Did you hear the one about the bloke who swapped his BMW for a Skoda? He ended up loving it. Not much of a punchline, I know, but for Bob Shingleton the transition from a luxurious BMW 528i Touring to a Skoda Octavia TDI estate has been a revelation.
“The company car tax made me do it,” says Shingleton. “It was getting more expensive every year but then the new rules came that drew no distinction between me and someone having a company car as a perk and barely driving it all at. I drive 25,000 miles a year on business and the old 18,000-mile tax break made the BMW affordable, but now it’s cheaper by far to own my own car and charge mileage to the company.”
Shingleton had done 62,000 miles in the BMW and observes: “The engine and Steptronic gearbox are superb, the attitude of the dealerships and parent company are not.” It cost him £65 to get stones out of the front brake ducts (which, he maintains, should never have been there in the first place) while the rear load cover squeaked throughout his ownership. The best BMW could do was bodge a repair with sticky tape that lasted precisely a week.
The BMW was replaced by the Skoda for two reasons: Shingleton knew that Skodas are now built to at least the same standards as cars produced by parent company Volkswagen, and a family love of mountain-biking meant a vast boot was essential.
Diesel was chosen for its fuel efficiency and positive effect on residual values. And so far as treatment by the dealers is concerned, Shingleton feels one story illustrates the issue perfectly: “Both the BMW and the Skoda happened to have numberplates that started to delaminate. BMW charged £20 to replace them, Skoda did it for free. It wasn’t a deal-breaker, but it was a very encouraging sign. I don’t want to do business with dealers whose sole intention is to squeeze as much money as possible out of me.”
But could driving a Skoda possibly match the BMW experience? “Ultimately not,” says Shingleton, “but I’m not the kind of man who’s going to spend much time exploring the nuances of handling on the limit. Of course the BMW is better to drive but the differences are far fewer than you’d expect. Of more importance to me is that you can get more luggage in the Skoda than you’d fit in the BMW, even when the latter is fitted with a roof-box, because the 5-series is rear-wheel-drive and has to have a shallow boot. And while the BMW may technically have better ride quality, my family prefer to travel in the back of the Skoda because it has more leg room.”
Indeed, Skoda is selling a number of models on the comfort factor for its passengers, with another of its cars, the Superb, claiming among the most generous leg room for back-seat passengers in its class.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of all is the Octavia’s performance. “I was expecting to have to take a big step back after the BMW but what I didn’t reckon on was the Skoda’s mid-range punch. Diesels get so much stick but with modern engines you are really hard-pressed to notice the difference. The Skoda’s diesel engine has so much torque that when you put your foot down the response is immediate and very impressive. For my purposes it felt no slower than the BMW.”
Financially, the Skoda’s case is unanswerable. Shingleton charges his business mileage to the company and in a car that will always return 55-60mpg in heavy traffic his fuel bills have more than halved.
Sadly, Shingleton has few nice things to say about his local dealer but only because, numberplates aside, he’s not yet needed to visit it. “The Octavia has a flexible service schedule where the car decides when it needs a service according to how it’s been driven. It came with synthetic oil in the engine and nine months and 18,500 miles down the road it’s still not suggested a service is due.” In fact, Shingleton rang his dealer to make sure this was to be expected and was told it doesn’t get to see most Octavias again until they’ve done 22,000 miles and the record was 27,000 miles.
As far as any lingering Skoda stigma is concerned, Shingleton is utterly dismissive. “It’s totally irrelevant and soon to be a thing of the past, if it isn’t already. I think people are starting to understand that getting the right tool for the job is more important than the badge on the front and both the Octavia and the BMW are tools, not toys. Anybody who still takes the mickey out of these cars can’t have driven one. All that matters to me is that the Octavia is built in one of the most modern, automated factories in Europe to a standard that, if anything, beats Volkswagen at its own game. Everybody knows the same company that makes the Golf also makes Skodas, so it should be no surprise that Skodas are fantastic cars.”
The Octavia will be kept for three years and when it’s racked up 75,000 miles Shingleton will pass it on to his son. “I’ve driven one that’s done 70,000 miles and it felt as new and tight as mine.”
Right now he’s showing no signs of regretting his decision to swap a BMW for a Skoda and nor does he expect to. “I got in touch with Driving because I felt more people should know just how good these cars are. The days of the Skoda jokes are long gone, and the value for money is amazing,” he says.
“I’m not saying the BMW was bad — in fact, I thought it was pretty impressive in the main — but for my purposes now, and with this new company car tax scheme, I’m not just better off in a Skoda, it’s a better car for me too.”
Ten reasons to buy a Skoda
1 Reveal yourself as a person of uncommon judgment — thanks to Volkswagen’s ownership, Skoda now builds first-rate cars
2 Pay less but get exactly the same quality as any other VW Group car
3 Enjoy a little inverted snobbery. Some may laugh but you know the truth
4 Drive the ultimate stealth car — the 180bhp Octavia RS is seriously quick
5 Tell bad Skoda jokes with genuine irony — these cars are now as well-built and durable as VW’s own Golf
6 Some say the Octavia even handles better than a Golf
7 Bragging rights — the designer who worked on Octavia also did the new Bentley Continental
8 A company with form. Skoda has been around for 100 years.
9 Any company confident enough to call its top-of-the-range car the Superb has to be all right
10 If you’re that bothered by the image, just stick some Volkswagen badges on it
