HotVRs

My Octavia MK3 Elegance with optional 18's was bad around town, because the roads are ****. My next Octavia MK3 Elegance I kept the standard 17's on and it is a lot better in terms of ride (but not so in handling). The rear suspension is annoying over time, as it bangs over bumps with little finesse. The front is fine, and over time has got quite soft (as in 58,000 miles). I had a loan vRS, and with the roads round here (Manchester) it was awful, we all basically sat in it and were bouncing up and own like we were on a fairground ride - we were only doing 20MPH but that's Salford roads for you.

Agree with this, I still think the Octavia 2 was the best looking of all so far, the 2 FL was (to me, again a subjective opinion) too fussy and I never liked it. I like the Octy 3 for it's clean, understated design, and again the FL is too fussy. More modern yes, but weird (to me). Skoda seem to do really coherent clean sheet designs and then mess them up with the facelift. Again each to their own, if we all wanted the same thing it would be dull.

A spare wheel always. The puncture sealant is rubbish. I used it on a Prius and it couldn't even seal a hole that had a screw in the main tread and as it was in a Sainsbury's car park I then had to sit there with my shopping thawing out waiting for the RAC, who then bodged a rubber bung into it, and had to follow me to Kwik Fit. The Toyota gunge kit also expires after 3 years and costs about £60 or something to replace, don't know if Skoda's is the same. I just don't get the whole rationale about about the gunge kit, and the argument of using it and then going and buying a tyre. Last I saw most tyre retailers are only open office hours. Good way to get stranded. Spare wheel on my 2014 Octavia was a £75 option. Should be free in a sensible world.

Mine has had a few leaks but I'm talking drops from the front onto the console. What is does do however (and has been in the dealer 5 times for) is the seals stick together and it makes an awful graunching noise when being opened. Maybe one of your seals has come away completely. That's over 52,000 miles BTW.

Amundsen tried in both my 2014 and previous 2013 Octavia 3. It generally works, gets you where you need to but is let down by the same repeat issues, 1) It doesn't avoid traffic - partly due to the awful traffic system used with the car, so then when you try and go around traffic you find it keeps trying to take you back into traffic, and 2) It is too slow, you are already at end of sliproads onto multi lane roundabouts before it mention that you need to be 4 lanes across the road, 3) the zooming is terrible, 4) It shows the name of lots of random roads all around the route, except the one you are actually on, and that is blotted out by the driving mode selection whenever the ignition is on.

I had a Octavia 63 plate lease car returned because of it, kept doing emergency braking for no reason, and setting off the warning - even including when there was once nobody at all, no people, cars, nothing in the road early on a Saturday. The almost identical replacement Octavia has been fine. Repeated tests of course found no faults at the (very helpful dealer).

The M55/M6 interchange area is also dire. You can have many mile long jams and nothing showing.

Interesting POV. I had a wheel and tyre destroyed by a hole in the M5. Right in front of one of the metal expansion joints at spaghetti Junction, so the wheel and tyre hit a metal beam. At 70 MPH and 10pm I was obviously showing a lack of attention at not seeing a hole in the motorway... Would have loved to have seen you avoid it.

This. I had Octavia Elegance with 18's on standard suspension and it was awful on urban roads. It got replaced (for other reasons) with same car but I kept the standard 17's and it far, far better.

I'm pretty sure you can use the internet as well as I. The majority of UK registrations are to fleets. The Octavia is a fleet car stalwart so it is a safe bet. Somewhat unlikely all those filthy dirty Octavia's banging up and down the Motorways all day full of 'stuff' are private buys, with 20% VAT and showroom tax... Anecdotal as it is, I have never met a private NEW buyer of an Octavia, though I have met plenty of CC users. Even the one I bought privately (a lovely 2008 L&K 2.0 TDi PD) was ex LEX lease.

I'm not a BMW fan boy, never even owned one, I'm under no deleusions and I think most are driven by idiots. I'm talking about money in my pocket, as I started with this topic if you don't have a hybrid right now, you are dead in the water with BIK going up at 3% a year. That's my only dog in the fight. I have had 5 Skoda's. Badly built might well be true of the BMW, (and probably is off many cars TBH), and for balance that includes my current Octavia 3 (currently 6 unplanned repair visits in 47K miles for the same thing) and the 2013 Octy 3 that preceded it which was so dangerous that the lease company had it returned to Skoda within a year as a reject, and some time before that a brand new Fabia vRS (MK1) delivered with defective ABS and a gearbox that would not engage 2nd when warm, that ended up with 3 'clutch adjustments, then a independent engineer report, and then a solicitor letter to Skoda who then had the box rebuilt and all costs refunded). What it does show is that if you can lease a £34K BMW 330e for £45 a month more than a £22,500 (ish) Octavia 2.0TDi SE Technology, and then the BIK saving still leaves you about £35 a month better off - then the residuals on the Skoda must be poop to make those relative figures. These are company cars in the main, both the 330e and the Octavia, so no first owner is paying any repair or running costs are they are under warranty/included in the lease.

I have the pano roof on my Octy 3, and it is cooler in what passes for the UK summer than the previous Octy 3 that didn't have it. I believe the glass is heat reflective? Never quite been so sunny that I have to close the blind though the Amundsen can get a little hard to see. Only issue with the roof has been its unreliability, namely a motor failing after 3 weeks, and then 5 further visits to deal with the seals sticking together causing graunching noises. It still does it now any time it is opened at more than 25 C. Shame as it otherwise is a lovely thing and makes the car a much airier place.

Just been searching company cars, the BMW 330e (249 BHP plug in hybrid, with a co2 figure of 44 g per K and a 9% BIK rate this year), works out with benefit in kind of £70 a month less than a 2.0 TDi Octavia. Even though the list price is about £9K more. The Octavia has a BIK of 24% due to the 113 gram co2 figure. 150 BHP TDi or 249 BHP hybrid and £70 in your pocket. Skoda et al better hurry up with some hybrids.

Either way, hybrid or pure EV, the lack of an Octavia hybrid in the present is a huge mistake. Arguably Skoda is the most price sensitive brand within VW Group, and most Octavias are company cars, and they are very sensitive to BIK, which they are now noncompetitive on. It's odd and a shame as Skoda were usually right on the ball with offering what the market needed.

My previous Octavia 3 had 18" Golus, and the spare was a 17" with a larger profile tyre. I suspect the rolling diameter was about the same. I drove with that spare on the front from the M5/M6 interchange north of Birmingham to Manchester (after a hole in the M5 took a chunk out of the wheel) with no issue, no warning lights even for tyre pressure.

Does anyone know if Skoda will launch a hybrid any time soon? I'm starting to get close to replacing a company car and with the BIK escalator running at 2-3% a year a 2.0TDi or 1.4TSi will be at 30% BIK within the next two-three years. That's absurd. A hybrid (say a Prius or Ioniq) is about 8% less ans that means around £800 stays in my pocket. The Octavia has been useful for the rear legroom, less so for the endlessly broken panoramic sunroof and subsequent 5 trips to the dealer (so far - it still plays up). The facelift also makes it as ugly as the Prius. Seems Skoda are way behind on this.

My 45,000 mile Octvia 2.0 TDi front suspension creaks over every speed bump and largish imperfection in the road. On a road of speed bumps, travelling slowly along it sounds like newly weds on an knackered old bed.

I've had a Octavia 2 L&K hatch and two Octavia 3 Elegance estate/combi's. I prefer the estate. Same length but more usable profile for the bikes and other stuff I put in the back. I also prefer the looks (though that is subjective), and I could get the full panoramic sunroof on the estate. Never found booming either, though I don't open windows at 50MPH+ as I have climate control and a sunroof.

Straw man argument. I'm not stating my personal view as fact, which is why I wrote 'One thing I do find' which clearly and obviously means it is something from my experience and not something I am presenting as an indisputable fact. I thought it was rather obvious.

I looked at getting the Golf GTD, and a colleague has one, first thing I noticed in comparison is that the interior looks cheap in comparison to the Octavia 3, the dashboard plastics, the whole dashboard in general looks cheaper. The Octavia has the more upmarket looking interior. The GTD, with the check upholstery also cannot have the heated seat option, which seems pretty poor on a car that came out with a list price (with options) of over £30,000. Doesn't feel any better built either. Main thing I notice with the Golf is how small it is, the rear leg room is tiny in comparison, and it is so narrow I can touch the passenger door from the drivers seat. Road noise, ride, door closing, can't tell any difference, and can't see the value proposition in taking the Golf over the Octavia (of course, car buying is not totally subjective I realise and people have personal preferences). One thing I do find with people who have the VW/Audi versions of the Skoda, they really, really do want to believe they are better built etc, it's quite sad really.

It is a little unintutive in that you have to press the town option first, before the postcode pops up. I remember a while back the Octavia 3 was on a long-term test (Auto-Express I think) who spent weeks complaining the postcode option wasn't there - which devalued my opinion of his test - I mean, it's not that hard to work it out given weeks to do so...

It can't say airport either. Comes out as aeroroport :-)

I find the Amundsen cannot pronounce place names and street names correctly in the UK either. Same with the voice activation on the phone, it can't pronounce names. It is often incomprehensible.

It's a useful thing, I had it alert me to a slow puncture (screw in tyre) just before a motorway trip. Only issue I ever had was after a wheel and tyre replacement (from motorway pothole damage) where it took time to settle down and indicated a tyre pressure issue 3 times on one journey even with TPS reset each time - all tyres were fine. After that journey it was Ok ever since.

I use this diesel, but in my wife's 2007 Toyota 2.2 D4D Verso. It runs better, it doesn't ever chuck out smoke, and as she uses it mainly round town (not originally plan for this car when bought) it otherwise gets pretty filthy. I also like the idea of the injector cleaning etc and reckon the difference in price might hopefully offset a big bill.