[neoonwheels]

Originally Posted by Maky

Thanks for sharing your experience with the Octavia neoon.


I see in your posted picture you have the Style variant. I too am considering the much cheaper Style variant over the L&K. I had some questions for you if you don't mind..

Could you tell me If on your highway journeys you found the headlight lacking in anyway? given the Style does not have presumably superior projectors headlights?
Otherwise, are there any of the features from L&K you really miss having in the Style variant?

Thank you : )

Yup, this is the only thing I feel Style lacks which actually makes a difference. Headlight throw is not sufficient and I end up using fog lamps.

Btw I am on a 3500kms long drive currently and would soon update this thread with my experience

[pratyush369]

The Decision:
The Honda City 3rd Gen Facelift has served my family extremely well since 2012 and We have never had any complaints in 10 years of ownership, it has set the bar for our next car extremely high. Since the City was getting pretty old, we felt like it was time for an upgrade and started looking for a premium sedan in this era of SUVs.

Major criteria for selecting our next car:

1) The car should be a petrol sedan & it must feel like a decent upgrade from my arrowhead Honda City.
2) The car must offer a powerful drivetrain and great driving experience.
3) The car should be extremely safe, feature packed, has the latest infotainment & driver assist systems.
4) It must be around 25-35 lakhs range.
5) It should be reliable and should require only periodic maintenance.

We’ve considered only Honda Civic and Skoda Octavia as there are not many options in our price range. Unfortunately, Civic, Hyundai Elantra & Corolla were discontinued by the time we took our decision. Considering the discontinued cars, the Skoda Octavia still felt like the right choice even before the test drive.
This post is divided into three sections that includes my pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase experience of the new 2022 edition of Skoda Octavia.

Pre-purchase:
In April 22, I went for a test drive of the Skoda Octavia and was super impressed with the overall package that Skoda has to offer. It was without a doubt a premium car.

The following are my initial observations from the Skoda Octavia test drive: (for detailed review please look at the post-purchase section)

- Exterior: The car looks amazing from all the angles, the sharp headlights with split style DRLs, swooping body lines and the rear Lift back design all comes together very well and looks fantastic. The ground clearance is adequate, I even took the car in some very rough and bumpy roads during the TD, and surprisingly it didn’t scrape even once.
- Interior & Infotainment: The car had ample of space. Interior is very understated and premium. My only complaint was that climate controls didn’t have dedicated button and can only be controlled over the 10-inch main screen. The infotainment system was quick and responsive. Wireless Android Auto and CarPlay was a very welcome addition along with all the USB-C ports. Both the screens offered a lot of information and worked nicely during the TD including the Voice Control.
- Driving: The 2.0 TSI is great fun, the power is quick and the gear shifts from the DSG are almost undetectable. I would have preferred a RWD setup but I can’t have it all. The chassis mates quite nicely with the drivetrain and is capable but a stiffer suspension and/or drive modes would’ve made it just perfect.
- Handling: The steering is very light and responsive, there is not a lot of direct feedback and that might become unwelcoming in very high speeds. Overall, the car handles quite good there are no major complaints. The brakes were nice and had a comfortable progression. The car handled very well and was confidence inspiring.
- Features: The Octavia has standard safety features like ABS, EBD VSA, etc. I don’t particularly care for sunroofs but I really wanted ventilated seats. Talking about missing features, I would’ve loved to see some ADAS features like lane switch assist, adaptive cruise & lane keep but the only driver assist system available is the drive fatigue alert.

The Octavia definitely felt like an upgrade over the City and I was aware how much the Octavia badge is loved amongst the petrol heads in India.
Overall, I was impressed with the test drive and immediately fell in Love with the Octavia, for me it was a typical European sedan to replace my Honda City. It screamed luxury, comfort and performance even though it lacked few of the things I was looking for like ADAS features & ventilated seats but it was not a deal breaker for me.

My mind was made up, Octavia was the car of choice but because of all the horror stories about Skoda in India I took my sweet time to research before booking the car. The car had no inherent problems since its launch in 2021 and people have spoken positively about the car. Coming to my major concern that is Skoda itself. According to what I’ve read in Team-BHP forum & trusted friends in the automobile space, Skoda India has improved after it’s India 2.0 project and started to focus on customer satisfaction. They are trying hard but it’s not all fixed just yet. In a nut-shell what I understood was look for the best Skoda dealer and service in your city and build a trust with them, ensure they understand exactly what you expect right from purchase to future maintenance of the car. I just hope that the DSG gearbox holds up well over the years.

After comparing the features between the two variants (Style and L&K). We decided to go for the L&K because of Auto levelling LED Headlamps, Canton speaker system, electric tailgate, Hands free parking and other additions that were nice to have including the larger 7J wheels.

Purchase:
Finally in October i.e., almost 3 months after the test drive we decided to purchase the vehicle. We ended up taking the new Graphite Grey colour Skoda Octavia in L&K Trim, that was available for delivery within few days and went in for a final PDI and delivery a day after the car arrived at the showroom. PDI was done using the Team-BHP PDI checklist for new cars. Everything was absolutely fine, ODO had only 10Kms and the car checked out. We negotiated and managed to decline the insurance offered by Skoda and purchased it for almost half the price outside.

Purchase details as follows:

- Location: Raipur, Chhattisgarh
- Dealer: Speed Automotive – Skoda, Raipur
- Manufacturing Date: Aug/2022
- Invoice Price: Rs. 30,45,000
- RTO Chhattisgarh: Rs. 3,80,000 (Rounded-off)
- Insurance Add-ons (Cost: Rs. 74,000):

o Zero depreciation/ Bumper to Bumper Cover
o Invoice Price Protection
o Engine cover
o Car Key cover
o Rim Protection

- The 4-Year Maintenance pack for Rs.45,000. (As per the Skoda representative, it doesn’t include wheel alignment/balancing & brake pads).

Booking and delivery of the car was very smooth Speed Automotive ensured fast delivery. I noticed that the Skoda representatives were not able to give proper details about the car, like for instance I noticed that the Voice control features were not working regardless of the language selected, it was not working like the test drive Octavia, they told they’ll update the system before delivery but till this date it is in same condition. Even when a command is recognized by the voice assistant it shows as functionality not supported.

Post-Purchase & Initial Review:
I have driven the car for more than 2000kms after it’s delivery on 18th October. It has been incredible so far and I have enjoyed every km of it. First of all, the attention to detail and cleaver additions to the car makes it a lot more pleasant to live with. The car looks and feels exceptional, the build quality is top-notch inside and out. There are few things I didn't like about the infotainment system but maybe Skoda can fix these with a software update.

Here are some of my Likes and Dislikes:


Likes:

• I love the way the car looks; everything is well put together and has a nice premium touch to it. The door shuts with a satisfying thud, I like that the back of the car doesn’t have a fake exhaust cut out and the whole exterior is very sharp and clean looking. The panel gaps are consistent along with the paint quality.

• The interior is spacious, the electrically adjustable seats with memory function for front passenger seats is nice to have. The interior design is very neat and looks very sophisticated with the interior lighting. The seats are comfortable and relaxing. I like that the front doors have an umbrella holder.

• The boot is big and the lift back tailgate helps in loading and unloading of heavy items. Space organizers, hooks & partitions in the boot is also a plus point. The additional storage space all around the interior is also good to have.

• Wireless Android Auto and Car Play is nice to have, also the infotainment system connects to multiple devices at once for calling. The main 10-inch screen is very bright and there will be no issues in using the display in sunlight. The sound quality is nice and punchy at times, there are no rattling noise inside the car even on high volumes.

• The drive is fantastic, the car pulls quickly and is fun to drive every time you get behind the wheel. The ride is very comfortable and road imperfections are soaked up easily by the soft suspension setup. The steering is light and comfortable on long rides.

• The noise levels inside the car are well dampened, lower NVH levels helps a lot in long stretch of driving and makes travelling less tiring for the passengers. The gear selector is very easy to use. It is very convenient to switch between drive and reverse also the foot controls are positioned well.

• I have realized if you drive the car with a light foot, you can extract decent milage from it.

• The car has good driveability, visibility from the driver seat is good. Turning radius of the car is also impressive. The rear view mirrors are big enough and gives adequate adjustment room. The headlamps work very well and in highways the visibility is more than enough, the auto levelling is fast and accurate at most times.

• Octavia is a feature packed car, I especially like the addition of slew of safety features like 8 airbags, vehicle stability assist systems, ESC, EBD, etc. to keep the passengers safe and sound. I also like the Automatically diming mirrors with defoggers on the driver side (they work well). The parking sensors are fairly adequate and helps a lot in manoeuvring the car in tight spaces.

• Pulsar black wheels looks nice and the 7J size allows for wider tyres in future. When set to right air pressure the wheels and tyres do a nice job of making the ride even more plush.

Dislikes:

• The beige seats and interior trim parts are already giving me nightmares and I am wondering how it will age overtime. I didn’t like the exclusion of interior lights from rear doors. The suede leather finish will be difficult to maintain and easy to stain.

• The stock tyres (Good Year Assurance) is not that great and doesn’t do justice to the car's performance. There is a lot of tyre noise and the grip isn't the best.

• Driving modes would’ve been nice. The launch control works but there is still a lot of tyre spin, maybe it is because of the crappy stock tyres.

• Air conditioner is controlled from the main touchscreen, there are no physical buttons to control it. It has a button that quickly opens the climate controls on the touchscreen but it still adds a lot of extra steps. The A/C recirculation settings gets reset every time the car starts or smart A/C features are used.

• The infotainment interface can be improved a lot, there are a lot of steps to do simple tasks like changing vehicle settings, the gesture controls doesn’t work perfectly and the temperature control from the volume slider using two-fingers usually doesn’t work. I would've preferred TMPS to provide accurate pressure reading from the tyres but it only detects pressure loss. The infotainment also hangs sometimes, I've read MY21 owners complain about it, the MY22 infotainment is more stable in comparison.

• Wireless charging is very slow and if there is a cover on your phone it will take hours to charge. Placement of the front USB-C ports makes it prone to dust and debris. Lack of sub-woofer is also felt from the latest MY22 iterations.

• Lack of ventilated seats, and driver assist systems. I expected Skoda to add adaptive cruise control or at least lane switch assist to the Octavia.

• When cornering in higher-than-average speeds there is some amount of body roll and the suspension setup is more comfort oriented. A stiffer & direct steering would've been nice for speed runs.

• The Snap-On lug nut covers came loose and had to replace it. I feel Skoda could’ve done a better job with these. The inner lining on right rear wheel arch is already torn and I have to get it checked at Skoda ASS.

• I use android auto for navigation & only basic Route guidance is shown on the driver screen, no map is visible.

• To answer or decline calls from the steering mounted control, first the driver needs to use the scroll wheel to highlight answer or decline option and then select the desired one, also I cannot end the calls from the steering mounted controls. (or maybe I haven't figured it out just yet). All of these adds extra steps and increases the risk of accidents.

The surprise and disappointment with 2022 Skoda Octavia:
When I took the test drive in April 22, I drove the 2021 edition of Octavia that had an additional feature when compared to the latest MY22 edition and was cheaper. During the whole purchase phase I was never informed about the changes with 2022 Skoda Octavia and I realized only after finalizing the deal and taking the delivery.
It was the Canton 12-Speaker System; Recently, Skoda has removed the Canton sound system from all its vehicles due to chip shortage. I was surprised that even after the deliver the Skoda representatives were unaware about this change and failed to inform me. I was very disappointed that I had to pay more to get less from the latest iteration of the Octavia. Removal of The Canton 610W speaker system was a huge bummer for me, at least Skoda could’ve given another 12 speaker system and fill the empty speaker spaces.

Overall, I am satisfied with my purchase and looking forward for a long trouble-free ownership experience. I hope my journey of the purchasing the new Skoda Octavia and initial impressions will help potential buyers.

For a very detailed review of the new Octavia, please read Octavia 4th Gen Review by Omkar (Skoda Octavia 2.0 TSI DSG Review)

Some photos to enjoy:















Details from my recent trip from Raipur Chhattisgarh to Bengaluru, KA. The milage was unexpected.

Please feel free to shoot questions about the 2022 Octavia, I'll try my best to answer them.

This is my first Team-BHP post, glad to be part of this wonderful community.

[pavi]

That's a great choice you have made. As you said, it's an enthusiasts dream to own and drive an Octavia. The alloy wheels are the only thing which I fail to digest even now. For me it screams after market, they should have gone for a sublime looking one. Everything else is just wow.

[sandeepmukunda]

Congratulations, I had even placed a booking for Octavia on September 22, I got allotment on 19th Oct 22, but given I was reading news of 11 speaker removal, if your car was manufactured in July, you would've got the 11 speaker system, all vehicles manufactured post-August 22 have these features removed, with the addition of my Skoda feature.

So I rejected the allotment, in fact the car allotted to me was rejected by the previous booking owner, too, I believe it must be due to feature removal.

Now I am back to square one, whether to wait or pick a Kushaq Monte-Carlo.

[pratyush369]

Hello, I have some questions for Skoda owners and bhpians in Bengaluru, KA:

1. Which are the best and most highly recommended Skoda service center(s)? (I live around Kadugodi in Bengaluru). Any contacts or trusted Skoda representative's information would be great.
2. Anything I should look out for when dealing with Skoda service centers?
3. I was looking for floor mats for my Octavia. Should I go for Skoda's official all-weather floor mats or 5D/7D floor mats that will cover additional floor space?
4. Are there any protectants or sealants that I can use for the Suede finish on the interior trims & seats of the Octavia? (3M Scotchgaurd?)

[suvan1988]

Folks, I was just speaking to my SA regarding any new software upgrade and was casually chit chatting about Octavia availability and about the recent changes. I got to know there is one white Octavia L&K available with 11 speaker canton system. Details below:

City: Bangalore
Dealership: PPS Skoda (Jakkur or Sadasiva Nagar)
Contact Person: Sujit
Colour: White
I am not mentioning his contact details as this is a public forum but if you can DM me, I would be happy to share the details.

It is available immediately. I would highly recommend to buy at the earliest before the new model comes in.

Cheers!

[sunikkat]

Congratulations @pratyush369 - personally its the best car to buy under a 330i. Wish you many miles of safe driving. Your car is definitely a looker. The Skoda service in Bangalore has definitely improved. Been dealing with Tafe Bangalore since 7 years and they are great. Honestly I dont find much difference between Skoda and Hyundai service experiences.

[84.monsoon]

Congratulations, the car looks awesome! I know the absence of the Canton system is a disappointment, but the fact that you are essentially getting an Audi A4 in terms of performance, quality and comfort should cheer you up!

I hope they bring back the Canton system soon, as the chip shortages are now fading across the industry and also hope Skoda offer it as a dealer retrofit for L&K cars that missed it - this would be the right thing for Skoda to do.

[EaurougeatSpa]

Originally Posted by pratyush369

Hello, I have some questions for Skoda owners and bhpians in Bengaluru, KA:[list=1][*]Which are the best and most highly recommended Skoda service center(s)? (I live around Kadugodi in Bengaluru). Any contacts or trusted Skoda representative's information would be great.

I would recommend Tafe Access on St Marks road.

[Travelfarbeyond]

Originally Posted by pratyush369

The Decision:
The Honda City 3rd Gen Facelift has served my family extremely well since 2012 and We have never had any complaints in 10 years of ownership, it has set the bar for our next car extremely high. Since the City was getting pretty old, we felt like it was time for an upgrade and started looking for a premium sedan in this era of SUVs.

Congratulations Pratyush This is indeed a fine set of machine and you'll never outgrow the Skoda experience. After 11 years of happy Skoda Rapid, I also went for Octi L&K last month and its like first car experience (post 18 years of driving)
I never faced any issue with Skoda customer care since 2011 and it has evolved many folds now. So don't worry, about that aspect.

All Skodas are worry free vehicles (barring EPC error in Kushaq recently and that has been resolved too)

One thing comes with Skoda Octavia is owner's exclusivity as you'll see the majority of folks going for Superb in that bracket hence for the normal public Octavia seems to be an imported car as you don't find enough on the road. Enjoy it while you can.

So wishing you happy miles and loads of smiles with fantastic memories with your new Octavia. Welcome to the club

[rahul1407]

Originally Posted by pratyush369

The Decision:
The Honda City 3rd Gen Facelift has served my family extremely well since 2012 and We have never had any complaints in 10 years of ownership, it has set the bar for our next car extremely high. Since the City was getting pretty old, we felt like it was time for an upgrade and started looking for a premium sedan in this era of SUVs.

Congratulations on the purchase. Glad to see inflow of many grey Octys on this thread. Having upgraded from 3rd Gen City FL too, I can totally relate to the levels of happiness one would get while owning and driving this delightful machine.

• The stock tyres (Good Year Assurance) is not that great and doesn’t do justice to the car's performance. There is a lot of tyre noise and the grip isn't the best.

While this may have divided opinions but I second your thought as I had a major incident in my initial ownership (Skoda Octavia 2.0 TSI DSG Review), where I lost both left tyres in a pothole on an NH and I simply lost my trust in Good Year tyres. I decided to swap these with Michelin's Pilot Sport 4 with 225/50/R17 profile. Yes there will be significant burn in the pocket but the improvement in grip would be very evident and would compensate the expense.

Wishing you many more miles of joy and memories to cherish.

[mah45]

Originally Posted by rahul1407

I decided to swap these with Michelin's Pilot Sport 4 with 225/50/R17 profile. Yes there will be significant burn in the pocket but the improvement in grip would be very evident and would compensate the expense.

Wishing you many more miles of joy and memories to cherish.

Once again this brings me to the question about warranty concerns if you swap it with slightly larger size tyres than the stock ones.
Any pointers here?

[adi_petrolhead]

Disclaimer - personal experience, yours could be different

As with any car being sold these days, even when I bought my Octavia, 9 years ago, the warranty on suspension related components was for around 20K kms or 1 year as these are wear and tear parts. In any way, if you end up damaging the suspension, they're not going to honour warranty, nor is your insurance going to be of great help in case of a pothole hit damaging the suspension/wheel/tyre.

The change in tyres while maintaining the original circumference of the OEM wheel/tyre should not cause any issues. I have been using aftermarket rims, upsized tyres, since almost 6 years now. The levels of improvement in ride and grip, make you forget about any warranty woes. For Octavia A8 the OEM tyre size is 205/55/17. So your ideal upsize should be 225/50/17 (+20 width, -5 sidewall) which will still maintain the overall circumference of the OEM wheel. If you find a good tyre to match this size then go for it without a doubt.

[magikrider]

Owners can ya’ll throw some light on how the low GC issue has been for you on bad terrains liKe monsoon spoiled roads or those sharp and steep mountainous highway speed breakers meant for trucks. Has it been an issue anywhere as such?

[asterix]

Originally Posted by magikrider

Owners can ya’ll throw some light on how the low GC Has it been an issue anywhere as such?

After about 4000 km of city, highway and upcountry use, i didnt find GC to be a problem at all.