For the uninitiated Australian car buyer, the Skoda car company is something of an unknown quantity, but with strong advertising campaigns and sponsoring of events like the cycling "Tour Down Under" in South Australia, its brand awareness is becoming much better.Skoda has been in the car making business for more than100 years and is today wholly owned by the Volkswagen Group.
Skodas are made in the Czech republic and are renowned for their build quality and reliability. Last year the company sold more than a million cars around the world.
Slowly but surely the brand is becoming more popular here in Australia, sold around the country in dealerships that also sell VWs.
Customers often remark about the Skoda's value for money when comparing similar Skoda and VW models.
The Skodas are as a rule, less expensive but just as good as the Volkswagen equivalent.
This is the Octavia Elegance 110 TDi wagon.
When it first went on sale in 2008, I thought the Octavia's styling was a little too bland, and almost indistinguishable from everything else on the road.
That's all changed however with the latest model. Sharp crease lines on each side of the body and redesigned front grille and rear end have lifted the Octavia's visual appeal.
Its clean crisp lines make it a smart, styling standout.
The Octavia's engines and other mechanicals are all VW sourced.
The 2.0 litre turbo diesel in the wagon on test here is a beaut and will be familiar to anyone who's driven the VW version. 110kw and 320 nm. combined with an fuel consumption average of just under 5 litres per 100 kilometres.
Loads of torque and almost silent operation add to the driving experience. At highway speeds the Skoda is a very pleasant and quiet place to be.There are no gear shift paddles on this Elegance model, but the console shifter for the DSG box is easy to use, and in Sport mode the Octavia is a really swift performer. On steeper downhill runs the DSG box will change to a lower gear unassisted, to give extra engine braking.
The ride is a little on the firm side but I could live with it. It only slightly loses composure over really rutted roads.
The Octavia's underpinnings owe much to the VW Golf, and as such the handling through bends is exemplary, neutral and well controlled, with good feel through the wheel.
Doors open wide for easy entry and exit, and they all close with a satisfying thud. Once inside you'll be impressed with the space.
Plenty of leg and headroom for all occupants, and an easily adjusted driver's position thanks to a reach and rake steering wheel.The dashboard layout is neat. Everything falls easily to hand, and the white on black instrument faces are easily read, day or night.
There's ample padding for arms and elbows and even the handbrake lever has a padded leather grip.
This Elegance model, comes with very comfy leather seats, sat nav, Bluetooth connectivity, and a reasonable sound system. There's no reversing camera, but a pictogram of the car instead, with warning beeps and animation if you're too close to an object when parking.
Opening the front doors at night reveals a red safety light in the lower edge, unlike even some luxury cars that make do with a square of reflective tape. The heated wing mirrors fold when the car is switched off and also contain puddle lights. It's all in the detail folks.
The cargo capacity is enormous, plenty of room for large loads, four hooks for shopping bags,and there's a full sized spare beneath the floor.
There's even the option of self parking and lane assist, similar to the recently tested E class Mercedes. Lane assist gently steers the Octavia back on track if the car starts to wander off line. Not too shabby for a 40 K car.
Quality is not an issue with Skoda vehicles. The latest global customer satisfaction survey by the influential JD Power, has the Skoda Superb, Octavia's larger sibling, named as the best in the world in terms of quality and reliability, followed by the Skoda Yeti, ahead of Jaguar's XF. By the way, the Superb was once awarded UK Top Gear Magazine Car of the Year. The previous winner was a Bentley. High praise indeed!
The Superb remains one of my favourite vehicles and the smaller Octavia is also well up on my list of cars I wouldn't mind owning. If you need more performance, Skoda has that covered as well, with its RS models in sedan and wagon.
The petrol RS is a Golf GTi underneath and there's also an RS TDi if diesels are your go. Not a bad selection. If you're looking for a Camry/Accord/Cruze sized family car, don't forget to also stop at the Skoda shop. Prices start at 23K for the base model sedans.
I'm confident you'll be both surprised and impressed.
Peter Sellen
As people movers go, Honda's Odyssey is one of the longest serving and most popular of the type.
With many buyers choosing multi seat SUVs as their family transport, sales of the traditional multi seat people mover have taken a bit of a back seat recently.
The Odyssey is one of very few vehicles that offer seating for eight people in reasonable comfort.
There are acres of sprawling room inside the cabin, as the body has been widened and is now taller than previous iterations.
Considering its purpose in life, it's still good looking vehicle, despite being chunkier than before. Head and leg room even in the third row( which will seat 3 adults) is excellent. Access to the cabin is good.
On this base model the offside sliding door is manual only, but the kerbside one is electrically operated either by the key fob or a switch near the driver's right knee. Both sliding doors on the up-spec L model are power assisted.
In both variants the large windows in the sliding side doors open,adding to the airy spacious feel of the cabin.
The rearmost seats tilt and fold into the cargo floor for a reasonably large carrying area, and even when all seats are in use there is still enough space for a few items of soft luggage.
Second and third row seats get overhead air conditioning vents. The base model has a fiddly satnav setup that requires cables and attachment to your mobile phone to work. A clumsy and untidy arrangement, resolved if you buy the more expensive Odyssey which has all those features built in to the information screen.
The seats themselves are covered in olde world velour fabric, and are reasonably comfortable but lack side support when cornering. Front pews have fold down armrests.. a good idea on long hauls. Honda has replaced the fold out tray between the front two seats with a sliding one that emerges from below the gear lever. For the thirsty, there are ten cup holders scattered about the "walk through" interior.
Honda's dashboard layout is simple, with a large speedo in front of the driver flanked by a linear tachometer and fuel gauge. But Honda, I think the days of fake wood trim are long gone. It does nothing to improve the interior ambience.
The steering column is adjustable for reach and rake and it was easy to get a comfy driving position.
The new Odyssey is powered by a 2.4 litre petrol engine mated to a CV transmission.
Honda engines are known for liking a good rev to get properly going and this one is no different. It's redlined at just under seven thousand rpm. There's a fuel saving stop/start feature. Average fuel consumption is just under 8 litres per 100 kilometres.
With 129 kw and 225 nm of torque, acceleration is leisurely,especially with a full complement of passengers on board. The CVT is an acquired taste, when driven hard it revs almost to its maximum, while the speed catches up. It sounds like a slipping clutch in a standard manual gearbox. It works just fine however and owners will get used to the unique characteristics. The central gearshift is located at the base of the instrument panel and there are steering wheel paddles as well if you prefer.
The suspension on the Odyssey when empty, is a little skittish and clunky over suburban ruts, and even when fully loaded does not deliver a very compliant or smooth ride.
The previous model was a joy to throw into corners, but thanks to more bulk and changes to the suspension the new Odyssey is not as happy when enthusiastically driven.
The headlights, as I have found on many other cars, are simply not good enough. In poorly lit urban streets their dull yellow glow barely lights the way for more than a few metres, and high beam is almost as weak.
The latest Odyssey is not as car-like or driver friendly as previous models.
Still, if you have a large tribe you need to transport, the 8 seat Odyssey, priced from 39K could fit the bill.
It's not bad value and has enough features to satisfy.
Peter Sellen
Recent convert to diesel power with its fine, well equipped and sporty Civic diesel, Honda has now entered the small SUV market with its second ever oil burner, the CR-V DTi-L.
The 2.2 litre CR-V diesel has a useful 110 kw and 350 nm of torque.
That's more than enough to haul five occupants and their luggage with ease. The engine has very little diesel rattle at idle, and anything above 60 kph is commendably quiet, up with the best from other makers.
The CRV has oodles of room inside, with such niceties as heated leather clad front seats.( The driver's pew has a two position memory and eight way electric adjustment.)
The overhead sunglasses holder doubles as a convex mirror above the main one, so drivers can keep an eye on the kids in the back seat without turning their head, and a steering wheel adjustable for reach and rake.
The dashboard layout is large and easily read, and visibility is excellent thanks to large glass areas.
The rear seats fold down using a couple of handles in the cargo area. It's one of the easiest to operate in this class.Pull them and the seat back tips forward, at the same time flipping the head restraints downwards out of the way, while releasing the seat squab to an upright position.The seat back then forms a large, flat cargo surface. It's a very smooth one touch system and will be welcomed by those used to struggling to change seat configurations on other SUVs.
For passengers there is a multitude of door pockets and other cubbies for small items, two 12 volt power sockets are handily placed and the central console lid and armrests have reasonable padding.
At night there are pale blue puddle lights in the front doors to guide your way. The CRV has bi xenon headlights with an active cornering system that turns the lamps to light up more of the kerb, reversing camera with sensors front and rear, keyless entry and start and 18 inch alloys. Honda has thoughtfully provided a full sized spare wheel.
So how does it drive? The CRV is by its very nature a workmanlike vehicle and that's not a bad thing.
As mentioned earlier, acceleration is brisk off the line, and engine noise is well muted once under way. There is a slight whine from the diesel on take off, but it's only audible with the windows down. You should get around 800 kilometres from a 58 litre tank in city driving and a few hundred more on the open road. Average fuel consumption, city/highway, is 6.7 litres per 100 kilometres.The five speed automatic gearbox shifts smoothly, and can be operated with the now common steering wheel paddles. There's also an ECO driving mode, than indicates when you are driving with fuel consumption in mind.
The seats are comfortable and the suspension is about average for the class. Small bumps are barely felt, but larger ones are not absorbed as well as I had expected.
However having said that,I often give my test cars the speed hump challenge, driving over the "traffic calming" devices a little faster than the advised 20kph..
I can report that hitting one at 60 in the CRV is almost unnoticeable, the suspension smoothly absorbed the interruption without tossing the occupants through the roof.
A good example of what to expect if you ever venture off road in your CR-V DTi-L.
The CR-V tackles corners well enough, with a touch of understeer. It's not a benchmark performer in this respect but will satisfy most owners. Steering feel is good, not too light or heavy. I have driven petrol CR-V variants with similar equipment and features, but for economy and torque you can't go past the diesel.
Honda sold 800 CR-Vs in Australia in February, about half of Toyota's RAV4 and Mazda's CX5 figures, of 1600 and 1700 respectively.
The CR-V DTi-L priced around 45K, is a welcome addition to the Honda stable and it's well worth a decent test drive. (Try the speed hump test.)
Peter Sellen
Those who continue to argue that diesel engines in cars are the work of Satan or close to it, dirty, noisy and smelly, have obviously not experienced driving a modern diesel.
Admittedly, some of the cheaper diesels are not as quiet as others, but when underway they are largely indistinguishable from their petrol siblings.
Elsewhere in the marketplace, unless you were told what was under the bonnet, you'd be hard pressed to tell what sort of engine lies beneath it. Peugeot and VW group diesels are among the most silent you can buy, and when you get to the upper echelon of prestige motoring such as this BMW 535d, you would swear it's driven by petrol.
At idle from the outside with the bonnet closed there is no hint of a signature diesel "tickover" and when revved while stationary, the diesel in the 535d sounds like a petrol in- line six.
On takeoff, there's a slight growl from the twin turbo engine, and when cruising at sixty in the suburbs, the near total silence in the cabin is eerie.
There's no sound whatsoever from the engine, and no wind noise either,
At highway speeds the only sound you'll hear, is a faint whisper from the tyres.
Even without the prestigious and much regarded M badge affixed to the boot lid, the 535d has formidable performance and handling.
The 3 litre straight six develops 230 kw and 650 nm, only slightly less than last week's storming BMW X5 M. The engine is redlined at an incredible( for a diesel) five and a half thousand rpm.
The 535d is a little lighter than the X5, and as a result, when floored, reaches 100 kph in a similarly quick time of about 5 seconds. Front tyres are 245/40/19s, with 275/35/19s on the rear.
The 535d has adjustable suspension similar to the X5 (Comfort/ Eco/Sport and Sport Plus)and despatches corners with arrogant ease, a bucketful of excitement, and grins all around. Helping to keep the 535d's body stiffer for better handling, BMW has fitted two underbonnet braces .
The 535d has auto/ stop start fuel saving feature, which can be overridden if you tire of the constant idle stop intervention. In a week of mostly round town driving, I averaged 8 litres per 100 kilometres. The official combined city /highway average is 5.6 litres. You'll travel an exceptional distance at that rate, from a 70 litre fuel tank.
I like the shape of the new 5 series, it's elegant and stylish, with fewer sharp angles and edges than in the previous model. It's roomy inside, and rear seat passengers have good head and leg room even when the front seats are adjusted rearwards. The test car had a stunning 12 speaker 205 w digital sound system as fitted to last week's X5M, and other similar features, including cameras that see around corners at blind intersections.
The needles and dials for speedo and tachometer are digitally projected onto the panel, and there's a heads up display for the driver.
When Sport is selected however, the standard dials disappear, replaced with large digital readouts, to keep you paying attention when pressing on.
In Eco mode, the dials change yet again, indicating whether you are driving economically or not.
At night, all the door handles are illuminated on keyless approach, and the scuff plates are lit with BMW in red. There's no spare tyre.
The interior of the test car was trimmed in a luxurious cream leather, which contrasted nicely with the deep brown exterior metallic colour BMW calls "Jatoba"
As a supremely comfortable daily driver, or interstate express, the 535d is an exceptional vehicle. If you have the wherewithal to own one, it's a car that will definitely signal to your neighbours that you've " made it."
At the moment BMW sells about a third fewer 5 series per month than its Mercedes E class competitor, but once people get wind of what's on offer with the 5 series at BMW showrooms, that sales gap will almost certainly start to rapidly close. For what's being offered, the 535d's 122K price tag is very competitive.
BMW Australia says it sells more petrol 5 series cars than diesel, but if you are looking for towering performance, handling, comfort and economy, you must also try the 535d. You will be as impressed as I was, with its refinement, sophistication and overall prowess.
Peter Sellen
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