Overview

The Skoda Octavia Estate is among the very best estate cars on sale, which also makes it one of our favourite family cars. It’s relatively compact on the outside – which helps when parking – but substantially more spacious inside than all its rivals. In fact, the Octavia Estate’s boot is bigger than that of many much bigger wagons. Put simply, if you need a car that can carry five and their luggage with the minimum of fuss, this is where you should start looking.

An Octavia Estate has been available alongside its hatchback sibling ever since the model was launched in the UK in 1998, and its always been noted for its space and practicality. The current, fourth generation version was launched in 2020 and updated in 2024 with sharpened styling, extra standard equipment and a revised model range.

We have a lot of experience of this car at Parkers. As well as testing multiple versions of the facelifted Octavia Estate, we’ve also spent extended periods living with the pre-facelift car. That includes a six-month long-term test of a 1.5-litre petrol model that focussed on assessing how practical this load lugger is for families with young children. You can read more about how we test cars at Parkers.

Previous generations of Octavia haven’t quite matched the commanding Volkswagen Golf in a number of areas. But Skoda has addressed the issues in this latest version by matching the car’s closely-related stablemate – they share a lot of components under the skin – for perceived quality, making the tech more user-friendly, and placing a high priority on comfort.

The Octavia Estate’s 640-litre boot is also bigger than the 605 litres a VW Golf Estate provides. Indeed, it’s bigger than the boot in every rival including the also-related SEAT Leon Estate, the Ford Focus Estate, Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer, Kia Ceed Sportswagon and Toyota Corolla Touring Sports – all but the SEAT fail to crack the 600-litre mark. The Peugeot 308 SW just about does, but not in every version.

Similarly, if you’re more focused on carrying capacity than prestige, the Octavia is a great alternative to bigger premium estates such as the BMW 3 Series Touring, Mercedes C-Class Estate and Audi A4 Avant. Again, the Skoda has more load capacity than all of them. Indeed, of all estates on the market, only the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and Skoda Superb estates offer significantly more boot space.

The Octavia Estate line-up mirrors that of the hatchback. The engine range was rejigged with the facelift and now includes a single petrol and diesel engine, though both are available with two horsepower ratings. The 150hp petrol and diesel models are our top choices, though the rumoured return of the plug-in hybrid may be worth waiting. Likewise, the updated high-performance vRS version, which is due to arrive in the UK in late 2024.

There are three standard trim levels: SE Technology, SE L and Sportline. That’s a slight revision to the pre-facelift line-up – Sportline reappears and the most basic SE variant disappears. Standard equipment is upgraded across the board. All models now have LED headlights, 13.0-inch infotainment screen, 10.0-inch digital instrument cluster and more powerful wireless phone charging to go with wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity.

Click through the following pages to read everything you need to know about the Skoda Octavia Estate. We cover its practicality, how much it costs to run, what it’s like to live with, how it feels to drive. They you can read our verdict to find out whether we recommend buying one.