2018 Skoda Octavia vs Toyota Corolla

What's the difference?

The Skoda Octavia 2018 Sport wagon may run the same 110TSI drivetrain as the regular base model car, but its chassis and design tweaks make it a worthwhile model to consider if you want something that stands out a little bit from the rest of the Octavia pack.

If you want an RS wagon but can't afford one, you really ought to take a look at this car. 

Toyota seems to be mostly waking up to what it takes to cut through in the contemporary car market. While the local arm sits on a pretty big pile of brand loyalty forged over years of delivering a solid-if-unspectacular product, its lunch is danger of being eaten by the various mouths of its rivals.

Have a good look at a Hyundai from 10 or more years ago - an attempt to clone Toyota's middle-of-the-road approach. Now they're a distinct brand with a strong focus on styling, dynamics and equipment. Toyota has grabbed two of those values and is lurching towards getting the third right.

Toyota will sell a squillion of these and probably for the first time I won't be wracking my brains trying to remember what it's like to drive. And while it's missing a few obvious bits and pieces, and the hybrid is very slow, the new car confirms how good TNGA is. Maybe, just maybe, Toyota is finally breaking free of building boring cars.

I didn't like the new look for the Octavia when Skoda revealed it early in 2017, and I wasn't alone. The once-handsome Czech mid-size model had been taken to with the ugly stick, with the dual-headlight look appearing to make the model look, well, nothing like a model.

In some colour combinations it's not too bad - a red RS245 with the black gloss grille, for example, looks tidy. But the Octavia Sport model you see here in white just looked a little bit… spidery, I'd say. Yeah, spidery.

The Sport model is accentuated by black pinstripes here and there, and look, I reckon the design of the wagon is a lot more becoming than the hatch. But if you value style as much as substance, consider the svelte Mazda6 is available for close to the same money…

The dimensions of the Skoda Octavia vary between the hatch and wagon, and the regular model vs the RS - yep, there's a bit of a size difference, but it's pretty miniscule. Here are the main numbers you need to know.

The hatch is 4670mm long (2686mm wheelbase), 1461mm tall and 1814mm wide. The regular wagon isn't as long at 4667mm (2686mm wheelbase), but sits a bit taller (1465mm) and is the same width (1814mm).

Thankfully the interior dimensions are accommodating, and the design in the cabin is very, very smart.

Well, here's something - a Corolla with genuine character. I'm not completely convinced (styling is subjective after all) but this is certainly a Corolla you can say is good looking.

The front is aggressive - particularly here in the ZR - with the right number of lines rather than the overdone designs of some other Toyotas. The big 18-inch wheels add a bit of dynamic tension to the look, its backside is almost shapely and the profile quite wedgy.

The bit that gets me is where the rear doors meet the C-pillar. It looks like the design team couldn't work out how to make it elegant, so they just closed their eyes and hoped for the best. Bit of a shame, really, given the clarity of the rest of the car.

The cabin is a huge step forward. Contemporary and shapely rather than a cheap plastic cliff face, it makes all the right moves and is made of good materials. The seats are absurdly sporty and equally comfortable, although even up here in the ZR they feature manual adjudstment.

The interior is so good that small, unfortunate details jar, like the clumsily placed seat-heater switches, which look and feel like they're straight out of a 1988 Toyota Crown. The big 8.0-inch screen dominates the dash with almost cinematic scale.

Skoda is a marvel when it comes to interior packaging, and the Octavia is perhaps the most impressive exponent of this. It really packs a lot in to relatively compact dimensions.

Boot space is perhaps one of the biggest advantages to the Octavia, with the hatch's luggage capacity spanning 568 litres, and the wagon offering up 588L (that measurement is to the window line). There's a spare wheel under the boot floor (you get a space-saver in RS models) and the back end features a dual-sided mat so you can put damp items in the back without damaging the carpet. 

Of course there's a couple of clever inclusions like flip-down shopping bag hooks, remote release levers for the split fold seats (they go down in a 60:40 fashion, and there's a clever ski-port for loading through longer items), and there's a dual-action cargo blind. You get a mesh net system, a removable torch and an umbrella, too. 

Plus the space on offer for occupants is very good. A family of five, plus luggage, will fit in here easily, with the back seat offering enough rear legroom, headroom and shoulder room for adults, too. With the driver's seat in my driving position (I'm 182cm) I had easily enough room to sit comfortably. 

Storage is well thought out, too, with bottle holders in all four doors, map pockets in the back, rear air-vents and a flip-down armrest with cupholders. The materials aren't as plush as you'll find in a Volkswagen Golf or a Mazda6, but they're not scratchy or harsh. 

Up front there are big door pockets, a pair of shallow cupholders, a good sized box in front of the gearshifter for your phone and wallet, and a reasonable glove box. 

The media system in our test vehicle was the upgraded 9.2-inch unit, which is crisp to look at an offers good resolution, plus the added usability that comes with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto can't be ignored. But the lack of a volume knob is frustrating, and it can be hard to figure out if you should be pressing Home or Menu when navigating through the systems array of pages.

The new machine has a few more centimetres in each direction, but not many of them have been lavished on the occupants. Front-seat passengers have plenty of space but I did feel like the chunky dashboard towards the right-hand side makes getting in a bit more of a job than it perhaps should be.

Rear-seat passengers really aren't as well looked after as they are in some of the Corolla's rivals because those front seats - as brilliant as they are - have super-chunky backs. All of that bulk means it's pretty tight for me, all of 180cm, to sit behind my own driving position. My beanpole son wasn't a particularly happy camper back there, with his head brushing the ceiling and legs akimbo.

Front and rear-seat passengers score a pair of cupholders each and every door has a bottle holder. In the ZR you get a Qi wireless-charging pad, which is super handy if you have the right phone except you don't get a "Your phone is still in the vehicle" message, which would be good because you can't really see the phone once its in there.

The boot is pretty ho-hum in the rest of the range at 217 litres, but as the ZR goes without a spare tyre, there's a rather more generous 333 litres.

Straight off the bat, the top-of-the-range ZR with hybrid drivetrain is a surprisingly sharp $31,870, just $1500 more than the standard ZR. We start the list with 18-inch alloy wheels, moving on with an eight-speaker stereo, reversing camera, dual-zone climate control (with vents in the back - luxury!), keyless entry and start, active cruise control, sat nav, bi-LED headlights (and they are superb), heated front seats, head-up display, heated and folding electric mirrors and a tyre-repair kit.

With two rows of cheap and tiny buttons, the screen isn't particularly premium-feeling.

A huge 8.0-inch screen runs the eight-speaker stereo with USB, Bluetooth and DAB and (deep breath) still no Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. The screen's resolution is a bit muddy - it looks like Toyota has stretched an interface to fit the space. It's a better head unit than the rubbish one in Honda's C-HR and, for example, the Toyota 86, but with two rows of cheap and tiny buttons, not particularly premium-feeling.

There are three drivetrains to choose from in the 2018 Octavia range, and the specifications step up as you move up the range.

Base grade models and the Sport variant have the 110TSI 1.4-litre turbocharged petrol unit with 110kW of power (5000-6000rpm) and 250Nm (1500-3500rpm). It is available with the choice of a six-speed manual gearbox or seven-speed dual-clutch (DSG) automatic transmission in the base grade, but the Sport model is auto only. If you want more horsepower from your motor, you'll need to go for the RS.

There is no diesel option for the lower grades, and every model in the Octavia range sold in Australia is front-wheel drive (FWD / 2WD). In some markets there are all wheel drive (AWD) models sold, but there isn't a proper 4x4 version with a low range transfer case in any market, though. There is no LPG model sold here, either. 

Now, if you think you might consider towing with your Octavia, you'll need to know its capabilities - and towing capacity varies across the range.

The 110TSI hatch has a 620kg un-braked trailer weight capacity or 1500kg for a braked trailer (manual or auto); the 110TSI manual wagon can deal with 630kg/1500kg, while the DSG wagon is good for 640kg/1500kg. 

Hybrid Corollas, as the name suggests, feature Toyota's hybrid powertrain. While the non-hybrid cars run a 125kW four-cylinder, this one has a 1.8-litre with a small battery and a modest electric motor.

As is usual, power output isn't especially straightfoward, so here goes. The 1.8 spins up 72kW/142Nm, which isn't a lot, but the electric motor brings 53kW/190Nm for a combined total system output of 90kW/190Nm.

That's not a huge chunk of power to push 1420kg along, let's be honest.

The e-CVT auto looks after getting the power to the front wheels. The system recharges the small battery when you lift off and when you're on the brakes, with an indicator to tell you what's happening in both in head-up display and the multimedia screen.

Fuel economy is good for the 110TSI model we're testing, with claimed consumption rated at 5.2 litres per 100 kilometres for the DSG hatch and wagon, while the 110TSI manual hatch uses 5.4L/100km and the 110TSI manual wagon claims 5.5L/100km. 

Fuel tank capacity for all models is 50 litres, and your mileage will vary depending on how hard you drive. Based on my time in the 1.4-litre Sport wagon, I was going to do about 650km on a tank, with at the bowser fuel consumption measured at 7.3L/100km. The dashboard display was reading 7.2L/100km.

The Octavia requires 95RON premium unleaded fuel at a minimum.

The Corolla Hybrid's claimed combined fuel consumption figure is 4.2L/100km, which is the kind of number we've all heard before. Happily, a week with me saw the ZR return 5.2L/100km. I was not gentle, either. I'm genuinely impressed.

What makes the Octavia Sport worthy of that much-lauded, oft-overused badge? 

Well, it feels pretty sporty to drive, with the MacPherson strut front suspension and torsion beam rear suspension both getting the harder-edge tune and sitting a few mm lower to the ground as a result (be aware of the car's ground clearance - it is lower, but it's not suctioned to the ground like a sports car). 

The regular Octavia model was already at the pointy end of the segment for dynamics and comfort, but this Sport version is more dialled into the surface below, with the combination of the stiffer chassis and the bigger wheels with grippy Bridgestone Potenza 225/40/18 rubber rewarding the driver, albeit at a slight penalty in terms of outright ride comfort. You can link bends together with ease, and the turning circle is pretty tight, meaning parking moves are easy enough.

The way the Octavia Sport finds its way through corners, almost telepathically, will have you thinking you've got more grunt than the 110TSI's outputs suggest - that comes down to the refinement at speed, where the torque of the small engine keeps momentum as the dual-clutch auto shifts clinically between gears. There are no paddle-shifters, but there's a manual mode to flick up or down on the shifter, and there are a few drive modes to choose from, each adjusting the throttle response and gearing. Sport was great, but Normal was where I spent most of my time.

In Normal mode there's a bit of stuttering at lower speeds when you're on and off the throttle, but it isn't as much of a deal-breaker as it might have been with earlier iterations of dual-clutch autos. Just make sure that if you're considering the Octavia (or any new car, for that matter!), that you test drive the car extensively, and try to put it through your regular day-to-day routine. 

As with many examples of cars built on the Volkswagen MQB modular architecture, there is some road noise - especially on coarse-chip surfaces. I didn't find it hard to live with - I just turned up the volume on the sound system. 

Over a week of commuting, driving in and around Sydney and more than a few hours on the city's motorways, I came away convinced that if I couldn't stretch to the RS, I'd be pretty happy in the Sport model.

Need more? Want a quicker 0-100 acceleration time, more speed, and better performance figures, and independent rear suspension? You really ought to read my review of the RS245 wagon.

First, let me say this car is quite slow. Despite its warm-hatch clothes, it's all mouth. A flattened throttle produces a reasonably smart step off the line with the electric motor's assistance, but after that it's mostly hydrocarbons and the CVT lawnmower effect.

Does it matter? Not really. As I've already covered, it's extremely light on the fuel and it's not often that you get that big a trade-off. It's also very quiet and if you jam a tennis ball under the accelerator you can switch to EV mode and maybe get two kilometres under electric power.

The new Corolla is by far the best I've driven. Even the previous model was pretty dull to drive, with little feel and a fairly ho-hum approach to ride and handling. It was so middle of the road Toyota may as well have painted double white lines along the car's centreline. The new car moves closer to the correct side of the road, the one where you don't forget what you're driving while you're driving it.

That doesn't mean the new Corolla has the dynamic poise of a Hyundai i30, because it doesn't. The front suspension is by the usual McPherson struts and the multi-link rear goes a long way to explaining the improvements but it's also down to the new platform, known as Toyota New Global Architecture (TNGA), already found under the C-HR.

The TNGA platform has delivered a lower centre of gravity, which is critial in helping make the car feel a bit more tied down to the road. It's also stiffer, meaning it's quieter and despite having a ride-focused suspension tune, is reasonably handy in the corners. The 18-inch alloys on the ZR probably have a bit to do with that, along with wider tyres than the lower models.

(if ANCAP rated, stipulate when it was most recently tested)

The ZR has seven airbags, ABS, stability and traction controls, forward AEB with pedestrian detection and cyclist detection (during the day, curiously), reversing camera, adaptive cruise, lane-departure warning, lane-keep assist, traffic-sign recognition and active cornering control. There are two ISOFIX points and three top-tether anchor points.

Most of that gear is available across the range, which is impressive. Bizarrely, there are no rear parking sensors (or front ones, for that matter) which seems to be a Toyota and Subaru thing.

ANCAP awarded a maximum five-star safety rating in August 2018, just after its launch.

The Skoda vehicle range is covered by a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty plan, which is better than its parent company VW offers in Australia, and matches the likes of Mazda, which only recently upped its warranty plan. There's no extended warranty option, though.

The Czech brand allows customers to pre-pay their service costs by choosing one of its 'Service Packs, the cost of which can be bundled into finance or outright purchase price. The plans are three years/45,000km ($1150 no matter the model) or five years/75,000km ($2250 for non-RS models; $2700 for RS models).

The other option for customers is to pay for their maintenance as they go using capped price servicing for up to six years/90,000km. The average service cost for a standard Octavia is $416.50 and $453 for RS models, but that's before additional consumables like brake fluid. Also worth noting that the alarm system needs to be replaced every six years, at a cost of $411 - that might need to be considered in your resale value estimates. 

If you're concerned about common faults, problems or issues you may encounter check out our Skoda Octavia problems page. The value of a page like this is that it goes beyond standard features to give you a gauge of the reliability rating for the vehicle. 

Toyota's three-year/100,000km warranty is still with us. Just about every other competitor (except Volkswagen) has five years or more. You can buy up to a further three years and 150,000km if you want to bridge the gap.

The servicing regime is much better, though. Intervals are now 12 months/15,000km (previously it was every 6 months/10,000km) and for the first five years/75,000km, each service is $175 a pop.

Roadside assist is further $78 per year.