Facelifted Skoda Octavia Unveiled in India – How Different Is It?

The Skoda Octavia has been given a minor facelift to keep it fresh. Do the changes make the car better?

The Skoda Octavia now comes with a split LED headlamp design. 

(Photo: Skoda India)

Why would you want to mess with a perfectly good design? Well, that’s what Skoda India has done with the new Octavia, in order to keep the car looking fresh. The updated Octavia gets a few cosmetic changes, and a few minor mechanical updates, but is essentially the same car.

What’s New with the Octavia?

The daytime running lamps also get split, along with the headlamps. (Photo: Skoda India)

Visually, the most striking difference with the new Skoda Octavia is in the front looks. Skoda has tried to give it a split-headlamp look, like the old Mercedes E-Class. The Octavia gets full LED headlamps, with a strip of the bumper bifurcating it into a twin-lamp. The daytime running light strip within the headlight also gets split.

The lamps on either side of the grille are the high-beam LED units. The fog lamps are also new, with a refreshed bumper and lower air-dam design.

There is not much to differentiate the car from the side. Both look identical, except for some difference near the fog lamp housing and rear reflector strip. The alloy wheels are the same as the outgoing car in India, unlike the European version that gets new alloys.

The rear of the car looks almost the same, except for minor tweaks to the bumper and tail-lamps.(Photo: Skoda India)

From the rear, there are minor changes to the bumper, which is pretty hard to notice. The rear track is also slightly wider, by 20 mm on the diesel variants and 30 mm on the petrol variant, but its not noticeable visually. The rear tail-lamps have a slightly different design to them, with LED strips forming the trademark C-shape.

On the interiors, the layout is almost identical, except for a larger 8-inch screen for the infotainment system. It continues to offer Apple Car Play, Android Auto and Mirror Link, as well as reverse camera integration.

There are some subtle changes to the plastics around the centre console as well, but not something you would notice immediately.

The interiors have not changed much, except for a larger infotainment system.(Photo: Skoda India)

The Skoda Octavia continues to be powered by the three engine choices it had – 1.4 TSi (turbocharged petrol) with a 6-speed manual transmission, 1.8 TSi petrol with a 7-speed DSG automatic transmission, and a 2-litre diesel with a 6-speed manual or 6-speed automatic transmission.

The Skoda Octavia is a pretty feature-rich, fully loaded car, but caters to a segment where volumes are fairly thin. It sells an average of about 175 cars a month, putting it in the third spot behind the Toyota Corolla Altis and the Hyundai Elantra. Skoda will probably hike prices on the Octavia next month, when this facelifted car rolls out.

Also read: Upcoming Skoda cars in India