The Skoda may not be the most exciting car on the fleet, but we’ve had nothing but praise for it since it rolled up evo’s gravel drive. This month, however, some minor niggles have reared their heads.
Passengers in the rear have complained about the surprising level of noise from the tyres and the boomy (standard) exhaust, neither of which I’ve noticed up front.

Kenny P, meanwhile, has moaned about not being able to operate the clutch comfortably, and has wrapped his knee in a bandage for extra sympathy. It’s a problem he has with the driving position in many VAG products – he also refused to drive our R32 until we told him it was a granddad-spec DSG.

Finally, the vRS’s wipers are a bit on the slow side, so I applied a rain repellent to see if that would help. It certainly does, virtually eliminating the need to use the wipers in wet conditions (over 50mph, anyway) and keeping the side windows and lights clean too. It even made me wonder why people were travelling so slowly on the A14 in the pouring rain – until I realised I was travelling quite fast for the conditions thanks to the way the screen becomes clearer the quicker you go! I’m a convert.

Two weeks in, though, and I was admiring my ‘conditioned’ windscreen on the way to work when suddenly there was a bang so loud that I jumped involuntarily and went to shield my eyes. As I opened them again I saw that the mother of all stonechips had rendered my handywork worthless. Does anyone do stone repellent?