It's a VW at the end of the day. In my neck of the woods, all the taxi drivers use them, so they must be pretty reliable.
Only issue I'd heard of was that the brake discs tended to crack with the excessive mileage the cabbies used to do, but Skoda rectified that fairly quickly.
I have had a 55 red Octavia estate 2.0 TDi Elegance for over a year now and it is simply fantastic.
It is well made, has all the "toys" and goes like stink!!!
However its best party trick is fuel consumption. Always over 40mpg even when cruising fast.
One day I was early for an appointment and travelled along the M25 (it was moving!) at 40mph. The computer told me I had averaged 60mpg for the journey!
The Stereo sounds great too .. and it plays MP3 discs.
I could go on and on.
The koda joke is on thosde that mock these days.
Us owners can be smug.
I just checked my oil ans found I was low. The variable service interval schedule means a special type. One that is not available anywg]here except your VW group dealer. So 2 litres plus one spare=�40+ huh!.