Skoda Octavia 90TSI 2011 Review

RRP: $24,990 (manufacturer's list price, excluding on-road costs and dealer delivery)
Options fitted to test car (not included in above price): Nil
Crash rating: four stars (Euro NCAP, pre-2009)
Fuel: 95 RON PULP
Claimed fuel economy (L/100km): 6.7
CO2 emissions (g/km): 158
Also consider: Ford Focus LX, Honda Civic VTi, Volkswagen Jetta 77 TDI

About our ratings

Finished in white, the latest entry-level Octavia is 'vanilla' in more ways than one. Inside it seems fairly spartan by the usual standards set by Volkswagen and its family of brands -- Skoda included. That said, the base Octavia provides the majority of mod cons buyers at this level could ever want and what’s more, it's refined and comfortable.

Seats are one outstanding feature for the car's purchase price. They're well bolstered and comfortable, offering plenty of support while holding you in place, but without feeling flat and hard. You won't find too many cars providing the seat comfort that the Octavia 90 TSI does for the price.

Out on the road, the Octavia is quiet for the most part, with just a bit of road rumble at 100km/h on freeways. Our correspondent Feann Torr reported that tyre noise was a problem in this model. And it certainly is. At an indicated speed between 110 and 120km/h, the tyres start howling constantly on country roads.

That may not pose a problem for many buyers, but frankly, prospective Octavia owners should try to negotiate a deal with their Skoda salesman to swap over the OE Dunlop Sport 07 205/60 R15 tyres for something that doesn't emit worrying noises and also contributes more to the car's native handling.

We've driven Octavias in the past and they've been a little neater in the cornering department than this one. It's not a pig, but the high-profile tyres influence the car's slower turn-in and an attitude that's tending more to understeer than, to use one example, the Octavia’s twin under the skin, Volkswagen’s Golf.

If there is one point in favour of the Octavia's tyres it's the reasonable ride comfort that comes with the high-profile sidewalls. The Skoda's ride quality is well controlled and the tyres do their bit to absorb smaller hits at low speeds, without affecting the car's grip at higher speeds.

If it sounds like the Octavia in its cheapest form is a car to avoid, nothing could be further from the truth. This is a fun and easy to drive car that is a surprisingly capable straight-line performer, considering its 1.4-litre engine.

The engine is the same 90kW turbocharged petrol engine fitted to the Golf and, as in that car, provides a vibration-free experience with a sporty exhaust note. Power delivery is linear right up to the redline and, at the other end of the scale, offers low-effort torque and lag-free throttle response for quick or easy launches. It's an engine that feels more like one of the better naturally-aspirated two-litre engines around, not a 1.4.

Even with the six speeds of the standard manual transmission, intermediate gearing is relatively high, yet the Octavia will trickle away from a standing start with 2000rpm or less on the clock. In gears it will plod along at 1500rpm with no obvious labouring.

At idle, it's so free of vibration or noise that you'll think the car is fitted with auto-stop! It's a fairly exceptional engine that was using as little as 8.3L/100km in a combination of urban and open-road driving (but more of the former).

With its light, positive gearshift action, the transmission allows drivers to opt for smooth or fast shifting. The box just snicks into gear easily and without any engine flare to disrupt proceedings. Very few manual boxes are as easy to use as this one.

From the driver's seat the Octavia's instruments are highly legible and the instruments are easy enough to use if you're familiar with all Volkswagen's ergonomic conventions (among them the trip computer functions on the steering wheel). Aircon and ventilation controls let the side down, however -- the text labels are tiny and frequently invisible from the driving position, with the graphics similarly unclear. Temperature calibrations rise by increments of four degrees, without a distinct setting for 20 degrees, which should surely be one of the more popular settings?

No complaints about the Octavia's build quality. For a car that sells in the mid-$20K sector, it's very solid and well built. The one fly in the ointment is the leather-bound steering wheel, which feels leathery, but not especially supple or pleasant to grip the way some steering wheels do.

The Octavia is unusual in being a hatchback (or liftback if you want to get pedantic) built on a small car wheelbase, but with the rear overhang of a typical sedan it's more like Volkswagen's Jetta in size than the Golf. For that reason, Skoda considers the Octavia to be nominally a medium-sized car in VFACTS parlance.

Judged by that, it's an inexpensive entree to the segment, but is it in fact a mid-sized car? The 560-litre boot space (bigger by a considerable margin than the luggage capacity of the Ford Falcon sedan) is certainly deep, long and practical enough to pass the test, but the consequence of providing that sort of luggage capacity in a car that shares its wheelbase with the superseded Golf 5 is that the rear-seat legroom is just adequate for a small car, let alone one that purportedly competes in the same segment as Toyota's Camry.

There's plenty of headroom in the rear and ease of access, but a family will likely outgrow the Octavia once the kids reach teenage years. That's unfortunate, because the Octavia makes for an otherwise excellent family car. The next step up in the Skoda range for growing families is the Superb, which is just massive overkill -- at least where rear-seat legroom is concerned.

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