Drove the 2025-26 Octavia. Not impressed
Drove it for a week and didnt like what I got. Not sure what year it exactly was but genuinely turned me off from buying a new Skoda (or new car in general)
Not only is it wide on the outside, its small on the inside. I drive a Mk3 Superb myself so I wasnt expecting similar or better, but as a tall guy, my knees were alongside the steering wheel. The little 'box' under the driver seat was annoying as hell and I kept kicking the cover off because my chair was aaaaall the way back. I kept knocking the indicators when leaving the car. Steering wheel was smaller too so youd think that be helpful but nah. Lastly, the rearview mirror was so low, I had to duck to see what was behind it.
The above can be mostly attributed to my height. The rest was just... blegh, especially the assists. Besides ACC currently, I never had any fancy assists. And boy, am I glad! I spent most of the first day fighting the steering wheel and messing with the ACC. Thats when I discovered it has this function where it reads the roadsigns...it just does a pisspoor job of it. It would take the 80 of an exit and think "Oh...THE MOTORWAY IS 80 NOW!" and slam the brakes. Lane assist pulls waaaaay too far to either left or right. And even when you turn it off, itll still make you struggle sometimes when changing lanes and you dont indicate fast enough.
Whilst I did enjoy the entertainment center somewhat, its not very intuitive. The 'active' part was on the right side of the screen instead of the left where Im sitting.
Drive wise it was decent. Maybe because I drive diesel at home and this was petrol, but sometimes I was really missing the torque when putting my foot down.
Upside: I do love the lights to indicate you cant switch lanes when overtaking. In busy traffic they could use with some tweaking but overall, nice.