General Comments:

Excellent car in several aspects.

Exact and smooth gearbox, exact steering, small engine with plenty of torque for city-driving.

Silent, not much "road noise" inside the car.

Beautiful design; looks classic and timeless..

The interior of the car feels a little plastic, but nothing wrong with the quality. Seats are very comfortable.

Cheap to run; sometimes I almost forget about filling up the tank. Service costs are very cheap.

Most bang for the buck in a small car, according to me.

Faults:

Only niggle is an odd jerk at around 2,000 rpm on light throttle on the flat, nothing that can be reproduced by the dealer, but something other vRS owners have found.

General Comments:

I still have an Impreza WRX so wasn't looking for the same performance, I was looking to save money and the vRS has been a great mile muncher that keeps up with traffic well and has bags of go.

In the wet I don't really rate it as driving in to standing water has a strange bow wave thrown up from the wheel arches that obscures forward vision. I have changed tyres to Goodyear Eagle F1 GSD3's and these have substantially increased the traction and wet handling.

The nose is heavy so tends to be a bit more understeery than I am used to, but once used to it isn't that bad. It's not got Impreza handling, but it's not bad.

The light seats don't really keep their looks for long as our kids have rendered them pretty vile looking in no time. If budget wasn't an issue I'd have the leather option.

On balance, this car offers superb performance at a very low price. If only my Impeza had the same low down pull and mid range punch (but the Impreza only performs right when it's not hindered by traffic where the Skoda excels). It's cheap to run, doesn't make me feel like I'm in a poverty spec vehicle and so far, touch wood, has proven to be very reliable.

Faults:

Drop links gone at a 1000 miles. Replaced under warranty.

Revised EGR gasket fitted as the Fabia VRS engine stutters off the production line due to EURO Emissionns 1V resrictions. Better now.

Rattly gearstick. Common fault. Fixed under warranty.

Clonking from front end over rough ground. Test drove 3 VRS and they all did it. Not fixed build or design fault.

Fuel cap, not closing. Common fault. Dealer fixed in 5 minutes.

General Comments:

What should be a great car is now let down by bad assembly or cutbacks in the build materials used. My 053 Fabia was fantastic after 60,000 and 3 years. This 06 build car is a let down and I shall be trying to offload it at the earliest opportunity. Believe anything before 06 is better. Please test drive and if you can live with the faults you will enjoy this car. If like me however you would like a new car to do what it says on the tin, then reconsider before purchase.