Just bought this weeks Auto Express which contains this years Driver Power suppliment.

How chuffed I was to read that the Octy2 came second overall with the Octy1 and Fabia also both in the top six.

Whilst flicking through yesterdays copy of the Sun newspaper there was an article Quoting the results from the survey completely missing out the Octy2 and Octy1, going on the headlines that the Japanese car industry have it all sewn up!!.

I hope that Skoda makes them print a "corrected" version!!!

Also to "rant" a bit further "WHICH" magazine , who carry a lot of clout with comsumers have still not bothered to recognise the existence of the Octy2 in its surveys even though it has been out for well over a year now.

It is as if these best selling cars just dont exist in some peoples eyes!!

I dunno, I think topping the surveys is a double sword for customers of Q-brands like Skodas. It confirms they were wise to make the purchase in the first place but it means more and more people find out (such as newbies here like me!!) and also means dealers maybe are less likely to do deals and maybe the parent company will creep the prices up to take advantage of the demand.

I'm quite happy for numpty's to sneer at my Fabia and laugh at my intention of buying another Skoda (even after all these years of good reviews for the Octy1). Perish the day when Skoda's become so popular they're just another volume manufacturer and forced to cut corners to increase production and keep costs down. The Czech labour market probably won't be cheap forever.

Talking about demand, I don't check out relative sales figures but round here it seems to be positively crawling with Skodas now, mostly Octy 1s and 2s, plus loads of Fabias. I know you tend to notice your 'own' car but I'm sure they must have a huge market share now. The taxi fleets alone must make the shareholders weep for joy.

Mind you we do have two major dealers and at least one specialist dealer within a 20 minute drive, plus another main dealer at Chichester, maybe others I haven't even looked up.

The reason the octavia doesn't get a recommendation from Which is to do with the seats. Apparently a person sitting behind the driver can inadvertently catch the mechanism for moving the seat forward/back with their foot. From what I have read Which (Feb 06 issue) raised this with the VW Group at various times going back to 2004 but although the seat was redesigned they were not happy with the modification and thus no VW group cars get a recommendation. Apparently the issue concerned other makes of cars as well but the other companies responded in a more positive manner to Which findings

Unlikely to be a problem for me though as I have my seat all the way back so there's no room for anyone to sit behind!