Skoda Octavia 1.9 PD 130 Estate

As our Octavia Estate creeps its way up to the 20,000 mile mark it becomes harder to find any faults with it. That's not to say that I am deliberately trying to find one or that I expect it to develop a fault.

As a vehicle to get you to your business destination in comfort it excels. As a load lugging carrier it is spacious and accommodating. It does all this and it does it with a certain amount of style too. If it does all this wily don't you have Skoda Octavias on your fleet?

Some people may still have an issue with the badge on the front grille. But if they don't have the intelligence or perception to look beyond that piece of metal then there probably isn't much hope for them.

Personally I have a lot of respect for the Octavia. Over the last eight months this car has repeatedly proved itself to be a reliable and highly practical workhorse. If I was offered the chance to have this as my company car I would be very happy indeed. Sadly this may be the last chance I get to drive the Octavia for a while as I have another long-term test car that requires my attention.

Although our Octavia is specced quite highly, my personal choice would be to avoid the leather seats--they don't really do anything for me and you have to use the heater on cold mornings just to keep your bum from freezing.

If I had to pass any other niggles about the Skoda they would be minor ... very minor. For instance, although our version is fitted with cruise control there is no indication on the instrument panel to say when it is activated. See what I mean about minor?

The heater is another slight annoyance. When you set a new temperature on the panel, the heater seems to set the fan at whatever it decides is the correct force even when you don't want it to. It's not that much of a problem but just enough to get on my nerves, especially if I'm having a bad day already!

After having trudged our car all over the country I had expected more problems than this. The only thing that has developed over the months is an irritating squeak from the rear interior; we think it may be from the tonneau but we have failed to pin it down so far.

Although I have not had time to fully test the Smartnav system over the last few weeks I have found the Safe Speed Option extremely useful. It warns of fixed speed cameras which--although I would not have been exceeding the limit--means that you can ensure that you are at the correct speed for that particular road.

I have had a lot of fun with the Octavia over the months and would certainly recommend it to all my friends.

DRIVER'S LOG:

OTR PRICE: 17,980 [pounds sterling]

ENGINE: 1896cc four-cylinder turbocharged diesel

TRANSMISSION: Six-speed man

POWER: 130bhp @ 4000rpm

TORQUE: 310Nm @ 1900rpm

C[O.sub.2] RATING: 149g/km (18%)

2003/4 BIK: 3211 [pounds sterling]

DELIVERY MILEAGE: 127

CURRENT MILEAGE: 19,110

OFFICIAL COMBINED: 51.4mpg

ACTUAL COMBINED: 45.4mpg

INSURANCE GROUP: 11P

COPYRIGHT 2004 DMG World Media Ltd.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group