Škoda Octavia Hatch, 1Z

5 variants from the facelift on, carrying a real market premium of roughly 9% over an otherwise identical pre-facelift car. Variants appearing in both tables were sold either side of the changeover, the build month decides which one you're looking at, not the model year.

Market availability varied by country; check the engine code stamped on the block rather than the badge on the boot. · Compare every engine side by side →

vRS cars share a shell with the range and little else, so they sit apart to keep the ordinary prices readable.

Prices above are for vRS cars only and aren't included in the range figures quoted elsewhere on this page.

● full year · ◐ arrives or leaves mid-generation. Years from 2009 in the accent colour are facelift (LCI) cars. Verify the engine code, not the model year.

Every standard engine in the chassis, plotted at its good-buy price against its risk level. Cheap and low-risk is the top-left; expensive and fragile is the bottom-right. M cars are excluded, they would stretch the price axis and tell you nothing about the rest.

Every standard engine on one euro axis: the bar spans the 10th to 90th percentile of asking prices, the tick is the median and the green marker is the good-buy figure. vRS cars are excluded; they sit an order of magnitude above the rest.

Written once against the chassis and shown on every variant page below, so nothing here is repeated 7 times: vRS cars included, since the bodyshell and electronics are shared.

Best value: 1.9 TDI. The pump-duse 105 is the durable classic of the VW group and the Octavia is the cheapest good body to find one in. Best petrol: 1.8 TFSI, provided the chain tensioner has been done and it isn't drinking oil. Avoid a common-rail 2.0 TDI with no oil-pump history, because the balance-shaft drive can round off and seize the engine. The gearbox is the other decision, since the seven-speed dry DSG is the weak one and a manual removes the question entirely.