2025 Skoda Octavia 110TSI Select review

The 2025 Skoda Octavia brings a range of minor updates to the already impressive current-generation Octavia that’s been on sale in Australia since late 2020.

The styling is little changed from the outside, and Skoda’s smart and spacious packaging remains as before. A bigger infotainment screen headlines the changes, so while the update may not be dramatic, the Octavia’s solid standing means that’s all it needed.

In a dwindling medium car class, the Octavia faces its biggest challenge from the slightly larger, hybrid-only Toyota Camry.

While cars like the Honda Accord and Hyundai Sonata remain, they’re now priced as upmarket models, and don’t fight in the same budget-friendly price area.

But for families that want an affordable car with space and versatility, but aren't completely convinced by an SUV, the Octavia provides a smart solution.

The 2025 Skoda Octavia range is available as a liftback sedan or traditional wagon bodystyle across three variants.

The entry-level Select is the cheapest and starts from $41,490 drive-away for the liftback shown here. The wagon steps up to $43,990 drive-away.

A 110kW 1.4-litre turbo petrol engine and eight-speed automatic provide power to the front wheels, and Skoda has removed optional equipment, serving the Select as an already well-equipped model.

You’ll find features like LED head and tail-lights, 18-inch alloy wheels, a 13-inch infotainment screen, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, wireless phone charging, manually adjustable front seats, cloth seat trim, a leather-wrapped steering wheel, dual-zone climate control, eight-speaker audio and more.

Above the Octavia Select are Sportline and RS trims. The former is largely a sportier appearance package with black styling details, bigger alloy wheels, matrix headlights, and heated seats.

The latter adds a more powerful 2.0-litre engine, upgraded sports suspension, and a range of hot hatch chassis, driveline, and interior upgrades designed to give it a flagship look and feel.

The Sportline is priced from $46,490 drive-away, while the Octavia RS starts from $62,990 drive-away, or $1500 more if you opt for the wagon over the liftback.

The Octavia Select goes into bat against the Toyota Camry, priced from $39,990 plus on-road costs. Like the Octavia, the Camry offers plenty of space inside, but Toyota has the added lure of an efficient hybrid powertrain.

The Octavia also shares some characteristics with larger small cars, like the Honda Civic. Like the Octavia, the Civic is a hatch that looks like a sedan, but premium pricing from $49,900 drive-away makes it a more premium-priced option.

The Octavia also faces opposition from electric vehicles like the BYD Seal Dynamic, which starts from $46,990. The more powerful Seal offers silent and seamless acceleration with 460km of claimed driving range on a single charge.

Before the end of 2025, MG is also likely to wade into the medium car arena, with the turbo-petrol MG 7. MG tends to keep pricing within reach of rivals, but we’re yet to see how this new model will be positioned.

Skoda’s drive-away pricing on the Octavia range isn’t a limited offer to boost sales during a slow month. The Octavia launched with drive-away pricing, and like other models in the range, will keep its drive-away deal full-time.

The real highlight of the Octavia is how spacious it feels.

The dimensions aren't massive. It is 222mm shorter than a Camry, with a wheelbase that’s 139mm shorter.

The Octavia isn’t a small car though; in fact, it’s 138mm longer than the Honda Civic (an already big small car), so it sits somewhere between the small and medium car classes. From the inside, you’d never pick it as compact in any way.

Skoda seems to have mastered the art of packaging, providing a spacious interior both front and rear, and even into the boot.

The front seats are manually adjustable, but the driver gets lumbar support, which is handy to have.

The cloth-trimmed seats look quite smart, and play well with the Formica-flecked pattern Skoda uses on the dash. There are some soft plastics, but it’s not as plush as the older-generation Octavia used to be.

Everything comes across as subtle, from the ambient lighting bleeding out from overhanging panels in the dash and doors, to the subtle patterning embossed in the dash trim panel, and the small dashes of chrome and metallic touchpoints used throughout.

The front wireless charger now carries enough oomph to add, rather than maintain, charge to your phone, and it is vented to prevent overheating. There’s a pair of USB-C ports available too, plus a third in the rear-view mirror to run a dash cam.

Storage isn’t over the top, but there’s a pair of cup holders that can manage a can or narrow drink bottle, but won’t accept a chunky water bottle or travel mug. The lidded console and glovebox are your better storage options.

The rear seats carry a surprisingly high level of equipment for a base-model car.

Rear occupants get vents through the centre console, two USB-C charge ports, a fold-down armrest with cupholders, and retractable door blinds. There’s also a separate ski port in the back seat that can be folded to pass long items through.

The seats themselves are comfy and surprisingly soft for the outboard seats, but the centre position is very firm, and a wide tunnel running through the car leaves centre occupants having to straddle the wide bump in the floor.

The boot is packed with stuff. Part of Skoda’s ‘Simply Clever’ philosophy.

Where other brands make you stump up for luggage nets and cargo dividers, Skoda includes them as standard, with netting on the side, floor and backrests, a jumbo swing-away bag hook, and a small item hammock that can slot into multiple positions across the top of the boot.

Under the floor is a non-matching temporary use spare wheel. It's not a space saver, but also not a match to the other road wheels, so it can’t be used or rotated with the other wheels long-term.

The 600-litre boot space is big, and made all the more versatile thanks to the ease of loading through a hatchback, rather than a smaller sedan boot opening. It also edges out the 524 litres in a Camry, or 409 litres in a Civic.

Seats that can be easily folded from inside the boot make dropping the back seats easy, and 1555 litres of space opens up.

One of the Octavia’s bigger updates is the new 13-inch infotainment display. Not only is it bigger than the 10-inch unit it replaces, but it also has revised software and a more contemporary user interface.

The system comes with features like wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, AM/FM/DAB+ radio, satellite navigation, Bluetooth, and operations by voice command.

The new system offers plenty of shortcuts, with climate controls integrated at the bottom of the screen and the option to add favourites at the top to let you jump to your most-used functions quickly and easily.

While the old Skoda system wasn't a bad one, it was starting to look and feel a bit slow, so the update is a nice way to modernise how you interact with the car.

During my week with the car, the screen would occasionally flicker and strobe, like a TV feed with a weak signal. While it didn’t impact operation, it didn't impart a reassuring impression and could be distracting.

Audio is via an eight-speaker unbranded sound system that delivers surprisingly punchy and distortion-free playback, even at high volumes.

The 10-inch digital instrument display offers a handful of different layout options, and can be tailored with track, trip, or other vehicle info.

Despite the updated infotainment system, the Octavia doesn’t offer a remote-connected smartphone app, nor features like SOS call or vehicle tracking.

The updated Skoda Octavia carries over its 2022 five-star ANCAP crash safety rating.

When tested, the Octavia was given an 89 per cent adult occupant protection rating, an 82 per cent child occupant protection rating, 68 per cent for vulnerable road user (pedestrian) protection, and 81 per cent for safety assist systems.

As ANCAP constantly updates and evolves its criteria, this score may not align with a current five-star rating, with the older 2020-2022 scoring system since updated for cars tested from 2023-2025.

The Octavia Select is equipped with eight airbags, including a centre airbag between occupants, a driver’s knee airbag, and the dual front, front seat side, and curtain airbags.

Safety and driver assist technologies include autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection, lane keep assist and lane departure warning, adaptive cruise control with a lane centring function, blind spot monitoring with approaching traffic detection and safe exit alert, front and rear park sensors, and a reversing camera.

The Octavia misses out on some tech commonplace elsewhere, like speed sign recognition, and feels older in the implementation of its adaptive cruise control and lane assist systems, which can intercept abruptly or uncomfortably in some situations.

Skoda offers a seven-year, unlimited kilometre warranty in Australia for private buyers, or seven years/150,000km for vehicles used commercially, like delivery, ride share, security patrols, or rentals.

Complimentary roadside assist is included for the first 12 months, and renewed for 12 months at a time by servicing at a Skoda dealer.

Service intervals for the Octavia are set at 12 months or 15,000km, whichever comes first. Skoda offers prepaid service packs priced at $3000 for five years or $3950 for seven years.

That compares to some of the cheapest servicing available on the Camry ($1275) and Civic ($995) over five years, although these are outliers in the industry.

Looking at comprehensive insurance from a leading provider, the Octavia Select was quoted at $1888 per year for a policy for a 35-year-old male, living in Chatswood, NSW. Insurance estimates may vary based on your location, driving history, and personal circumstances.

The same driver would pay $2425 to insure a Camry Altise, $2132 for cover on a Civic e:HEV L, or $2229 for a Seal Dynamic, making the Octavia a cheaper proposition to insure.

Skoda’s between-sizes physical dimensions result in a similar story for fuel consumption.

Official fuel use is rated at 6.1 litres per 100km, more like a small car than a typical medium car. After a week behind the wheel, we recorded 6.6L/100km – close to the claim, but recorded on a week that saw mostly highway trips covered, and only a few short urban runs.

Short trips in town saw consumption somewhere in the low 8L/100km region.

The Octavia required 95-octane premium unleaded, and with a 45-litre tank, is capable of covering around 680km per fill, based on the recorded consumption.

The 110kW 1.4-litre engine and eight-speed automatic in the Octavia is the same as you’ll find in cars like the Volkswagen Golf and T-Roc, and the Skoda Karoq.

Its strength lies in its mid-range torque. It may only be a relatively small engine, but the punchy 250Nm available makes it really flexible and tractable around town.

It’s also a quiet and refined engine, only becoming vocal if you run it high into the rev range.

It has some foibles too, being a little slow off the line from a standing start and often feeling like it stumbles into first gear when rushed.

Skoda uses electronic controls in the front differential to quell wheelspin, but the torquey engine does like to spin an inside wheel on loose surfaces or in the wet. Nothing dangerous, but a bit more prominent than some of its class rivals.

Suspension has a tied-down feel that can give the Octavia a very settled and secure feel. On the open road, it can bump and jiggle over patchy roads though, without the absorbent suppleness you might expect of an entry-level car.

Steering is responsive without being razor sharp, too.

Refinement can fall down depending on the situation. While engine and wind noise are well managed, on anything but super-smooth sealed road, the Octavia becomes boomy and suspension compression echoes through the cabin, adding to the running noise.

Perhaps the most important takeaway is that during a recent test of the wagon version of the Octavia Select, colleague Rob Margeit found the ride much more comfortable than that of the sedan, and the noise isolation better managed.

Before settling on the car you like the most aesthetically, we’d suggest test driving both the liftback sedan and the wagon back to back to make sure you get the version that suits you best.

The Octavia has a towing capacity that’s the equal of a medium SUV. Not enough for anything heavy-duty, but enough to make it as versatile and flexible as a higher-riding alternative.

Braked towing capacity is rated at 1500kg, and unbraked capacity is 660kg. That should be enough to account for weekend DIY jobs, or carting the equipment for your hobbies or sporting pursuit of choice.

The Skoda Octavia first arrived in Australia as a surprise package, relatively compact on the outside with genuinely surprising room for families and cargo.

The latest version maintains that balance of roomy interior dimensions and clever touches that delight in their day-to-day thoughtfulness. A new, more tech-savvy infotainment system and a subtle restyle just help to keep things fresh.

Ultimately, the wagon, rather than the liftback, might be the smartest choice. It’s got a bigger boot and a more forgiving ride quality that family buyers are sure to appreciate.

Still, when faced with the option of the staid Camry, or a more expensive Sonata or Accord, the Octavia finds a decent middle ground at a price that won’t break the bank. 

Kez Casey migrated from behind spare parts counters to writing about cars over ten years ago. Raised by a family of automotive workers, Kez grew up in workshops and panel shops before making the switch to reviews and road tests for The Motor Report, Drive and CarAdvice.

Read more about Kez Casey