Skoda Octavia vRS Estate Review & Prices

The Skoda Octavia vRS Estate is practical performance distilled. It offers loads of space for passengers and a humungous boot, paired with punchy engines and an agile drive.

Compared with the VW Golf GTI, Ford Focus ST and Honda Civic Type R, the vRS offers serious space as well as back-road pace. It’s a bit like Usain Bolt wearing an army-issue rucksack.

Better still, the new one is efficient, too, because it features a range of new tech including an optional hybrid system. The hybrid model shares its hybrid drive tech with the Cupra Leon Estate, and goes up against hot estates such as the Leon and the Ford Focus ST..

The new Skoda Octavia vRS Estate takes the recently revamped Octavia and adds plenty of sporty features. Its front grille now gets a moody black finish, there’s a huge new air intake in the bottom half of the front bumper and the plastic trims above the fog lights come painted black, too. Lowered suspension, and larger alloy wheels complete the Octavia’s vRS makeover.

The new Skoda Octavia vRS Estate’s interior follows a pattern set by the latest VW Golf and SEAT Leon. Everything’s very simple, minimalist and (mostly) button-free. It features a large central touchscreen infotainment system, a digital driver’s display instead of conventional analogue dials and a dinky selector switch instead of a chunky gear lever.

Its dashboard has a slightly more flowing design to it than these cars, though, and you get plenty of bright red trims to make sure you don’t mistake it for the standard Octavia inside. Red mood lighting on the doors and red stitching on the more supportive sports seats add to the vRS’s sporty demeanour, as do the embroidered headrests and vRS-specific graphics on the driver’s display.

The new Skoda Octavia vRS Estate is available as a vRS iV hybrid model. This uses the same combination of 1.4-litre petrol engine and electric motor as the new VW Golf GTE and hybrid variants of the Cupra Leon Estate

As a result, it produces an identical 245hp and drives the front wheels through the same six-speed DSG automatic gearbox. Skoda says it’ll reach 60mph from rest in less than 7.3 seconds and reach 140mph. You’ll also be able to travel for around 39 miles using just electric power.

The low CO2 emissions of up to 36g/km should also make the car attractive to company car user-choosers.

However, estates are all about carrying capacity, and the positioning of the PHEV’s batteries beneath the boot floor compromise space by 150 litres.

The new Octavia Estate isn’t just going to come as a hybrid, though – you’ll also be able to get a purely-petrol-powered version with a 245hp 2.0-litre engine. This model will come with a six-speed manual gearbox as standard, or you can upgrade to a seven-speed DSG automatic, and it also features an electronic limited-slip differential for maximum traction out of corners.

Finally, there’ll also be a 200hp 2.0-litre diesel-powered Octavia vRS Estate. This model will ditch the manual gearbox option and come with the seven-speed auto as standard. But, you will be able to upgrade from front- to four-wheel drive for a bit of extra traction in slippery conditions.

So, if you like your estate with a decent dose of space and pace, look no further than the Skoda Octavia. Head to our deals page for the best prices. You can also check out our latest used Skodas for sale, and see here how you can sell your car online.

The Octavia vRS Estate is quick and secure, but isn’t actually a great deal of fun to drive

Variety is the spice, apparently, and Skoda seems to agree because you can have your Octavia vRS Estate with a choice of three powertrains.

The conventional hot hatch-based estate engine is the turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder unit that produces 245hp and 370Nm of torque. This drives the front wheels through a six-speed manual gearbox or a seven-speed twin-clutch DSG automatic and an electronic limited-slip differential to maximise traction.

The second engine choice is a 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbodiesel that generates 200hp and 400Nm, and you can have this as just front-wheel drive or with four-wheel drive.

The final option is the plug-in hybrid, which links a 1.4-litre turbocharged petrol engine with an electric motor. This combination generates 245hp and 400Nm. This is a front-drive-only powertrain.

A 7kW wall charger will top up the batteries in a couple of hours, which will allow you to do around 39 miles on electric power alone.

The 2.0-litre petrol engine is pretty punchy, and feels like it will easily match Skoda’s performance claims. It revs cleanly and has proper strength to get what is quite a large car moving from a standstill.

The twin-clutch DSG gearbox changes gear swiftly and smoothly, and does a pretty decent job of knowing which gear you want to be in at any given moment.

The Octavia vRS Estate’s suspension is stiffer and 15mm lower than that in lesser Octavias (apart from the PHEV, which is the same height), and you can really feel the difference. It does good job of dealing with the UK’s scarred backroads, and doesn’t get too deflected by bumps. The body remains under total control at all times, too, so you don’t have to put up with any unseemly pitching and rolling.

The ‘progressive’ steering is neat, too, because it’s quick enough to required just a single turn to go from straight ahead to full lock at parking speeds, but is slow enough so that it doesn’t feel frantic at faster speeds.

Having said all that, a Ford Focus ST Estate, definitely feels sharper and more involving. The Octavia also suffers from some unpleasant wheel hopping when you put your foot down in slippery conditions. Not nice.

Still, the Octavia vRS Estate also comes with matrix LED headlights that automatically block out part of their beam when a car comes towards you or you catch slower traffic. In effect, you can have full beam on all the time and the car takes care of not blinding anyone.

The Octavia vRS Estate is massive for people and luggage, but the batteries in the PHEV model compromise the boot space

Being big on the outside translates into being big on the inside, too.

There’s a simply enormous amount of space for four occupants in the Octavia Estate, although while there’s decent space for a fifth person in the middle of the rear seat, they’re likely to feel a bit unloved because the seat itself isn’t that plush or comfortable.

The front sports seats are large with huge side bolsters to support you when you’re getting on with getting where you need to be, and there’s loads of headroom, legroom and adjustment, so getting comfortable will never be a problem.

Rear-seat occupants will feel pretty good about their lot, too, because there’s also loads of space, on top of which the sculpted seats hold you in just the right way. Unless you’re in the middle.

The two outside rear passengers also get a neat little pocket on the back of the front seats for their smartphones, although it’s a shame this is sited so low – it’d be nice if you could watch videos on your phone while it was supported in the pocket.

There are quite a few oddment areas doted around the Octavia’s cabin. For a start, the glovebox is a decent size, and it’s backed up by a large cubby below the armrest between the front seats.

The centre console also contains a lidded area with two cupholders, which also have rubber grippers to hold a bottle steady.

Ahead of the gearlever sits a flat area for your smartphone, and it also contains a couple of USB sockets so you can charge it up.

There’s another little storage area by the driver’s right knee, and the door pockets are truly enormous. Better still, they’re lined so that the stuff in them doesn’t rattle.

In the back, the door bins are also large and lined, and the central armrest features a couple of cupholders.

As with any Octavia Estate, the boot is enormous; the petrol and diesel models have a full 640 litres of space. However, the PHEV’s batteries reside below the boot floor, so it has only 490 litres available. Bear in mind though, that a Ford Focus ST Estate has only 476 litres, so you aren’t being short-changed.

The boot is a decent shape, and there are all the usual hooks and lashing points to make sure everything remains where you put it, even during a spirited drive home.

The seats fold down with just a tug of a lever on the side of the load compartment, and if you have the adjustable floor in its highest setting the load area is almost flat.

The interior is much more stylish than those of previous Octavias Estates, but some scratchy trims let the side down

The standard Octavia Estate’s interior feels quite modern, mainly because many of the buttons have been removed and incorporated into the large central touchscreen. It all looks neat and comparatively classy.

To what is a decent starting point, the vRS adds some neat enhancements. The flat-bottomed steering wheel features leather trim and a vRS badge, and proper physical steering wheel buttons instead of the touch-sensitive controls on the Golf GTI.

The digital dashboard features some vRS-specific dials, and the large sports seats and kick plates also feature vRS badging, just in case you forget. The pedals are also alloy, to enhance the sporty feel

There’s red stitching throughout, and the dashboard itself features some attractive Alcantara and some plastic fake carbon fibre that looks dodgy at best.

The plastics feel acceptable, but there are a few scratchy trims, which detracts from the quality feel. The gear selector for the DSG transmission also feels more than a little shonky.

All Octavia vRS Estates come with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, DAB radio and Bluetooth. You also get no fewer than five USB charging points. This system is snappy in its response and very easy to navigate your way around.

The vRS Estate features a 10-inch screen with built-in sat-nav. It’s the same basic system as in lesser Octavias, so is quite quick to respond and easy to understand. However, with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto being so good, we’d just use that. The graphics on the standard system are a bit dark, so sometimes can be difficult to read, and having the climate controls in the screen system is far more awkward than just having a  few more buttons.

In all vRS Estate models the driver gets 10-inch digital dials. They look fantastic and are easily configurable with vRS-specific functions, and they also have the ability to show either various trip and car info or the sat-nav’s map if you have it on your model.