Skoda Octavia prices have a step at the 2013 model year

In brief

• The 2010, 2011 and 2012 Octavias fetch practically the same money: 3,500 €, 3,650 € and 3,790 €. One model year higher lifts the median to 5,950 €.
• The roadworthiness inspection (katsastus) makes the same jump at the same point. Of the cars first registered in 2012, 27.6% failed, against 18.6% of those first registered in 2013, even though the two groups have covered almost the same distance.
• In Uusimaa an Octavia fetches 12,790 €, in Lappi 3,700 €. The gap is not a regional premium but a different point on the same curve.

The first real drop waits until the 2020 model year

At the top of the curve the Skoda Octavia barely depreciates. The median price is 24,680 € for the 2024 model year, 23,990 € for 2023 and 23,380 € for 2022. Across three calendar years the price moves by little more than a thousand euros, while the median odometer readings range from 53,800 km to 93,000 km. In these cars the buyer is paying for something other than age.

These model years accounted for 36, 87 and 41 sales.

The top of the curve is also where the newer powertrains sit. Octavia hybrids fetched 24,480 € and plug-in hybrids 22,700 €, with median model years of 2023 and 2022. Together they are still only about a tenth of the model's sales, so they do not move the overall price at all. They do show what is on offer at the top of the curve: young cars whose odometers read only 55,000 km or 78,000 km.

Only between the 2021 and 2020 model years does the curve turn downwards. The 2021 model year fetched 20,790 €, the 2020 model year just 15,890 €. A single year now costs nearly a quarter of the price, and the median odometer reading climbs from 99,000 km to 132,000 km. From here on every year costs money, and the next six model years walk the price down in even steps towards the model's own median.

The typical Octavia sold is a 2015 car

The model's own median sits in the middle of the curve. The median model year of an Octavia sold is 2015 and the median odometer reading 212,475 km. The 2015 model year's own median price, 8,900 €, is practically the same as the median completed sale price for the model as a whole, 8,800 €. The typical Octavia is therefore an eleven-year-old car that has covered well over two hundred thousand kilometres.

Through the middle the curve falls in even steps. The 2019 model year fetched 16,900 €, 2018 fetched 14,200 €, 2017 fetched 12,900 € and 2016 fetched 10,400 €. Each year takes between one and three thousand euros off the price, and the median odometer reading rises from 147,000 km to 211,000 km. This is the stretch where age and mileage move together.

Mileage alone does not explain the price, though. The median odometer readings for the 2015 and 2014 model years are 234,000 km and 238,000 km, almost identical, but the prices are 8,900 € and 7,900 €. A thousand euros of difference comes from the year alone. Which of the two matters more is an old question in the used car market, and it is dealt with separately in mileage or model year.

For the Octavia the answer depends on where you stand on the curve. Through the middle both move in the same direction, so the question is academic. At the bottom they come apart, and there a single year costs more than a hundred thousand kilometres.

Against the market as a whole, the Octavia stands out precisely on mileage. Across every car sold in Finland the median model year is 2014 and the median odometer reading 184,000 km. The Octavia is a year younger but has covered nearly thirty thousand kilometres more. In Finland the model is most often an estate, and the odometer follows that at every point on the curve.

At the 2013 model year the price falls off a step

The steepest point on the curve is not where the car is new. A 2013 Octavia fetched 5,950 € and one a year older 3,790 €. The gap is more than half the price of the cheaper car, and it opens up across a single calendar year. Measured in euros, no other year in the lower half of the curve costs as much.

Below the step, years cost almost nothing. The median prices for the 2012, 2011 and 2010 model years are 3,790 €, 3,650 € and 3,500 €: three calendar years fit inside three hundred euros. In all three the median odometer reading is over 260,000 km.

The location is no accident. Skoda unveiled the third-generation Octavia in December 2012, and the car reached showrooms in the main European markets in February 2013. Production of the previous generation ended in March that year, and the new generation's estate version did not go on sale until May 2013. The 2012 model year is therefore entirely the old car, the 2014 model year entirely the new one, and 2013 a mixture of the two.

The change was more than a new shell. The new generation moved onto the Volkswagen Group MQB platform, grew nine centimetres longer and shed up to 102 kg. Euro NCAP awarded it five stars in its 2013 test. The platform, the dimensions and the body structure all changed at once, and that is exactly where the step falls on the curve.

The mixed year makes the step look gentler than it really is. Some of the 2013 sales are still the old generation, so that year's median contains both cars. The first model year that is purely the new generation is 2014, and it fetched 7,900 €.

On the odometer the step does not show up the same way. The median reading is 253,000 km for the 2013 model year and 270,000 km for the year before, a difference of the same order as anywhere else on the curve. The price therefore falls far more sharply than the mileage rises. That is what a change of generation does: it moves the car into another class regardless of how far it has been driven.

The same year shows up at the inspection station

Price is not the only measure that changes at the 2013 model year. In the inspection statistics of the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency (Traficom), 27.6% of Octavias first registered in 2012 failed their periodic inspection, against 26.8% for the same age group across the whole country. For cars first registered in 2013 the figure is 18.6% and the national figure 23.6%. Across one year the model moves from above the national level to five percentage points below it.

Percentages say nothing without kilometres, and here the two groups are unusually comparable. The median odometer reading at inspection was 220,000 km for Octavias first registered in 2012 and 213,000 km for those first registered in 2013. The cars have covered practically the same distance. The failure rates still differ by close to a third.

The gap is not a one-year wobble. In the last years of the old generation the Octavia was worse than the national level or level with it, and in every year of the new generation it is below it. Of the cars first registered in 2015, 10.9% failed, against 17.8% for the same age group nationally.

Price and inspection result therefore bend at the same point, even though they do not measure the same thing.

The inspection statistics also show where the faults cluster. For the Octavia the largest fault category is axles, wheels and suspension, and the second largest braking systems: 9,528 and 6,487 faults were recorded. These are counts of faults, not of cars, so a single car may carry several entries in the same category. Both categories wear with the kilometres driven, so they say more about a car's history of use than about which generation it belongs to.

In older Octavias the year no longer costs anything

From the 2010 model year downwards the price stops following age. The median prices for the 2009, 2008, 2007 and 2006 model years are 2,900 €, 1,500 €, 1,700 € and 1,900 €, so the order runs partly against age. The oldest group, the 2005 model year, is 1,300 €. The four model years between 2005 and 2008 fit inside seven hundred euros, despite three years of age between them.

Mileage does not separate them any better. The median odometer readings for these model years are 275,000 km, 373,000 km, 332,000 km and 330,000 km, so the scatter between years is wider than their order. The most heavily driven year is not the cheapest one.

Between the 2010 and 2012 model years the price moves by less than three hundred euros. One step up costs more than two thousand.

Sales at the bottom are no fringe. The 2005 to 2012 model years accounted for several hundred sales between them, and a quarter of all Octavia sales were made below 3,190 €. That quarter mark therefore falls below the step: one sale in four is made on the stretch of the curve where the model year no longer moves the price.

Within a single model year the spread at the bottom is wider than the spread between years. Of the 2005 model year sales, a quarter were made below 500 € and the top quarter exceeded 2,280 €. The gap between the cheapest and the dearest quarter of one model year is therefore more than fourfold, while a whole year's gap to its neighbour runs to a few hundred euros.

At the inspection station the bottom of the curve stands apart. Of the Octavias first registered in 2005, 49.8% failed, and 45.9% of those first registered in 2008, against 6.8% for cars first registered in 2021. In these cars the buyer is not buying a model year but the condition of one individual car, and the price says less about that than anywhere else on the curve.

Three points where the curve does not hold

There are three points on the curve that break the rule. The first is between the 2019 and 2020 model years: the older car fetched more. The median price is 16,900 € for 2019 and 15,890 € for 2020, even though the 2019 cars have covered 147,000 km and the 2020 cars 132,000 km. The older and more heavily driven car is the dearer one.

The likeliest explanation lies in the powertrains. The median model year of Octavia gas cars is 2020 and their median price 14,400 €, below that model year's own median. 58 gas cars were sold, and they cluster at exactly this point on the curve. One powertrain bunching into a single year is enough to pull that year's median below its neighbour's.

The second exception is the price gap between powertrains. The median price for diesel is 5,900 € and for petrol 6,990 €, even though diesel is on average the younger car: its median model year is 2014 against 2013 for petrol.

• Diesel: 539 sales, median price 5,900 €, median odometer reading 286,000 km
• Petrol: 646 sales, median price 6,990 €, median odometer reading 208,000 km
• Gas: 58 sales, median price 14,400 €, median odometer reading 131,000 km

The younger car's lower price is therefore down to kilometres, not age. An Octavia diesel covers 286,000 km before it changes hands, a petrol 208,000 km. The gap is close to eighty thousand kilometres, and it is enough to cancel out a year's advantage in age. Diesel is also more common in the Octavia than in the market at large: 38.1% against 31.7%.

The third wobble is right at the bottom of the curve. The 2008 model year's median price of 1,500 € is lower than the 2007 and 2006 model years, even though the car is younger than both. The explanation shows on the odometer: the median reading for the 2008 model year is 373,000 km, the highest anywhere on the curve. At that sort of mileage the year stops affecting the price altogether.

In Uusimaa buyers shop at a different point on the curve

The price gaps between regions look large. In Uusimaa the median Octavia price is 12,790 €, in Lappi 3,700 €. Uusimaa is also the single biggest market: 24.1% of all sales of the model happened there, against 11.6% in Pirkanmaa, the second biggest.

The gap is not a regional premium but a different point on the same curve. The median model year of an Octavia sold in Uusimaa is 2017, in Lappi 2011. The 2017 model year's own median price is 12,900 € and the 2011 model year's 3,650 €, which is exactly what those two regions pay. The gap between the regions is a gap in age, and it is a precise one.

The same holds in the other direction. In Kymenlaakso the median model year is 2017, as in Uusimaa, and the median price 12,490 €, even though the median odometer reading is 217,000 km against 179,000 km in Uusimaa. A car of the same age but driven considerably further fetches roughly the same money.

The same rule repeats from one region to the next. In Etelä-Pohjanmaa and Lappi the median model year is 2011 and the prices 4,490 € and 3,700 €, so both regions buy from below the step. Uusimaa and Kymenlaakso buy from above it. The question is not what an Octavia costs in one part of Finland or another, but how old the Octavia that changes hands there is.

The mid-sized regions settle onto the same rule. In Varsinais-Suomi the median model year is 2015 and the median price 9,800 €, in Pohjois-Pohjanmaa 2014 and 7,290 €. The 2015 and 2014 model years' own median prices are 8,900 € and 7,900 €, so the regional figures land within a thousand euros of the curve. The deviations are small next to what the step alone does.

The price spread inside Uusimaa was dealt with separately in used car prices in Uusimaa, where the seller explained the spread. Within a single model the explanation is a different one. For the Octavia a region's median price can be read straight off the model year curve, with no deviation left over to account for.

The Octavia changes hands earlier than its rivals

Is the step a feature of the Octavia or of the whole size class? Among models of the same body style and price band, the Volkswagen Passat sells at a median model year of 2015 like the Octavia, but its median odometer reading is 248,000 km against the Octavia's 212,475 km. That is more than thirty-five thousand kilometres between cars of the same age.

The gap widens with the dearer peers. The Mercedes-Benz E sells at a median model year of 2012 and a reading of 285,000 km, the Mercedes-Benz C at 2014 and 279,900 km. Both are older and more heavily driven than the Octavia, yet dearer: their median prices are 10,790 € and 9,900 €, against the Octavia's 8,800 €.

The exception in the other direction is the Kia Ceed, with a median model year of 2016 and a median odometer reading of 161,000 km. It is the youngest and least driven of the group, and it is sold through a dealer more often than the rest: 76.1% of sales. The Octavia's figure is 69.6% and the whole market's 64.2%.

The dealer share varies widely across the group. Of the Audi A4, 46.2% is sold through a dealer, of the Passat 59.5% and of the Octavia 69.6%. The older a model's typical sale, the more often it is made without a dealer.

The Audi A4 is the cheapest of the group at 5,690 €, but its median model year is 2010. It is not a cheaper car but an older one, and the same rule holds across the group: a median price says above all which part of the age scale the sales are made on. For the Octavia that part is the 2015 model year, further up the scale than most of its peers.

The step is real even though it does not show in what is on offer

The bottom of the curve is hard to see if you look only at what is for sale. There are 1,555 Octavias on the market, and the median asking price is 13,500 €. The median of the cars that actually sold falls a long way below that.

The difference comes down to what gets listed in the first place. Cars at the bottom of the curve are cheap, and a large share of them change hands between private sellers: 30.4% of Octavia sales were made without a dealer, against a dealer share of 64.2% across the whole market. The top quarter of sales exceeded 16,990 €, so the median of what is on offer sits far higher on the curve than the median of the sales that completed.

There is another explanation for the step besides the generation change. Every year costs something, and the step could simply be the point at which a car starts to read as old. Against that stands the fact that the neighbouring years cost almost nothing: between the 2010 and 2012 model years the price moves by less than three hundred euros, while the 2013 model year fetches 5,950 €. Age alone would produce a steady decline, not one sharp point.

A second objection is the size of the group. The 2013 model year accounted for 56 sales and the 2012 model year for 51, so a single unusual sale would move the median. On the Traficom side, though, the same boundary is drawn by a group of an entirely different size: 4,583 Octavias first registered in 2013 were inspected, and 4,114 of those first registered in 2012. Two measurements this far apart in size are unlikely to land on the same year by chance.

The strongest evidence against the generation explanation would be an inspection figure that behaved differently. It does not. In the Traficom figures, cars first registered in 2013 are the first cohort to come five percentage points below the national level, and they stay below it in every year that follows. Two independent measures bend at the same point, and age alone explains neither.

The cheapest way into the new generation costs 5,950 €

If the car has to be the newer generation, the cheapest way in is the 2013 model year, and it costs a good two thousand euros more than one a year older. That money buys one calendar year and a measurably different inspection result: at almost identical mileage, 18.6% of the 2013 cars failed against 27.6% of the 2012 cars.

If the budget sits at the bottom of the curve, there is no point paying for the year. The median prices of the 2010, 2011 and 2012 model years differ by less than three hundred euros, and at inspection 34.5% and 29.4% of the 2010 and 2011 cars fail. The gap across those three model years is so small that the year does not separate the cars at all.

• Above the step: from the 2013 model year onwards the median price rises with every year, and the failure rate stays below the national level.
• Below the step: the 2010, 2011 and 2012 model years fit inside three hundred euros, and the failure rate is around thirty per cent or higher.

Nor does the inspection gap fade with age. In the oldest years of the old generation the failure rate climbs towards half: 48.9% of Octavias first registered in 2006 failed, and 44.0% of those first registered in 2007. In the oldest year of the new generation the figure is still under twenty per cent, even though those cars too have covered more than two hundred thousand kilometres.

At the top of the curve the opposite rule applies. The three newest model years fetch almost the same money, so an extra year of age barely shows in the price but does show on the odometer. The buyer's money therefore goes to a different thing depending on which side of the step they are standing.

The Octavia's median price is therefore the midpoint between two different cars. One is a car registered before 2013, whose price has stopped moving and whose failure rate is above the national level. The other is a car registered after that, which costs more and passes its inspection more often. The question that matters is not what an Octavia costs, but which side of the step the car in front of you is on.

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