Skoda Octavia 1.6 FSI Ambiente 5dr

Have owned this 06 plate for just over two months now. This is the third car I have had which has been based on a VW Golf, but never actually owned a Golf. I've previously had a VW Bora TDI Sport and a Seat Leon Cupra, both of which were based on the earlier MKIV Golf. This second generation Octavia is based on the later Golf MKV. You will usually find that the Golf equivalents represent better value for money than the Golf and are sometimes better cars too. Golfs tend to be too overpriced, especially at main dealers and in recent years VW has received bad press compared to Skoda which always comes out as one of the top manufacturers in terms of customer satisfaction. Skoda prides itself as being a manufaturer of cars for happy drivers and I am certainly one of them. It's early days yet, but so far I am very impressed. Let's hope it continues.

This version comes with the 1.6 FSI engine and Ambiente trim. It produces 115bhp. The engine needs to be worked to get it going, but is by no means slow considering the size of this car and does a decent enough job in lugging it around. Fuel economy is impressive for a petrol engined car of this size. From my own calculations I regularly get around 37mpg on shorter journeys and 40+mpg can easily be achieved on longer runs. Even the trip computer is fairly accurate. It's good to drive with safe, secure handling and the gearchange has a pleasing action with fairly short throws. The brakes are impressive and require little pressure in stopping this car.

Inside the materials used are of high quality. The interior is pretty dark, but that's no bad thing really. The dashboard is clear and easy to read and the sound system is as good as any I've heard. There's a cd player in the head unit and a six disc autochanger located in the boot. By the way, the boot is very big. Equipment levels are quite good with the Ambiente spec and there's useful oddments storage. It's just nice little touches like the indicators where you just have to touch the indicator stalk instead of actually flicking it and the indicator flashes several times. This is very handy for when you're changing lanes on the motorway or pulling out around another vehicle for example. The headlamps do a fine job of lighting the way.

In conclusion I am very impressed with this car and would certainly recommend it. I'm glad I bought a Skoda. It does what it says on the tin. If there's any criticism I could make is that it's not the most exciting to look at and the standard 15 inch alloy wheels are a little bit too small for the car, but that's just nitpicking. I considered going for a diesel version, but would have cost £500- £1000 more. Most people nowadays think they've got to have diesel, but really this only makes sense if you cover a huge mileage. I like diesels, but am glad that I went for the petrol version. It doesn't cost an arm and a leg to run. There's still a stigma attached to the Skoda badge, but the people who joke about today's Skodas obviously don't know much about cars.