Skoda Octavia Estate - A difficult decision to make

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Wed 7 Apr 2021 19:45
Skoda Octavia Estate - A difficult decision to make - Ropy

My diesel Econetic Focus Estate Mk2 recently gave up the ghost and I am now in the market for a new estate car.

I have narrowed it down to three cars. My budget is 12/13K and I am looking at an Octavia Estate, Superb Estate (if the money will stretch that far - I have seen a couple just above 13k that I could stretch to) or a Mk 4 Focus Estate.

The real quandary I have is about fuel. On paper, a diesel is the obvious choice. My commute is a 70 mile round trip and all motorway. I am also considering buying a lightweight (1000kg) caravan so I want something to tow it.

However, my big worry is that given the recent bad publicity around diesels, there is a risk of a massive hike in tax/duty on diesel any time soon to disincentivise it as a fuel over petrol.

Looking at my car options, Diesels are definitely cheaper in the choices I have highlighted above (in particular, used mk4 focus petrols are quite a bit more expensive than Diesels).

My question is - am I worrying overly about this issue, and should I just take the plunge and buy another diesel? I tend to run my cars to the end of their life rather than trade them in so whatever I will get will probably last me until such time as the position around EVs is a lot clearer in a few years time.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully your views will help me to decide which fuel to go for!

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Wed 7 Apr 2021 19:58
Skoda Octavia Estate - A difficult decision to make - _

According to others here, the Superb is a better car.

In my humble opinion you could have a party in the back of one.

Consdered a Kia Optima or Hyundai i40, ?? both have good diesel engines, both better than an octavia.

www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202102128982400?m...3

4 years Kia warranty left, and from a KIA dealer/

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Wed 7 Apr 2021 20:02
Skoda Octavia Estate - A difficult decision to make - Ropy

Funnily enough I did look at the Optima as well. I am going to go and test drive one and see what they are like to drive.

I do like the superb though - if only for the umbrellas in the doors!

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Wed 7 Apr 2021 20:12
Skoda Octavia Estate - A difficult decision to make - _

Funnily enough I did look at the Optima as well. I am going to go and test drive one and see what they are like to drive.

I do like the superb though - if only for the umbrellas in the doors!

For the Optima,

Look on the Kia approved website, and don't forget to check service history for that OM warranty

used-uk.kia.com/used-car-details/used-kia-optima-1.../

I can recommend Tower Hill, near watford.

Edited by _ORB_ on 07/04/2021 at 20:16

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Wed 7 Apr 2021 20:00
Skoda Octavia Estate - A difficult decision to make - badbusdriver

You can never really be totally certain on which way the wind is going to blow, but I don't really see there being too much diesel issues in between now and the (new) ICE ban in 2030, certainly if the car meets current emissions regs.

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Thu 8 Apr 2021 10:19
Skoda Octavia Estate - A difficult decision to make - Ian_SW

The Octavia will be the cheapest for the age as the model has just been replaced. It looks like you could get a 69 reg with less than 10k miles for the £13k budget. Also, for both the Octavia and Superb, it's worth considering the hatchback version too unless you have a dog or want to carry wardrobes, as they are cheaper (i.e. means you can get a newer or higher spec car for the same money than for an estate). The space in the boot up to the parcel shelf in the hatch is almost exactly the same as than in the estate up to the luggage cover as the floor area is the same in both.

The question I'd be thinking between diesel and petrol is whether there is enough difference in real life MPG to justify the diesel, given that diesel (fuel not the car) is a bit more expensive.

I'm yet to come across any diesel which genuinely does more than 60mpg when driven normally. It's quite possible to get 50mpg in a petrol these days - my wife averages about 52mpg in her 1.2 TSI Leon on a similar length motorway commute to the OP.

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Thu 8 Apr 2021 11:16
Skoda Octavia Estate - A difficult decision to make - skidpan

We have driven 4 Octavias, 3 estates and a hatch 3 of which were petrol's and one a diesel. 3 had the simple beam rear suspension and one fully independent. 2 were manuals, 2 DSG. A pretty good mix me thinks.

Whilst the hatch was acceptable (1.4 TSi 150 PS) all 3 estates were anything but with horrendous booming from the rear, its a common observation on the Skoda forum and has been mentioned on here as well. For us it made the estate unacceptable but as noted above the hatches are very spacious unless you need to carry wardrobes etc and we even have a dog in hatch back cars. At that point we spoke to the salesman about placing an order Via Carfile for the 1.4 TSi 150 PS hatch in SE-L trim with a few options but that very day the order book had been closed for 4 months minimum waiting for the revised model to arrive. That put us back to the start line.

The salesman suggested we look at the Superb hatch but initially we thought it too large but after being lent a 1.4 TSi 150 PS in SE trim or the morning we were converted, better refinement by far, better trim and more space yet did not drive like a huge car and spoke to the salesman about placing an order via Carfile. Looking at specs the SE Superb suited us better than the SE-L Octavia, it missed a few unimportant to us bits but many of the options we needed on the Octavia were standard on the Superb. Once priced up the Superb actually worked out slightly less. Ordered one, took almost 4 months but worth the wait. Replaced it with another Superb last October (a iV PHEV this time), very satisfied with the model.

Regarding fuel economy the Superb 1.4 TSi is surprisingly good, over almost 4 years it averaged just over 45 mpg but on a 1000 miles Scottish road trip (we do it twice a year) it would average about 53 mpg. The best diesel mpg we have had in the past was a 1.6 CRDi Kia Ceed 115 PS, 51 mpg over 5 years and 56 mpg on the Scottish road trip, but it was nowhere near as quick for overtaking or as refined.

Get some test drives now garages are opening up again.

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