whether it needed to be looked into more. For the next week I drove it normally for 400 miles and took it back the next Saturday.
Third Saturday in a row at the garage, I felt like I should be paying them rent! The car went into the workshop to have the oil drained and weighed, while I went and got a fry up! I got a call to come back in and we discussed what had been found. The oil usage was thought to be excessive but it would be down to Skoda UK to make the call on the next step. The data was sent off to them and the garage would call me when they hear back.
The following Wednesday I got a call, Skoda UK wanted Vindis to check whether I had the new "Oil Breather Pipe Fix" fitted to the engine so I drove back down to the garage on the Saturday. The car was checked and to my surprise it already had the fix on the car. It was then decided that the car would need a new engine @ 26k miles
![Frown :( :(](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
. It was my worst fear come true for the car and I felt really deflated (this was the day after my birthday!). They didn't have any loan cars available that day so we decided that I'd drop it off the following weekend.
Fifth weekend in a row now, surely I deserved my own parking spot! I dropped the Fabia into them and got given an Octavia to get me around for the next week :
Bit of a difference from 200bhp+ I was used to. It was a Greenline 1.6 diesel, it was actually surprising comfy and the MPG was amazing but just lacked any appeal to me.
The Friday after I received a call from Vindis saying they were just finishing with the car but they wanted to keep it for a couple more days to test it. I really missed it at this point but I agreed as I wanted to get the car back running right.
Yesterday was finally the day I was able to pick up the vRS, after all the problems I've had. Getting back in it I felt happy but still unsure what I want to do with it. I really do love this car, it's my favourite out of all I have owned but I really need these problems to stop (I know, you can't predict them but it's only a year and a half old).
Got it washed and took some pictures today to make myself feel better, will see what happens in the future as to what I'll do, keep or sell.
Thanks for reading guys