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What's the difference?
Three years after the fourth-generation Cerato small car rolled into Australian dealerships, Kia launched a mid-life facelift for the sedan and hatch range in mid-2021.
It ushered in styling tweaks including new headlights and Kia’s new logo, as well as more safety tech and a multimedia upgrade.
At the top of the range sits the warmed-up Cerato GT. It’s not quite Hyundai i30 N-level performance, more i30 N-Line. In other words, more than enough performance to keep most people satisfied and enough poke to get away quickly at the lights.
But is the updated version of Kia’s Cerato trying to be something it’s not, or is it a performance bargain?
Read on to find out.
Remember mid-size sedans? Once pretty popular with smaller families, they’ve largely gone the way of dial-up internet, thanks in no small part to our insatiable appetite for SUVs in Australia, which shows absolutely no sign of slowing down.
According to the most recent vehicle sales data release, there are just seven choices left in a once-crowded segment, one of which is this, the Skoda Octavia, which is also available as a wagon – another body style that's been left by the wayside in the SUV crush.
So are we right to rush to SUVs instead of vehicles just like this one? Or should you be cross-shopping the Skoda Octavia before you commit to a high-rider?
Let’s find out, shall we?
Kia has value and packaging on its side with the sleek and spunky Cerato GT sedan. There’s no shortage of standard gear, it comes with the latest multimedia and safety gear and the cabin and cargo area are spacious and practical.
The powertrain is a winner too. Which is why it’s such a shame that it’s let down so badly by the ride quality.
If you’re going to be driving on various road surfaces, or regularly driving long distance, check out the far more compliant Hyundai i30 N-Line instead.
But if you’ll only ever drive in urban areas – or enjoy the occasional back-road blast – and you can handle the firm ride, there’s still plenty to like about the Cerato GT.
This is motoring at its easiest. Powerful but not too powerful, firm but not too firm, and loaded with all the cabin technology 2021 calls for, and more.
We'd like to see more of the safety kit arrive as standard, and to tone down the engine noise in the cabin under heavy acceleration, but if your shopping for a mid-size SUV, then the Octavia Style sedan has earned its place on your consideration list before you sign those papers.
When the fourth-gen Cerato sedan was revealed in US-market Kia Forte guise at the 2018 Detroit motor show, the design was praised for taking inspiration from the sleek Stinger performance sedan.
The facelift has arrived at just the right time to keep the Cerato fresh against the dominant Toyota Corolla, Mazda3 and new Volkswagen Golf.
The sharpened front-end styling features an eye-catching daytime running light signature and the headlights now connect with the redesigned, slimline Kia ‘tiger-nose’ grille in gloss black.
It’s a subtle, yet successful design refresh.
Inside, the Cerato is starting to look its age against rivals like the Golf and Mazda3. Those GT themed additions definitely lift the ambience of the cabin, but the dash layout feels a bit generic and the overall interior design is nothing flash. Especially when you consider the interior of some of Kia’s latest models, like the impressive Sportage medium SUV.
This is always a controversial segment. Eye of the beholder and all that. Still, let's dive in.
For mine, the Skoda looks sharp and handsome, with clean, crisp lines and a definite premium feel to the overall design language.
But... whether it's simply the white shade of our test car or the fact that mid-size sedans are a little out of favour, it manages to look a little bland from outside, and like the kind of vehicle that could be sold in bulk for fleets.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, by the way. Plenty of cars are over-designed and as such, age terribly. The Skoda's design, while not pulse-quickening, does feel timeless.
Outside, there's a kind of power-dome 'V' running through the centre of the bonnet, that leads to the thin headlights – made up of individual clusters – that are framed by slick-looking LEDs.
The Skoda grille is a series of 3D slats that jut out from the front end, while the bottom is all black plastic mesh, giving this Octavia a vaguely sporty vibe.
The vehicle's flanks are embellished with two sharp creases, one at the shoulder line and one at the belt line, which run the length of the Octavia, too, and step to the rear and you'll find a fairly simple boot area, with sharply angled brake lights and clean lettering across the boot.
Inside, some of the cabin materials might leave a little to be desired, but it is a really modern, clean-feeling, tech-savvy space.
The steering wheel is thick and chunky and feels great to hold, the cabin dials make a satisfying and tactile click when you turn them, and there's a kind of textured, layered effect to the dash with a nice mix of materials, including a metallic-look dash panel that runs from the passenger side to driver side.
There's an attention to detail here that you notice – even the black plastic panelling used has been perforated to elevate it slightly above the standard cabin fare.
As mentioned, the red stitching throughout, chunky steering wheel and sports seats are welcome additions to the GT cabin.
There are soft-touch materials on the top of the dash but hard plastics on the dash fascia.
There’s no fully digital instrument cluster, but it has a 4.2-inch LCD display in the cluster showing fuel economy and the like. No complaints with the analogue dials and there’s a digital speedo if required.
The update ushered in Kia’s latest multimedia system to the Cerato and it’s a winner thanks to cool graphics, logical menus and its ease of use.
There’s quite a sizable central storage bin and glovebox, while the console houses a key slot, two sizeable cupholders and a second spot for devices adjacent to the charging pad.
The front sports seats look sexy, have excellent side and body bolstering and they’re firm, but comfortable.
A 600mL bottle will just fit into the doors, bit it’s tight.
Sitting behind my six-foot (182cm) frame in the rear, legroom is adequate but toe room is tight. My head was about an inch away from the headliner due to the sloping roofline. The rear seats are also firm.
The Cerato has lower rear air vents, one USB-C port, a map pocket on the passenger side, a central rear armrest with two cupholders, and bottles slot into the doors easier than they do up front.
Kia offers a temporary spare wheel housed under the boot floor. The boot is long, offering an impressive 502 litres (VDA) of cargo space, which is more than other small sedans like the Subaru Impreza (460L VDA) and the Hyundai i30 (474L VDA).
Lower the rear 60/40 seats via the levers in the boot and that space increases further, but they don’t fold completely flat.
It's clever, the Skoda Octavia, and that story begins in the boot, which opens to reveal a seriously large and seriously usable 600 litre space. While not that deep, it's wide and long, and with out test car fitted with a spider's web of netting, there was tons of space and storage options for everything we needed to carry.
Short answer? For me, it's all the space and storage I need. SUVs be damned.
Up front, the centre screen is clear and simple to use, as is the secondary digital screen behind the driver's steering wheel. And there's just a few little surprise and delight features, too, like the bar that controls volume via touch, or the Smart AC settings which offer to "warm your feet" or deliver "fresh air".
Your comfort features are on point, too, with two USB ports up front, two cup holders, and plenty of headroom, and plenty of shoulder space between you and the passenger next to you.
The backseat is impressive, too, although the swept-back nature of the roof line does start to impede headroom ever so slightly, but knee room, toe room and shoulder room are really good, and I suspect you could even fit a third person across this middle row of seats without too much drama.
Skoda Simply Clever features abound, like the mobile phone storage pocket in the seatbacks, which are part of the larger seat pocket so you don't lose your device. There are two child ISOFIX attachment points and two cup holders in the rear, too.
The GT is priced at $35,290 before on-road costs regardless of whether you opt for the four-door sedan (as tested here) or the five-door hatchback, though be aware that Kia Australia regularly runs drive-away pricing campaigns.
There’s not a lot of competition in the warmed-up small car market these days. A number of carmakers have slimmed down their small-car line-ups in the face of falling sales.
Kia’s closest rival is also its mechanical sibling, the Hyundai i30 N-Line sedan and hatch. The Hyundai is cheaper by more than $2500, but the more generously equipped i30 N-Line Premium sedan is a little over $2000 more expensive than the Cerato GT.
The Mazda3 GT sedan and hatch could also be considered a rival and pricing is about on par with the Kia.
Other lower grades in the Cerato range run from $25,490 to $30,640 (MSRP).
The GT benefits from the more premium powertrain offering in the Cerato line-up – the 1.6-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine shared with the i30 N-Line and the recently discontinued Veloster Turbo.
The GT bodykit adds sporty styling flourishes like a black front and rear diffuser, boot spoiler, dual exhaust, black external mirror caps, red highlights and 18-inch GT alloy wheels.
This theme carries through to the cabin too with features like alloy sports pedals, flat-bottom perforated leather sports steering wheel and leather-appointed seats with red stitching and embossed GT logo.
As the range flagship, the GT also has the most standard equipment. It comes with a sunroof, eight-way power driver’s seat, wireless device charging, an eight-speaker JBL premium sound system, heated and ventilated front seats and dual-zone climate control air conditioning.
The only option fitted to the test car was Snow White Pearl premium paint for $520.
The Skoda Octavia Style 110TSI sedan starts at from $37,790 drive away, and is pretty comprehensively equipped for that money. It also has a wagon sibling, which is yours for $39,260 drive away, or for more thrills, the fire-breathing RS version is $51,490 drive away ($52,990 wagon).
Let’s stay with the Style for a moment. Outside, it rides on 18-inch alloy wheels and gets LED headlights, satellite navigation, keyless locking, LED DRLs and heated mirrors, while inside, there’s fabric seats, dual-zone climate, an air-conditioned glove box, push-button start, a slick gear selector and ambient interior lighting.
But where the Skoda truly shines is in the tech department, which is seriously impressive. It starts with a 10.0-inch touchscreen, equipped with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, leaving you free to stick your phone on the wireless charging pad. All of that kit is joined by Skoda’s very good Virtual Cockpit, which digitises the driver’s binnacle, and adds a seriously premium air to the cabin experience.
Safety? There’s lots. But we’ll get to that in a moment.
While all other Cerato grades use a 112kW/192Nm 2.0-litre naturally aspirated petrol engine, the GT benefits from a spicier powertrain.
Under the bonnet is the Hyundai Group 1.6-litre T-GDI four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine delivering 150kW of power at 6000rpm and 265Nm of torque at 1500-4500rpm. This is the same tune as the Hyundai i30 N-Line.
This is paired with a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission that drives the front wheels. Lower grades use a six-speed torque converter auto. Kia dropped the manual from the S and Sport grades as part of the update.
The GT differs from the rest of the Cerato range as it has multi-link rear suspension, instead of a torsion beam setup. Both the suspension and steering have been tuned for dynamic driving. More on that later.
The Skoda Octavia Style is powered by a 1.4-litre TSI petrol engine, producing a 110kW at 6000rpm and 250Nm from 1500rpm.
That's enough grunt, Skoda says, to clip 100km/h in nine seconds, and it will push on to a flying top speed of 223km/h.
That power is fed through an eight-speed torque converter automatic gearbox and sent to the front tyres.
According to Kia, the Cerato GT sedan uses 6.9 litres of fuel per 100km on the combined cycle. The GT hatch uses 0.1L less.
After a week of mixed driving in the Cerato GT, we recorded a combined fuel consumption figure of 9.0L/100km – a fair bit more than Kia’s claim.
The GT emits 157g/km of CO2 (official combined).
Skoda says its Octavia will sip 5.7L/100km on the combined cycle (5.9L/100km for the wagon), and emit 131g/km of C02.
Our test vehicle was displaying an average 8.8L/100km over our 200-odd-kilometres with the car, but I have been accused of having a heavier than average foot.
It sips 95RON fuel, and its tank will hold some 45 litres of the good stuff.
The 1.6-litre turbo engine is a ripper and it’s been put to good use in Hyundai’s i30 N-Line and Veloster Turbo.
It’s just as willing and responsive under the bonnet of the Cerato GT, but they each perform quite differently.
Accelerating from a standing start, there’s mild turbo lag in the Cerato, and some torque steer when accelerating hard.
Once up and running it’s quick, and the seven-speed dual clutch snaps through the gears smoothly while still allowing it to rev freely.
It’s the type of powertrain that is utterly unbothered by things like steep ascents. The Cerato GT just keeps pushing on, without losing momentum.
The downside of that is that the engine is super noisy when pushed and the Kia just doesn’t have sufficient noise suppression materials to counter that. Because of this, it lacks the refinement of its i30 N-Line cousin and the Mazda3.
Steering is weighted on the heavier side but it’s direct and the car goes where you point it.
Like many Kia models, the Cerato GT benefits from an Australian-specific steering and suspension tune. Kia doesn’t have a full performance hot hatch to line up with the i30 N, but the engineers seem to have tuned the suspension to be just as capable as the full-fat i30 N.
That certainly aids dynamic driving in the Cerato GT. It hugs corners and grips the road, avoiding any skipping and with only a hint of body roll.
However, we think Kia’s engineers have made the damper settings too firm, because the Cerato GT’s ride is harsh in virtually all driving environments.
A new, freshly laid road surface in an urban area without any speed bumps was the only time the ride was comfortable during our week with the car.
It crashes over potholes and it’s loud and jarring when you unexpectedly encounter a sharp rut. There’s a bit of vibration through the steering wheel too.
This is disappointing, especially when you consider that the i30 N-Line has a much more supple ride and is the sort of warmed-up hatch or sedan you could easily live with day to day.
We briefly drove the i30 N hot hatch just before we got into the Cerato GT and even that has a more tolerable ride quality than the Kia.
Sink into the driver’s seat, push the start button and use the cool-looking, but a little cheap-feeling, shift-by-wire gear selector to choose Drive, and you’re almost immediately reminded why we all loved lower-riding cars so much more than those big and often billowy SUVs of yesteryear.
This Octavia doesn’t pretend to be a sports car - there’s the RS to handle those duties — but the mere fact you’re sitting lower to the ground leaves you feeling closer and more connected to the road surface below you, rather than like you’re towering above it.
You also feel like you’re sitting in the Skoda, not on it, and all of this — combined with a firmer (but not too firm) suspension tune, good steering and the low 1500rpm arrival of peak torque — ensures the Octavia delivers a more engaging drive experience than its exterior design probably suggests.
There are some downsides, however, one of which being that, on take-off, the engine isn’t as smooth or as quiet as it could be, and because the power arrives so quickly, it can also feel a little like it’s surging a little in slow-moving traffic. The flip-side to that, though, is a car that feels responsive, and when you dart around a slow-moving vehicle to overtake the power is there when you need it.
We ventured out on the freeway to see how the little petrol engine performed at the legal speed limit, and I can tell you that long-distance travel is also right in the Octavia’s wheelhouse, too.
It climbs to 110km/h quickly and smoothly, and while the cabin noise increases at speed – mostly from the tyres and wind – it's not overly annoying, and it is well insulated from the sounds of other cars. The ride on the freeway is fantastic, while the steering feels weighted and direct, inspiring more confidence at speed.
There are more powerful cars out there, including in the broader Octavia range, but to be honest, you don't really need more grunt than is on offer here, other than for bragging rights.
It's a comfortable and usually composed offering from Skoda, this Octavia, and will definitely tick plenty of boxes.
The Cerato GT achieved a five-star ANCAP crash safety rating in 2019 and it applies to all Cerato variants built after June 2021, except the S and Sport which have four stars because the autonomous emergency braking system offered as standard in those grades can’t detect vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists.
Standard safety for the GT includes auto emergency braking (AEB) with pedestrian and cyclist detection, forward collision warning, rear occupant alert, driver attention assist, rear cross-traffic alert with collision avoidance, blind spot detection and collision avoidance assist, adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist with lane follow assist steering, safe exit warning, front and rear parking sensors and a reversing camera.
At one point, the AEB kicked in pulling out of a parallel street parking spot because it detected a vehicle that had already driven past the car and was several metres ahead.
Kia’s lane keep assist system is generally impressive and functions without issue, but it pulls on the wheel a little. It’s not jolty like systems offered by some other brands.
When lane keep and follow assist are active, it can be fiddly to switch them both off. If you hold the steering wheel-mounted button down, the follow assist stays on but the lane keeping deactivates, so you just have to keep holding the button down until the lane and steering wheel icons in the digital display eventually disappear.
The Skoda Octavia scored a five-star ANCAP safety rating when crash-tested in 2019, and arrives with plenty of active and passive safety features.
That story starts with eight airbags and the usual braking and traction aids, but then steps up to more advanced stuff, like AEB with pedestrian and cyclist detection, as well as a reversing camera, front and rear parking sensors, and a self-parking function.
If you want the really advanced stuff, like blind spot detection, rear cross-traffic alert, or Lane Assist with lane guidance, you'll need to shell out for the optional Luxury Pack, which arrives with plenty of other goodies, too.
The Cerato, like all Kia models, is offered with a seven-year/unlimited kilometre warranty, and one-year free roadside assist which extends year by year if you service with Kia (up to eight years).
It also comes with a seven-year capped-price servicing plan that costs approximately $3234 over the seven-year period.
Servicing intervals for the Cerato GT are every year or 10,000km, whichever comes first.
Your Octavia is covered by a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, and you a get a five years of free roadside assistance, provided you service your vehicle at a Skoda dealership.
Speaking of which, services are due every 12 months or 15,000kms, and Skoda's service calculator will tell you what each service will cost. To save you the trouble, you're looking at $301, $398, $447, $634 and $447 for the first five services.