No, your eyes don’t deceive you. No,we haven’t gone back in time. We’ve got ourselves a new Skoda Octavia estate in Race Blue, with a diesel engine in SE L guise. That’s exactly the same as the one both myself and James Fossdyke ran back in late 2020, except for a few differences. This new one is automatic, which means a bit more power over the manual – 148 versus 114bhp – and there’s a few more goodies with the optional panoramic sunroof and upgraded sound system. It’s almost like our editor knows me!
The key takeaway here is that this is the latest edition of the Octavia, having had its first refresh or update since the fourth generation model launched back in 2020. I think the word update is more appropriate, as visually, it is quite similar to before, unless you know your Octavia onions.And it’s the same for the inside really, with tweaks here and there.There’s lovely ambient lighting with a load of colours to choose from, and that’s another way to my heart. It’s set to Cadbury’s purple in case you wondered.
There’s new ‘brand’ lettering on the boot of the car and on the steering wheel (I’m not sold on the latter), tweaked headlights that now go into the grille with the running lights, a new taillight cluster design that will do a little switch on and off dance, and some new interior material designs. Like I say, not a whole lot to instantly pick out or notice, but changes all the same that go a surprising way to enhance the car.Yes, I’m still talking about the ambient lighting.
We didn’t have the best luck with the first Race blue Octavia five years ago, as it was very buggy with stubborn electrics, but it was an early build car, as was the vRS diesel hatch which followed. That was better, but far from perfect. So here’s another crack at it, to see how this one behaves and hopefully experience the Octavia as intended. Third time lucky eh.
I’m somewhat envious I missed out on the Superb the Octavia replaced, both from a selfish point that I simply love diesels and estates (the last word in cool) so will happily monopolise any interaction, but also curious to see how the two compared in day to day shenanigans, especially as both cars
are the same specification and roughly the same price thanks to the options on our Octavia. Maybe I’ll loiter around the local Skoda retailer and bag a test drive. A bigger estate or an estate with more kit, for similar money…
Talking of kit, let’s bring it back to the Octavia, or our Octavia specifically.As I said, we’ve got an SE L version, which sits in the middle of the diesel Octavia range between entry level SE Technology and SportLine. Yes, the vRS is still around, but no longer with a diesel option. vRS who? There’s a nice bit of kit as standard on the SE L, including ambient lighting, a big 13-inch touchscreen, a heated steering wheel and front seats, plus an electrically operated boot. Throw in the options we’ve added; a panoramic sunroof that opens, a Canton sound system, the light and view package (reversing camera), a space saver spare wheel, and metallic paint and I feel like we’ve got a pretty well rounded car.
A highlight for me is the sensibly sized 17-inch alloy wheels.They may not be much to look at, but it makes for a nice ride – perfect for making my day job as photographer that little bit easier.
And that is what I’m finding with the Octavia thus far, it’s making everything easier for me. From the moment I picked it up, it was straight into ‘workhorse’ mode heading over to North Wales, then South Wales – three times. It eats the miles up with a pleasant ambience thanks to the lounge design of the interior, with purple lighting, Canton sound system and tank to tank fill ups that have consistently been in the 60s. So far the only negatives are a cabin that gets a little noisier than it maybe should do on a few road surfaces, and Christmas shopping at the Bullring in Birmingham. It’s going to be a pain trying to find a parking space, as a large portion of them are now EV charging spaces and the Octavia has no electric charging. Maybe I’ll get the bus…
SIMON THOMPSON
WHAT’S HOT: The adjustable boot floor. It’s really handy for storing bits and pieces when I need a clean boot for either me or the dog.
WHAT’S NOT: The steering wheel is massive. It feels way too big.
STANDARD EQUIPMENT: 10.25-inch digital instruments, 17-inch alloy wheels with Continental EcoContact6 205/55 R17 tyres and tyre repair kit, 60/40 split/fold rear seats, Adaptive cruise control with traffic jam assist, Alarm system, Ambient lighting, Anti-lock brakes with electronic brake force distribution and brake assist, Auto-dimming rear-view mirror, Automatic headlights, Autonomous emergency braking, DAB radio with 13-inch touchscreen, navigation, 8-speakers, USB-C sockets, voice control and steering wheel controls, Drive mode selector, Driver drowsiness detection Driver, passenger, centre, side, head and driver’s knee airbags with passenger side de-activation, Dual-zone climate control, Electric and heated mirrors with power folding, Electric park brake, Electric rear parcel shelf, Electric windows front and rear, Electronic stability programme with traction control, Emergency e-call system, Hands-free electric tailgate, Heated front seats, Heated front windscreen, Heated steering wheel, Hill hold assist, ISOFIX child seat, safety fasteners for front passenger and rear outer seats, Keyless entry and start, Lane assist plus with narrow lane assist, Leather steering wheel, LED daytime running lights, LED headlights, LED taillights with animated indicators, Microsuede and faux leather upholstery, Parking sensors front and rear, Puddle illumination with Skoda logos, Rain sensing windscreen wipers, Rear privacy glass ,Traffic sign recognition, Tyre pressure monitors, Umbrella in door, Variable height boot floor, Wireless Android Auto, Apple CarPlay and Bluetooth smartphone compatibility Wireless and smartphone charger with cooling
OPTIONAL EQUIPMENT:
18-inch space saving spare wheel (£200) Canton sound system (£705)
Race Blue metallic paint (£680)
Light and view package – rear LED lights with animated indicators and welcome effect functions, rear view camera (£695)
Panoramic sunroof (£1,675)
FACTS & FIGURES
Our cars: Skoda Octavia Report 2
MODEL ON TEST: SE L 2.0 TDI DSG AUTOMATIC – MILEAGE – 4,905
With age comes refinement, so I’m told.With this car, that applies in all areas. The reborn Octavia has been with us for 27 years, and I think there’s something in manufacturers that keep faithful to both the name plate and car; a commitment to keep chipping away to make the next one better than the last, as opposed to launching new nameplates with no heritage and therefore no real benchmark. This latest version of the Octavia is a very different car to the first one that appeared on our shores in 1998, but the fundamentals remain with a large (for the segment) hatchback or estate C-segment car.And before I trigger a flurry of e-mails and letters to the editor saying “I think you’ll find…” I am of course talking about the new era Octavia, not the original that went on sale as far back as 1959 – the same year as the original Mini – but was axed in 1971.
And it’s the same with the DSG twin-clutch automatic gearbox, as that’s been around since the early 2000’s, and benefits from two decades of refinement and improvement. My first experience of a DSG was back in 2009 when my mate’s dad sacrificed their faithful (and mint) Mitsubishi Shogun in that god awful scrappage scheme for a Passat with a DSG ‘box. I remember it being pretty good, like no other automatic gearbox
I’d been in before. I’m sure that opinion was formed while wearing slightly rose- tinted glasses as I went in that car again recently, now that it’s been passed down to my friend, and things aren’t quite as good as I remember them. It was clunky and a bit unrefined.The same could be said for different generations of DSG I’ve driven with work and now we’ve got the latest version in our Octavia. To me, it’s absolutely spot on, the best it’s ever been with smoothness, refinement, changing gears appropriately, up and down.The best compliment that I can give is I just don’t notice it quietly going about its business. That said, there is one caveat, and an area that is taking me longer to get used to. From a standstill when reversing off the driveway, for example, I put it into gear and it has a tendency to shoot off far too quickly. It just needs to chill a little bit, but is fine once you get used to it, mind.
Today’s safety systems in cars are for the most part a total pain and annoyance, and here I’m mainly talking about the speed warning and lane assistance.You switch them off and they have the cheek to come back on every time you start the car. First world problems, I know.The next phase in this annoyance is just how simple and straightforward manufacturers have made it to deactivate these systems, but it can go two ways. Thankfully… Skoda has been logical and made the process of deactivating nicely simple, using a button and one of the rotary switches on the steering wheel. It’s not quite as simple as one press of a button, but at least it’s not buried in the touchscreen, so once you learn the sequence, you can deactivate with muscle memory and most importantly without taking your hand off the wheel and eyes off the road. How very Skoda!
SIMON THOMPSON
WHAT’S HOT: There’s an option in the infotainment system that will switch on the heated seats and steering wheel automatically when the temperature drops. Bliss.
WHAT’S NOT: There’s adjustable lumbar in the front seats, but there isn’t enough for my sensitive back.
FACTS & FIGURES
Our cars: Skoda Octavia Report 3
MODEL ON TEST: SE L 2.0 TDI DSG AUTOMATIC – MILEAGE – 7,155
Call me a misery, but I’m not the biggest fan of repetition or doing the same thing. I tried working in an office once, where my job was to literally do the same boring thing every single day, week in, week out, in exactly the same chair, in the same place. I lasted nine months, and quite frankly I don’t know I managed to last that long. And as far as I’m concerned, Christmas is no different. Rinse and repeat every year. So, it was time for a shakeup.
The idea of going away for Christmas is strong, but it would have to be one extreme or the other – snowy alpine lodge or on the beach in 30 degrees heat, somewhere far, far away. Now that’s not very practical when Christmas for me features six of us and a dog. So a compromise was needed… we went to Center Parcs. Nope, not in Woburn, Sherwood Forest or anywhere else in this country for that matter. It was a little more adventurous than that. We did a road trip to Lommel, a lovely little town on the Belgian/Dutch border. The same place that Ford a proving ground.
Step forward the Octavia. Such trip is a mere walk in the park for a diesel estate, and is easy and hassle free. If nothing else it was a reminder that diesel really is king to eat up miles, without fuss. I did the obligatory pre-continental road trip preparations, with the levels checked and topped up, a decent clean inside and out, slapped the UK sticker on the tailgate, and then nipped over to Skoda UK to borrow their roof box (thanks Skoda!) which was a lifeline on this trip, as there were three of us in the car, plus Millie the dog in the boot. Add in luggage, presents, Christmas stuff and my (near 6ft) 15-year-old nephew Alfie’s media setup in the back. The Octavia looked excellent riding low in full road trip guise.
Aside from a tyre pressure warning popping up (the tyre pressures were perfect by the way), it did the trip easily, averaging nearly 51mpg, which I was pretty happy with. The roof box up top obviously made things a little noisier, but Alfie made full use of the two USB-C slots in the back and armrest for snack storage. Up front we had no complaints, aside from the lack of lumbar adjustment in the seats that began to give me an achy back. Strangely, while looking back over a report I wrote ten years ago for my then long-term Skoda Superb, I had the same issue – not enough lumbar support. My back obviously isn’t in tune with Skoda seat design, even though similar distances in the interim have been completed without the same discomfort. In that same report I mentioned how good the Canton premium audio system was, and that’s something that I’m happy that hasn’t changed, as the system in this Octavia is equally good. This time it was with the aid of Spotify and Apple CarPlay pumping out a suitable number of Christmas Tunes. Sleigh Bell by The Ronettes is my favourite, sorry Mariah.
SIMON THOMPSON
WHAT’S HOT: The infotainment screen. 13 inches that are crystal clear and perfectly positioned. It doesn’t distract or hinder.
WHAT’S NOT: The passenger side windscreen wiper doesn’t seem to have enough pressure when driving along, so misses out wiping the outer part of the windscreen.
FACTS & FIGURES
Our cars: Skoda Octavia Report 4
MODEL ON TEST: SE L 2.0 TDI DSG AUTOMATIC – MILEAGE – 10,156
This is a really likeable car. It is proper middle of the road. It’s a jack of all trades, but is it a master of any?
I don’t think it excels at anything, but nothing really bugs me, either. This really hit home after a day in Wales taking photos of a couple of other cars. I’d been pretty spoilt as those cars in the limelight were prime metal, with their interiors, in particular, a talking point, along with the attached price tag.And there sat the Octavia, covered in Welsh winter road grunge, neglected for most of the day – camera car duty aside – but heading back down off the hillside, the right music came through the Canton speakers and the right road ahead to have some fun, in a ‘nothing to shout about’ kind of way but it did a perfectly okay job.The Octavia just gets on with it, without raising any eyebrows. And that’s brilliant for me. In a world that ultimate disappoints for a lot of the time, the Octavia is hugely impressive. It quietly gets on with what it should do, and never lets me down.
In other news… no, those photos of the Octavia were not taken in Slough. The Skoda and I had another weekend in Belgium.Twice in a month. Not Center Parcs this time, but a more ‘back to the grind’ work trip to Brussels for the 2026 motor show. Everyone else got the Eurostar from St Pancras, but I figured two things. Firstly, by the time I’d managed to get to St Pancras through London traffic and parked up, I may as well have driven to the Eurotunnel by Folkestone. And secondly, road trips are way more fun, even if I was missing out on the complimentary wine. I was lucky enough to have a flexible ticket for the Eurotunnel, so could catch the next available crossing, rather than losing time the others were doing having to check in and wait for the Eurostar. It was a leisurely two-hour drive from Calais to the hotel in the middle of Brussels, stopping for the obligatory European tubs of cheese pieces and funky crisps. And coffee. Even so, like an episode of Race Across The World (Euro edition), the Skoda and I were the first ones to check in.
It’s amazing in the difference in fuel economy with just me and my gear and no lanky teenager, my mum, the dog and roof box makes. 65mpg according to the trip computer. I did intend to try and do the entire trip on one tank of fuel, but a diversion to Milton Keynes (to hand Skoda their roof box back) and Kingston in London (my own forgetfulness to blame there) killed that idea.The compromise was seeing how little of the black nectar I could use on the way back, so I brimmed the tank in Brussels and headed for home. I got back to Birmingham with over half a tank left. Well done Octavia!
This month I’ve been having a fiddle. Fiddling through the vast vehicle settings. I love how much choice there is to personalise the car to your taste and how it’s laid out with the graphics on the screen. I can choose how sensitive I want the automatic headlights to be before they switch on, I can select the headlights to switch on when the windscreen wipers are activated. Brilliant! I can even select ‘smart rear wiper.’ I’m not entirely sure what that does, but what I do know is when it’s raining, the back wiper will periodically activate to clean the view behind even if it’s switched off. I didn’t know I needed this feature in my life.
SIMON THOMPSON
WHAT’S HOT: The Octavia tells me when the washer fluid is running low, rather than a lot of cars that let you find out whilst in lane three of the M40.
WHAT’S NOT: I’ve had a few ‘phantom’ error messages pop up this month. Is this the start of something?
FACTS & FIGURES
Our cars: Skoda Octavia Report 5
MODEL ON TEST: SE L 2.0 TDI DSG AUTOMATIC – MILEAGE – 13,355
After two stints of galivanting abroad, to Belgium, the only border the Octavia has crossed
in the past month has a sign saying ‘Croeso i Cymru’, and that doesn’t require a passport. For the non-Welsh speakers amongst us, that translates to ‘Welcome to Wales’. There’s been very little to report, apart from one small incident that forced me to give Skoda Assist a call. That’s right, we test it, so you don’t have to…
Picture the scene. We all pile into the Octavia heading for Aber Falls in North Wales. We’re six up, including Millie the dog. I pressed the start button and was instantly met with lots of bonging and myriad fault messages, followed by the system switching itself off. I try again, and the same thing happens. Now I’m no mechanic, but even I thought that this was probably battery related, however, the pessimist wing of my brain thought it could be a bit more in depth than a simple flat battery. You’ll remember that in the last instalment I mentioned a couple of phantom faults and messages popping up last month – it just has to be related, I thought.
Skoda Assist were incredible, arriving almost 30 minutes after first calling them out, and they quickly diagnosed a flat battery. The mechanic spent a lot of time double checking and going through the car to make sure of the verdict, but that was all it was, a simple flat battery. What caused it to discharge the power is a complete mystery, as the doors were closed, the lights were off, and nothing had been left plugged in to cause the issue. Let’s see if there’s a repeat performance in the future – fingers crossed that there isn’t.
In other news, there isn’t very much else to report this month. The Race Blue diesel estate is performing exactly as advertised, and even the phantom error messages haven’t reared their ugly heads since batterygate occurred. But despite ‘business as usual’, I do still have a complaint, and that’s road noise.At least I think it’s road noise. It sounds like road noise, rather than wind flutter. The intrusion is very much there and while it’s not terrible, the inside of the Octavia is nowhere near as quiet as it should be. I don’t remember the sound being a problem with my previous Race Blue Octavia way back in 2021. And it isn’t as if I can blame the din on overly large wheels, as it’s running very sensible 17-inch alloys on our SE L specification car. I’ve spent some time driving some of the Octavia’s rivals in a similar price bracket and their cabins have been near silent in comparison to the Skoda. So, to alleviate the issue, I’ve resorted to cranking up the volume on the brilliant Canton audio system, and that has helped to drown it out a little. Our Octavia has become something of a mobile disco, and that hasn’t resulted in any further complaints from me.
SIMON THOMPSON
WHAT’S HOT: You can specify your driving mode on the Individual setting. I’ve gone for sporty steering and eco engine and driving. It’s the best of both worlds.
WHAT’S NOT: Keyless entry only on the front doors. Trust me, it’s annoying.
FACTS & FIGURES
Our cars: Skoda Octavia Report 6
MODEL ON TEST: SE L 2.0 TDI DSG AUTOMATIC – MILEAGE – 15,905
How many fuel gauges has your car got? I’ve got two, for some reason. Well, technically there’s three if you include the range readout. I honestly can’t work out the range readout I get (even though it bugs me), but why two actual gauges and right next to each other? I thought ‘oh clearly this is part of the customisation’ – and therefore I could get rid of it. But no, it’s there, permanently. It’s baffling. Answers on a postcard please…
The Octavia’s safety devices have been a touch oversensitive of late, and this particular time, the day started off perfectly normal with a trip to Ikea.You see, I had to buy slats for a bed I’d bought the week before, but didn’t realise that the slats were sold separately. Is this normal? The Octavia started screaming at me and telling me to brake when a car in front was turning, and there was absolutely no risk whatsoever that I was going to hit it. And then later, when reversing, the rear collision detection was convinced that I was going to hit something, so sounded an alarm and then hit the brakes sharply – that certainly woke me up! What was more disconcerting was that there was nothing behind the car that I could possibly have hit when reversing.A raised heartbeat aside, it was pretty annoying, but I did at least think ‘at least it’s working’ and continued my trip into Ikea.
As I was leaving and heading for the M6, I drove up towards a roundabout and all was well until it wasn’t. There was a familiar alarm (though I swear it was louder than usual) and the brakes anchored on, I pressed both the accelerator followed by the brake pedal, but the car was in charge, and
it was stopping right there. Even after it came to a complete stop I wasn’t able to do anything for what felt like an age (though realistically was probably just a second) as the brakes were still on.And then I looked in the mirror and saw a Kia Sportage’s nose disappear towards the rear bumper. “Here we go”, I thought. It was good news that the Kia’s pre-collision sensor was definitely working, as there was no bang. And all of this palaver for some Swedish slats.The Octavia has earned itself a trip back to Skoda for
an investigation into its OBD port, and perhaps a software download or three.
In other positive news, how awesome is diesel power? I know, apart from the cost of it at the moment. I’m thinking more in terms of the superior economy figures, and the fact that I’ve no benchmark with a thirsty petrol car to compare it to, day- to-day. I really have become complacent with the good economy thanks to the Skoda, and the Octavia reminded me of just that this morning. I was flicking through the customisable instruments trying to see if there was a way to get rid of a fuel gauge or two, flicking through all of the available options, and I stumbled across the fuel economy so far, since I refuelled a little way from my house. I had driven from South Birmingham up to Donington racetrack for a recce, then came home using a good mix of A- and B-roads, as well as motorway and city centre standstill traffic and the display was showing 66.3mpg. While it doesn’t completely make up for the trauma of earlier, I’ve had worse apologies.
SIMON THOMPSON
WHAT’S HOT: The aforementioned mpg. Even with the car undergoing camera car duties and motorway drives that start out calm and end up the opposite, we’re still getting good numbers.
WHAT’S NOT: For some reason every time the Octavia starts, the fan defaults to speed 4. Why is that?
FACTS & FIGURES
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