Agree with others here. Octavia is not in the same class an Mondeo. If you want to compare then it is Mondeo <=> Superb or Octavia <=> Focus.

I have owned lots of Fords and had many more as hire cars. They lost me round about mid 2000's when their cars just became seriously ugly. Steroid pumped body design (aaarrrgghhhhh! we've got a square foot of plain metal! Put a bump on it!!) and dashboards that remind me of 1970's Datsuns with great ZigZag lines and plastichrome trim. They are still very well built cars that drive and handle superbly but god they are UGLY!

Edited 13 March, 201313 yr by eccleshill

Boot space was the reason we went for a Skoda - absolutely huge. The comparison for us was 1998 Honda CRV. I always find the litre measures a bit meaningless as they don,t consider awkward shapes. Easiest way was to get the tape measure out - the Octavia can take 6 foot lengths straight in and longer diagonal so no comparison with others around the same price.

Interesting resurrected thread!!!

Gonna chime in with my tuppence worth! I've run Mondeos for the past 10 years or so.......a MkII 2.0LPetrol Zetec for the first 5 or so, and for the most recent 5 year a MkIII ST TDCI. 5 Months ago, I changed car from the ST TDCI to the Octt vRS Petrol. My mileage had dropped of, so I decided to go back to petrol.

First thing I would say related to this thread is boot size....I loved the large boot in the Mondeo...in fact I moved to Mondeos from an Escort following a rear end prang that wrote of my beloved Escort GTi. I decided then I wanted more feet and cinhes between me and the back bumper. i play bass guitar in a band amongst other things and need a lot of room - the Mondeo was great for that. Onto the ST TDCI it had a great boot size, fold down the seats and you go even more...fantastic. Imagine my surprise when I got the Octy to find that in my opinion, the boot is bigger ,easier to use and a better shape (before you fold the seat down. In my mind, the load space with seats down is about the same between the Octy and the Mondeo.

Rear legroom is something else I am surprised at in a car that is based on the Golf floorpan/chasis. I am 6 ft and my son is actually a wee bit taller now.....he can comfortably sit behind me for long distances - to me the passenger compartment in both the MkIII Mondeo and Octy II are comparable. Overall though the Octy is 8 inches shorter....from memory the wdth and the height are about the same. I feel that those missing 8 inches are all up front as the Octy is much easier to park.....it also has a 1m smaller turning circle.....and you know I always thought the Mondeo was quite agile for such a big car!

The handling and the way the Octy drive I'm very pleased at as I was spoiled by the ST TDCI driveability and handling for those 5 years.....although they are fuled differently, both cars put a smile on my face!!! I will admit though I did make some mods to the Mondeo.....including Bluefin, K&N Panel filter, DE-Cat and a JP Sports Exhaust and upgraded the brakes to Focus ST ASBO Brakes.Out of the box the Octy compared great as it was! The vRS is faster despite being about 100ftlb of torque down......unsurprisingly I'm getting about 30 mpg as opposed to about 42mpg in the diesel Mondeo. Can't really compare that though but to me the Modeno was fast for an oil burner (and no, I haven't had a chance to drive a diesel vRS....but I imagine it would be faster 'out of the box' than the Mondeo!)

The biggest difference I found straight away was the 'relative' lack of 'toys' in the Skoda, but it's nothing I can't live without. Interestingly both engines (ST TDCI and vRS petrol are chain driven...no complaints there). The Mondeo over almost 100,000 miles in just over 5 years wasn't bad reliability wise. I repalce the EGR twice....seems to be a common fault, the fuel filter, the stereo was replaced under warranty, as was the front passenger door handle bracket.....which was then repaired again later and the exhaust wore out....replaced by teh JP job. The quality of the alloy wheels was atrocious and I had bought a refurbed set.....which really need refurbed again (my dad bought my old car you see.....he has also just replaced both rear wheel bearings). It'll be interesting for me to see how the Octy goes over the next 5 years or so.....

All in all for me they were two different care, which delivered the goods well in slightly different ways......but to me the Octy boot size and useability has the edge!!

The Octavia estate is more practical than our 2010 A6 avant as the back doesn't slope as much so you can get squarer items in. The hard A6 avant boot liner fits the Octavia perfectly.

Echo most of the sentiments here, though in reality thunderballs is paying the Octy a massive commpliment by comparing it's load capacity with a mondeo, which is in the next size up, even if the mondeo hatch has a smaller boot! The mondo is signifcantly more expensive to buy and depreciation is horrendous. Compared to it's true opposition the octy wins hands down for me. I conceed the focus is a class leader as far as handling is concerned, but for everything else it's octy all the way. the which surveys from the owners put the octy up there every.year. Can't remember seeing fords in the top 10? If you want to do a true comparison the superb is the model to judge the mondeo against.

Anyway, that's all have to say about that. It tends to get a bit silly when people try to argue about personal preference.

Yes that's true. I think it may have got silly when you resurrected a 3 year old thread.

I don't like fords, but I'm in good company. I'm not the only one!

A mate in the village occasionally buys a Mondeo, when he gets sick of dealing with his normal carrige suppliers - Mercedes. His last one was the curvier one after the "edge" styling, horrid in the back, barely able to see out through the side windows, or forward. BUt perhaps that is normal now. Glad I didn't have to use it for more than trips to a local restaurant. Their daughter is now digging in her heels about the drive to their villa in Italy.

Right about being in a different class, a Mondeo is much closer size wise to an E class than an Octavia. (externally).

Yes that's true. I think it may have got silly when you resurrected a 3 year old thread.

I don't like fords, but I'm in good company. I'm not the only one!

Do yourself a favour brooke, leave it there. It really is getting extremely childish now and I think everyone can see that and is probably getting quite bored of it now regardless of their PERSONAL PREFERENCE in vehicle brand.

Nick, the only other estate that I could find to rival the Mondeo was the E class but the main downfall was the mpg ( I refuse to give the government any more than I need to!) unless I could find a petrol one with LPG conversion fitted but would probably still cost more than the Mondeo to run so left that thought there.

May have been more reliable than both the Mondeo and Octavia but for if and probably when it did go wrong, parts would be expensive and I only believe in fitting genuine parts to any of my cars so I'd have a major shafting off Merc!!

On another note, nickGUZZI?! Now we are talking REAL vehicles.

You got any at the moment?

I'd like to think of myself as a bit of a Guzzi collector! At the moment I've got a Cali 2, Cali 3 and an RS Daytona and I also had a Centuro for a while.

Better than ANY car regardless of brand, just can't carry all of my equipment in paniers :-(

Boot space was the reason we went for a Skoda - absolutely huge. The comparison for us was 1998 Honda CRV. I always find the litre measures a bit meaningless as they don,t consider awkward shapes. Easiest way was to get the tape measure out - the Octavia can take 6 foot lengths straight in and longer diagonal so no comparison with others around the same price.

I agree, particularly on hatchbacks some of which have quite narrow, deep boots that didn't seem particularly practical to me. I find the Octavia estate is a fairly good shape with the variable boot floor fitted as that gives a level load area by filling out the gap between the boot lip and folded rear seats. I was disappointed that the seat bench in the Exeo ST doesn't fold forward so the seats sit at an angle meaning the load area isn't flat. The only issue I had is the boot entrance is a bit high so I have to lift my dog in, he could make it if he really wanted to but he most certainly does not really want to go into the boot!

John

Do yourself a favour brooke, leave it there. It really is getting extremely childish now and I think everyone can see that and is probably getting quite bored of it now regardless of their PERSONAL PREFERENCE in vehicle brand.

Hang on......you resurrect a 3 year old dormant thread, solely to stick the boot into Skoda Octavia's on an Octavia forum......and get indignant when people disagree with you. I suggest you give that computer back to your dad before you get his account locked!

Really, you need to take a step back and think.

Whats the problem with resurrecting an old thread? If there was a problem with that, it wouldn't be allowed. Don't you think?

If you owned a Ford and a Skoda and wanted to read up on something about Ford and you happened across a Ford thread where vast numbers of Ford enthusiasts were verbally gang-raping the Skoda model that you happily owned and you were opposed to what they said due to your actual experience with the vehicle, which you weren't sure that they had, wouldn't you want to inform future readers that in your personal experience the violated Skoda wasn't all that they had made it out to be and in your experience was better?

You don't have to answer that. Its just something for you to ponder upon.

Read my first post and think from the point of view of somebody that really doesn't care for specific brands, only personal experience and my personal requirements.

Take for example my other current situation, aside from maybe finding a better vehicle with a larger or similar load space.

Third child on the way. I'm obviously not going to realistically and practically go out with the kids in the back of either of my Fabia's. Their too small. Their going.

I can't have them in the back of either of the Mondeo's as one has been adapted for work purposes and so will the new one be.

Obviously a larger vehicle is needed and the only one large enough that Skoda can offer is the Yeti, simply I personally think that its ugly.

I've trawled through all relevant vehicles large enough and have researched all of them and then narrowed the search down by mpg, taxation and interior space. What do I narrow it down to? Two vehicles. Ford Galaxy and Ford S Max.

It wasn't specifically Ford I was looking for but it just so happens that they are a good vehicle.

You see brooke, it may sound difficult but in reality its very simple. You buy a vehicle that fullfills your needs.

In this case I shall be selling both 1.4 and 1.9 Fabia's (which have expired their services, if quite uncomfortably especially on my knees and in one case expensively and unreliably) and then purchasing the only vehicle on the market that sits nicely within my criteria which could have been a Renault Espace. But however extremely practical and spacious they are, from my experience I know that these vehicles are unreliable and expensive to repair, as do most of us.

So once again brooke, it really does come down to personal preference and experience (I really am getting tired of repeating that term) whether you like Ford or not.

There's bad Fords, there's bad Skoda's. I didn't realise that you were Mr Skoda and I had personally upset you and your company.

Don't take things so personally. It's not quite as if I had personally offended you now is it.

Now read this carefully and think before and if you reply.

Text arguing via the internet can never realistically solve anything no matter how you portray yourself and to be quite honest with you, I have a life with far bigger things to worry about.

I have a life

Really.....anyway I couldn't be bothered to read the rest of your post.

So we'll just have to leave it there.

Really, you need to take a step back and think.

Whats the problem with resurrecting an old thread? If there was a problem with that, it wouldn't be allowed. Don't you think?

'Grave digging' or resurrecting old threads for no purpose (which you have done, your reply is largely irrelevant and mostly off topic) is usually not allowed or considered bad forum etiquette particularly when the thread is years old and your reply is nothing to do with the topic which was a question of the boot size of the Octavia hatch and the estate.

John

Agreed the thread was resurrected by someone with a Ford and a score to settle. It was bound to descend into this, no better than trolling. What did you expect to achieve on an Skoda forum? Consensus with your personal opinion? Or this? I suspect the latter, so wind your neck in and stop calling people childish.

I have no marquee preference, I've had Ford, vauxhall, Toyota, Nissan, vw and Skoda. Best car was the mr2 turbo, but not sure its relevant as it had the smallest boot.

I'd have a car again from any of the above, id love a focus St at some point. Have to say re my 1St Skoda, I absolutely love it, great car and the boot is as big as my last vectra.