Skoda Octavia vRS review – pace, space and value from Skoda’s Golf GTI equivalent - MPG and running costs

In a sensible family car like the Octavia, even one badged vRS, you’d expect relative frugality. And the vRS delivers, particularly in 2.0 TDI form. Officially, the manual, front-drive car will do 64.2mpg, which drops to 60.1mpg with the DSG, a further few mpg in estate form and a further few still as a 4x4.

Drive gently and a figure in the low 50s is more realistic – we’ve achieved mid-40s in our diesel, estate, DSG long-termer and it’s probably driven harder than most. Relatively low CO2 figures are a symptom of the car’s on-paper parsimony – the least polluting emits 115g/km.

Petrol models get those mid-40 figures on paper, with 43.5mpg for the manual hatchback. This figure only drops slightly for the vRS 245, down to 42.8mpg, which shows how similar the engines of the two really are.