2021 Skoda Octavia RS wagon long-term review: Dynamic driving

Life with the 2021 Skoda Octavia RS wagon had been fairly mediocre for the first month. It’s not the car’s fault – you see, we took delivery during Victoria’s May-June Lockdown (Lock & Down according to F&F nomenclature), which imposed travel restrictions and limited the reasons to leave home.

But a repealing of restrictions and the opening up of the state at the beginning of July made good reason to finally head out for a proper blast to test the Octavia RS’s mettle. Coinciding with a birthday, it was even a good opportunity for a weekend getaway down towards the Great Ocean Road. Exactly the kind of activities the Octavia RS is designed to handle.

Loading up the car on Friday afternoon was a simple affair, and aided by the hands-free powered boot release – which you kick at rather than swipe your leg. An important distinction to remember unless you’re happy awkwardly swiping your leg away at the rear of the car.

The Skoda in particular stocks some extra handy features in the boot, such as luggage hooks, space dividers, and a reversible boot mat that has carpet on the one side and a plastic liner on the other – very handy for a trip to the beach.

The 640L boot easily ate up multiple small suitcases and backpacks. Though it wasn’t needed, the boot space can be expanded to 1700L after folding down the 60:40-split rear seats (which can be done using a latch in the boot).

Not only is the boot cavernous, back seat room comfortably catered to the fam. There are also sun shade blinds, heated rear seats, and rear seat climate control to keep second-row dwellers happy.

The Skoda’s adaptive cruise-control system with Travel Assist feature was taken advantage of down the dull stretch of M1 motorway down south-west. It’s one of the more frustrating systems I’ve come across – often leaving gargantuan gaps between the car in front and regularly matching the speed of cars in adjacent lanes rather than the car in front. It’s also hesitant to hit the desired speed setting, often sitting between 1–5km/h lower than the prescribed limit.

While we’re on the negatives, the infotainment system has thrown up a few issues over the last few weeks. First problem was the audio outputs malfunctioning, and the second issue was the 10-inch display appeared with half a black screen. Issues like these would be particularly annoying after taking delivery of a new car, but luckily both were sorted after a hard reset of the infotainment screen.

In terms of freeway comfort, the Skoda is a lovely car to tour in. The suspension smooths over broken bitumen and errant potholes, while the steering is nice and light for the undemanding freeway schlep.

There’s also plenty of overtaking poke from the 180kW/370Nm 2.0-litre turbo petrol engine. Sharp prods of the throttle are acknowledged and translated quickly by the seven-speed dual-clutch automatic resulting in swift on-the-go acceleration.

Breaking away from the family on a rainy Sunday morning, I made a beeline for Deans Marsh up through the forests and twisty roads out of Lorne. Considering it was cold and wet, I was really impressed with the levels of grip and traction in the Octavia RS. Front-wheel-drive Volkswagens are usually plagued by axle-tramp issues, but I experienced nothing of the sort driving through slippery tight switchback corners.

I’d not played too much with the various driving modes up until now, but the character change between Normal and Sport modes is a marked difference. The steering weights up to a nice and firm feeling, which is quick and direct for dynamic driving, and the adaptive damping system gets a bit serious by hardening up the ride for a flatter feel through bends.

There’s a decent amount of feel through the steering rack to determine what the tyres are up to, and even once things do get a little hot, the handling is predictable to the point that you’d rarely feel out of your depth.

The power output from the engine isn’t anything to write home about, though it remains more than fun in this kind of application. Some might be tempted to shift gears themselves using the steering-wheel-mounted paddles, though I found the DSG was shifting fast enough on its own and kept the car perked up and ready at any given point.

I could do without the accentuated engine noise piped through the speakers, but thankfully the system could be switched off by driving in Comfort or by de-selecting it in the Individual settings. The car default back to Normal (with the sound effect on) each time the engine is started though, without remembering your last drive mode selection.

Fuel use isn’t quite matching Skoda’s 6.8L/100km claim at the moment – it’s currently hovering around 8.7L/100km after this weekend away along with the usual daily duties. We’ll see whether that figure drops down closer to Skoda’s claim throughout the next update.

Next time around, I’m keen to have more of a play with the car’s extensive list of technology features while running it as a daily driver. While this generation does present as a pretty expensive package, it certainly comes well equipped.

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