Skoda Octavia Range Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: Skoda Octavia range
Prices: £12,240-£21,395 – on the road INSURANCE GROUPS: 4-15
Emissions: 114-198g/km
Performance: [2.0 TDI 140] Max Speed 129mph / 0-60mph 9.4s
Fuel Consumption: [2.0 TDI 140] (urban) 40.4mpg / (extra urban) 60.1mpg / (combined) 51.4mpg
Safety: Front and side airbags, ABS, ASR, MBA, MSR.
Dimensions: [hatch] Length/Width/Height, 4572/1769/1462mm

IT AIN’T HALF OCT

Our Rating: 6.7 / 10

Skoda’s latest Octavia attempts to deliver some style to back up its undoubted substance. Jonathan Crouch reports

For something a bit bigger than an ordinary family hatchback that features great build quality at an affordable price, Skoda’s Octavia is hard to beat. Core strengths are polished road manners, generous equipment and surprising amounts of space. Try one and you might decide you don’t need that expensive Mondeo-sized car after all.

A couple of decades ago, few families had Skoda on their shopping lists. This was a value brand but it wasn’t one you’d attach much value to. What changed all of that was this car, the Octavia, launched in 1996 and the model that finally persuaded buyers to take Skoda seriously. It was a conservative, spacious and capable design based on the Volkswagen Golf and over a million were sold before this second generation version arrived in 2004.

This car consolidated its predecessor’s success amongst buyers who rather liked the idea of a five-door hatch or estate car bigger than a Golf but slightly smaller than something Mondeo-sized like a Passat. Once they’d taken delivery, they were rarely disappointed. Even as recently as 2008, the Octavia was winning its class in the JD Power Customer Satisfaction survey. By the end of that year however, sales were starting to dwindle, hence the announcement of the facelifted version we’re looking at here.

When the second generation version of this car was first announced, all the stuff you didn’t see – chassis, engines and so on – was pretty much identical to those parts used in far more expensive VW Group products like the Volkswagen Golf and Audi A3. That’s not quite so true these days: this Skoda is based on the Golf MKV rather than the more refined MKVI. Still, its conservative target market will be less than interested in such engineering niceties.

They’ll probably be quite pleased to hear that though this Octavia may have been revised in a number of key areas, these don’t extend to driving manners that remain assured, comfortable but nothing too sporting. The more performance-orientated vRS models at the top of the range are something of an anomaly in this respect but are all the more welcome for that – well worth a look. So, at the other end of the range, are the 1.2 and 1.4 TSI turbocharged petrol versions which represent a good compromise between petrol power and diesel economy. The 1.8 TSI variant offers a similar approach but this time with 160bhp under your right foot. The 1.6-litre TDI diesel used in the GreenLine model and elsewhere is a strong option with common-rail fuel injection helping it to greater efficiency.

Though hardly for the attention-seeking, the Octavia is a little more extrovert these days thanks to its more imposing grille, topped with a thick band of chrome. Substantial headlamps flank it to form a band across the nose that sits above restyled bumpers. Moving backwards, there are revised side mouldings, while smarter C-shaped light clusters adorn the rear. Overall, this remains a solid-looking, nicely sculpted car with more than a hint of Volvo in its design make-up: perfect then, for that older target market.

The interior revisions have, if anything, an even greater impact. Previous Octavia interiors felt rather self-consciously plain – as if they were trying too hard not to be a Volkswagen Golf. These days, it’s much better. Enhancements to the switchgear, entertainment systems and trim work well. There’s a smarter steering wheel, classier instrument panel graphics and the option of a hi-tech touch-screen sat nav. Overall then, the gap between this and the acclaimed interiors of Volkswagen and Audi products is not a big one.

The Octavia was always renowned for possessing a huge boot, given its family hatchback underpinnings, and so it remains. You get 560 litres with the seats i