Skoda review: 500,000 miles up and still motoring
THE Skoda Octavia has been an iconic car for the Czech outfit since it was launched in 1996 and one of the reasons for this special status is the very reason why this week I am driving a version of the car which has clocked up a remarkable half-a-million miles during a lifetime spent — largely — as a taxi in Co Clare.
Now it is not very often we would even be offered such a car for test purposes but when the owner wrote to Skoda to tell them he wished to off-load his 500,000 mile Octavia, the company decided to buy.
Originally purchased by the Sullivan family from Co Clare from Newport Motors in Co Tipperary for use as a taxi, it was passed from father to son before Å koda heard about it when the son was emigrating. The company duly picked it up for a couple of hundred euro to appear on their press fleet.
Skoda says that the car was serviced regularly during never had any major issues. They gave it a service, a fine tune and a full valet (although it still smells like an elderly taxi inside) and it passed its NCT test.
Gold coloured, the car bears much evidence of its age on both the exterior and the interior. There are various scratches and bumps around the bodywork and on the inside, although the upholstery is in remarkably good shape, the steering wheel is very hand-worn, as is the shiny gear-knob and gear stick cover. The cloth door linings are also saggy and sad.
Everything else though, is pretty much as it was. Sure there’s none of the fancy-dan stuff like air con, or airbags — or even rear disc brakes, but hey, that’s the way it used to be.
The dashboard is clean and neat, albeit uncluttered with the sort of modern stuff you get these days. The radio is one of those old slip-in jobs on which the control buttons are treacherously small and impossible to read, or operate. All that’s left is the instrument binnacle where there is a rev counter, speedo and temperature and fuel gauges.
Then there is a little digital clock, which doubles as a mini on-board computer and the odometer, clearly telling us the magnitude of the mileage which the venerable car has clocked up.
Start her up and the expected black cloud emerges thick and strong from the exhaust, but the car actually feels like it is coming to life as the chassis shakes and shimmies from the sudden input of energy from under the hood. But engage gear and everything settles down to a comfortable hum.
The years and the miles have not appeared to have degraded the capabilities of the 1.9 litre turbodiesel engine — it out-putted some 90 bhp back then, had a top speed of 182 kph and a 0-100 kph time of 13.7 seconds. It also consumed some five litres per 100 km (56 mpg).
I expected the acceleration to be relatively dim-witted and slow having been dulled by age and I wasn’t too far wrong, but once up to a cruising pace, in fourth and fifth gears, it demonstrated a surprising amount of alacrity.
The Octavia was certainly not the sprightly thing it once was in terms of steering and the handling ability and the near complete absence of sphincter-tightening moments was a pleasing surprise.
Those who know my driving style had predicted at the outset of this test that this particular automotive elder lemon would have trouble lasting the pace and some knowingly muttered that all Å koda would get back was a steaming pile of junk with oil and steam pouring from every orifice. Not so.
The only worrying moment I had with the car was when the ABS warning light came on, but after several careful miles, nothing seemed amiss on that front and there was no terrifying incident where the middle pedal went to the floor or anything. If anything, there was reasonable justification for using that ‘old car fix-all’ of simply covering over the offending flashing light with a bit of tape.
So, I managed to put a comfortable couple of extra hundreds of miles onto the already stellar cumulative total and I have to say I pretty much enjoyed the whole experience. I didn’t drive the car in any way particularly differently than I might a new car and it answered all the questions I asked of it, which I’d have to admit was impressive.
For Skoda this was most certainly a valuable ‘look how strong our cars are’ PR exercise, but it was a brave one too considering how much potential there was for things to go wrong — and not the sort of things they’d really want a motoring hack to be harping on about.
In fact, I got the very definite impression that there was another couple of hundred of thousand miles left in this thing and was left wondering if Skoda were going to be wheeling it out again in another few years when it has more landmarks to celebrate.
***
a couple of hundred euro.
a strong and willing example of the old diesel technology that was surprisingly fresh and even more surprisingly willing — if a tad smoky.
it was considered ‘loaded’ in its’ day.
Well I never...
