Category: Small Family 
Price Range: £16,966 to £16,966
Volkswagen engineering and quality in a better-value package, ample space with a huge boot, economical and high-tech engines, keen handling and an excellent ride.
Styling is staid to some eyes.
This is effectively a roomier Golf at a lower price. The Octavia is a complete and very capable car, and a very smart buy which should bury any lingering Skoda stigma for good.
There really is no tangible quality difference between this Skoda and its Golf relative. So the Octavia, too, is close to a 'premium' sector car in the fit of its parts, the texture of most of its mouldings and the way components move. The doors, for example, close with a gentle push and a positive 'thunk', while the paintwork inside the boot, under the bonnet and around the edges of those panels' apertures is fully finished and lacquered (unlike in, say, a BMW). There are some hard plastics inside, on the lower surfaces of the doors and dashboard, but no more than in a Golf and they don't look cheap. All that's missing is a damped action for the grab-handles, a minor matter which assumes major importance because it's the only tangible evidence of VW/Skoda status differentiation.
Reliability shouldn't be an issue, as most of the vital components are well-tested in other VW group cars. Skodas have long performed well in quality audit surveys such as JD Power.
Latest Readers' Drives About the Skoda Octavia Estate
wrote on 13 09 2007
wrote on 12 05 2007