13 Nov 09
This year Skoda gave its very successful Octavia saloon a wash and brush-up to keep the likes of the Ford Mondeo and the new Vauxhall Insignia on their toes.
This month we took delivery of our new long-term test car, the Skoda Octavia 1.8 TSI Elegance. It arrived in our north London offices with a certain amount of curiosity. For some it was almost a shock.
Our company, a mish-mash of television producers putting together shows such as Kerry Katona: Crazy in Love and The Singing Estate, employs many people who know nothing about the automotive industry. Some of them still think of Skodas as low-budget vehicles that are put together by poorly maintained factories from the Eastern Bloc, which is why they turned their noses up at the smart addition to the car park.
It was actually quite nice to educate them about the transformation of Skoda the brand. 'Yes, they are part of the same company as Volkswagen,' we explained to a clueless observer. 'And no, we don't expect it to fall to bits.'
We at 4Car are quite surprised that some people still don't know the Skoda story. We're familiar with the results of yearly JD Power customer satisfaction surveys and know that Skoda's reliability record is hugely impressive nowadays. This year Skoda was equal 4th with Toyota, the Octavia topping the small family car category and finishing 13th overall out of a list of 100 cars. Therefore we expect our Octavia to be trouble-free, which should 'convert' the last remaining Skoda sceptics.
