New Octavia ....when? How Much?

[GTR27]

The thing is, I don't understand how the Mazda 6 can win, when it costs 10k+ more for the equivalent spec. And it doesn't offer things available on the Octavia (bi xenon's, adaptive cruise) not to mention the 2.5l only matches the 1.4 in outright acceleration, but not rolling acceleration. Let alone the 1.8, or 2l tsi's. You can get a 132 elegance or rs for the base model Mazda 6......

The 6 is a nice car to drive, but it has sacrificed boot and interior room to looking good. Maybe looking good is a highly weighted factor in these awards?

[roshea]

That is funny,
I received a hard copy of the South Australian RAA magazine the other day and they announce the Best Medium Car Under $50K as the MAZDA 6 TOURING SEDAN.
Finalists: Toyota Camry Hybrid, VW Jetta 118tsi.

There are a few other differences as well: best small car under $35k is Hyundai i30 (bahaha) and not the VW Golf 90tsi on the web-site

Mistake or mischief?

The "Australia's Best Cars" site lists the winners from the different state motoring organisations. The list in the post above yours was the RACV winners, but other states must have had different winners (I didn't go through all of them).

[brad]

I take awards like that with a liberal dose of salt. Those journalists don't have to live with their choices for more than a week. They wouldn't have a clue what it costs to run a car or keep it maintained.

[kasi]

That is funny,
I received a hard copy of the South Australian RAA magazine the other day and they announce the Best Medium Car Under $50K as the MAZDA 6 TOURING SEDAN.
Finalists: Toyota Camry Hybrid, VW Jetta 118tsi.

There are a few other differences as well: best small car under $35k is Hyundai i30 (bahaha) and not the VW Golf 90tsi on the web-site

Mistake or mischief?

The results you quoted were for 2013, so current at the time the magazine was printed. The 2014 results were only announced recently (yesterday?).

All going well, I should pick up my Octavia Ambition Plus wagon this afternoon. Haven't bought a new car for 17 years, so looking forward to this.

[Gerrycan]

The results you quoted were for 2013, so current at the time the magazine was printed. The 2014 results were only announced recently (yesterday?).

All going well, I should pick up my Octavia Ambition Plus wagon this afternoon. Haven't bought a new car for 17 years, so looking forward to this.

The 'SA Motor' Autumn 2014 edition announces on the front page "AUSTRALIA'S BEST CARS. And the winners are..." , then has several pages inside listing the various cars and winning attributes, with no mention at all to the year it is relative to.
The RAA webpages list the updated 2014 winners including the Octavia winner (yay)
So I will put it down to just good old fashioned incompetence. Very fashionable and a lot of it about.

Hope all goes well picking up your class winner.

[kasi]

Yes that front page "announcement" was certainly almost a year late. A lot of it about indeed.

Just got home a while ago after picking up my car.

Drives so well, even better than the hatch I test drove, the brakes are still a little touchy but nothing like the demonstrator hatch which almost snapped my neck when I just lightly touched them.

Ride seems a little smoother too but that could be different tyres or tyre pressures. So much room in these Octavia wagons, they have Tardis like sorcery and seem bigger on the inside than they appear on the outside.

I'm going to have to watch it, was barely touching the accelerator and once again well over the limit before I noticed. My old car I could tell the speed from the engine noise but this one is almost silent so will have to get used to it. Hard to believe it's only 1.4 litres, would think it was a much bigger engine the way it responds.

Steering feels good, very light but precise. Haven't played with any of the modes, so can't say if I prefer the sport steering setting yet.

Quite like the Candy White now that I've actually seen it for real not just photos. There's so many features I'm not familiar with yet, I'll have to study the manual. Couldn't get it into my garage for a minute or two because I forgot to put my foot on the brake when starting so it refused to start and instead gave an error message and told me read the manual, haha.

Very pleased with my first little drive, initially this car seems like an absolute corker. As a passenger my brother was impressed at the space and comfortable ride.

Very glad my dealer was able to locate one of these cars for me reasonably quickly.

For those waiting, I hope you have a speedy and trouble free delivery.

[GTR27]

For those waiting, I hope you have a speedy and trouble free delivery.

Sadly, no.

But awesome to hear that you like the car. What did you end up getting? (You don't appear to have it in your signature) Obviously a Candy White Octavia wagon of some description.

[kasi]

Yes I had read of your troubles, after waiting this long it must be very frustrating so close to the expected delivery time. I was impatient waiting only 3 weeks and was concerned my car would be snaffled by another dealer even though I had been told that was impossible.

The 2 week or so time quoted from the ship docking to customer delivery for ordered cars was very fast compared to my car. Build date was 17/07/14 and was transported on the Glorious Leader which docked ("discharged") on 18/09/14 but wasn't "delivered from" until 29/09/14. Compliance date is 01/11/14. So about as long from the ship to me as it took from the factory to Australia.

Put in a signature, just copied your one and changed manual to auto.

[GTR27]

You got a car with the same options as mine? Dealer kept telling me that it was rare to have those options together.... Do you like the pano roof?

[kasi]

No, no, I explained that poorly. I only have the tech pack not any of your other options. I copied your sig, changed manual to auto AND left off those other options.

[GTR27]

Ahh. Makes more sense. Still, tech pack rocks.

[tqld]

That is funny,
I received a hard copy of the South Australian RAA magazine the other day and they announce the Best Medium Car Under $50K as the MAZDA 6 TOURING SEDAN.
Finalists: Toyota Camry Hybrid, VW Jetta 118tsi.

There are a few other differences as well: best small car under $35k is Hyundai i30 (bahaha) and not the VW Golf 90tsi on the web-site

Mistake or mischief?

Hm yeah as others have said, those are the results from 2013, woops! I noticed clicking into the actual results from 2014 re: RS they rated the GTI first place by only a few points, whereas the difference between the RS and the Megane (3rd place) was a lot more. But yeah, I read those with a grain of salt too. I think if they factored in space/practicality there wouldn't be a question that the RS would best the GTI, in either hatch or wagon form.

Just saw this article come up today regarding BB - No Cookies | The Courier-Mail - doesn't sound good

[Gerrycan]

Yes that front page "announcement" was certainly almost a year late. A lot of it about indeed.

Just got home a while ago after picking up my car.

Drives so well, even better than the hatch I test drove, the brakes are still a little touchy but nothing like the demonstrator hatch which almost snapped my neck when I just lightly touched them.

Ride seems a little smoother too but that could be different tyres or tyre pressures. So much room in these Octavia wagons, they have Tardis like sorcery and seem bigger on the inside than they appear on the outside.

I'm going to have to watch it, was barely touching the accelerator and once again well over the limit before I noticed. My old car I could tell the speed from the engine noise but this one is almost silent so will have to get used to it. Hard to believe it's only 1.4 litres, would think it was a much bigger engine the way it responds.

Steering feels good, very light but precise. Haven't played with any of the modes, so can't say if I prefer the sport steering setting yet.

Quite like the Candy White now that I've actually seen it for real not just photos. There's so many features I'm not familiar with yet, I'll have to study the manual. Couldn't get it into my garage for a minute or two because I forgot to put my foot on the brake when starting so it refused to start and instead gave an error message and told me read the manual, haha.

Very pleased with my first little drive, initially this car seems like an absolute corker. As a passenger my brother was impressed at the space and comfortable ride.

Very glad my dealer was able to locate one of these cars for me reasonably quickly.

For those waiting, I hope you have a speedy and trouble free delivery.

I found my manual 1.4tsi steering much too light initially, but it seems less of a problem now.
My tyres were pumped up to 40 psi. I think this is to protect the new tyres during the initial running in (of tyres) phase, some people can get a bit carried away with the performance or catch kerbs as they are not used to the car's dimensions.
Apart from my lowering the pressure by about 4psi, the tyres have now been thoroughly scrubbed in and have more bite on the road. This helps both the steering weight and makes it more positive on and about the straight ahead position.
My car does not have different modes so I only have the one and only steering weight. I did wonder if it could be adjusted with VCDS.
Oh, and I have probably just got used to it as well

[Gerrycan]

Hm yeah as others have said, those are the results from 2013, woops! I noticed clicking into the actual results from 2014 re: RS they rated the GTI first place by only a few points, whereas the difference between the RS and the Megane (3rd place) was a lot more. But yeah, I read those with a grain of salt too. I think if they factored in space/practicality there wouldn't be a question that the RS would best the GTI, in either hatch or wagon form.

Just saw this article come up today regarding BB - No Cookies | The Courier-Mail - doesn't sound good

I read the 2013 results for the justification for the Hyundai i30 win again.
Basically while it did not do anything really well, it did not do anything really badly AND it had a 5 year warranty. Talk about damned with faint praise.

[GTR27]

In sure someone with vcds can tweak the steering as it's electric on the Octavia. I saw a thread on briskoda, and andyvee (vcds guru) said technically you could put rs3 settings on there if you like. Not sure if anyone has touched steering settings yet