What_Car_UK_-_August_2020

8 August 2020 whatcar.com

SKODAHASCARVEDitselfoutanicelittleniche

over the past couple of decades. Its bargain-

basement days are long behind it and the

Czech firm now has an enviable reputation for

sensible, comfortable cars that are generally far

more capacious than their direct competitors.

That brings us neatly to the Octavia, a

mainstay of the Skoda line-up and the one that

did the most to lift the company’s image in the

1990s. But it isn’t just a familiar face; it’s also

Skoda’s biggest seller, so the arrival of a new

generation is something of a big deal.

The Octavia Mk4 – which comes in hatchback

and estate guises, as before – sticks to the now-

familiar formula of taking the underpinnings

of the Volkswagen Golf and stretching the

distance between the front and rear axles to

liberate more interior space. It’s a bit longer

than the outgoing car, but that’s so it can

accommodate extra safety and driver aids,

rather than to make it even roomier.

Initially, you’ll have a choice of three engines

in the Octavia: a 1.5-litre turbocharged petrol

with 148bhp and 2.0-litre diesels in 113bhp and

148bhp guises. The petrol engine and lower-

powered diesel are paired with a six-speed

manual gearbox, while the top-spec diesel

is available with a seven-speed dual-clutch

automatic only. In the next few months,

the engine range will grow to incorporate a

1.0-litre petrol at the bottom of the range,

plus mild and plug-in hybrids.

Despite having the same power output as

before, the 148bhp diesel fitted to our Octavia

Estate test car has been heavily revised, with

improved CO 2 emissions and fuel economy.

Performance is strong, with acceleration

feeling a fair bit brisker than the claimed 8.8sec

0-62mph time. It helps that there’s plenty of

low-down torque, so you don’t have to thrash

the engine to get a decent uplift in pace.

The automatic gearbox sometimes hesitates

for a moment or two before responding to

presses of the accelerator, but the rest of the

time there’s little to complain about, with

shifts performed swiftly yet smoothly as it

quickly gets into the highest gear possible to

maximise efficiency. Lift off the accelerator

pedal and the Octavia can even ‘coast’ out of

gear to further save fuel.

It certainly seems to do the job; according

to the trip computer, we averaged more than

50mpg on a mixture of roads, including plenty

of motorway driving, and 60mpg was possible

at a steady cruise with a light right foot.

Refinement has been improved, with the

latest diesel engine sounding less coarse than

Skoda Octavia Estate

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FIRST DRIVE

Alan Taylor-Jones

[email protected]