The Skoda Octavia vRS embarks on a road trip

There’s nothing like a long road trip with a video crew to put a car through its paces.

They don’t travel light and a lack of housetraining means they are more punishing on a car’s interior than an army of toddlers.

So, when we needed to transport crew and kit to a show in Germany, it seemed like the perfect test for our Skoda Octavia VRS Estate.

Happily, not only did the Skoda survive the experience – it passed with flying colours.

The first thing to impress was the massive boot – 610 litres with the seats up – which easily swallowed the team’s vast amount of bulky kit and everyone’s luggage.

This meant that, unusually for a trip of this kind, no-one had to shoehorn themselves between boxes or rest their feet on bags squished into the footwells.

Better still, the VRS’s sports seats proved surprisingly comfortable, with not a single numb bum or aching back on the whole 1,000-mile round trip.

Our car’s 2.0-litre TDI engine also impressed. Even with some lead-footed driving on the autobahn, the drive was smooth and the engine always felt like it had more to give.

Even with lots of high speed driving on our trip and lots of weight in the car, we averaged and impressive 40mpg.

We did find though that there was lots of road noise at high speeds and on normal roads, the car doesn’t quite feel as entertaining or engaging as it should. In the low gears, the six-speed DSG 4×4 transmission lags on gear changes, particularly when combined with the auto start-stop system.

The journey also provided ample opportunity to thoroughly explore the model’s Columbus infotainment system which, by and large, is very good. The touchscreen is of a good size and the picture is beautifully crisp and clear.

The main navigation buttons can be a bit of a pain though and the reversing camera has a tendency to remain on for a few seconds too long, which is annoying when you’re waiting on instructions from the sat-nav.

Sadly, having reached Frankfurt without incident and all full of admiration for the car’s all-round performance, our hearts sank as we settled in for the return leg and found the dash illuminated like a Christmas tree and the engine in limp mode.

The warning lights suggested faults with the particulate filter and adaptive cruise control, so we called Skoda’s brilliant helpful European roadside assistance team and waited for our recovery driver, cursing the car’s poor reliability.

It turns out though that a German mouse had crawled inside the engine compartment and chewed through the turbo hose.

A quick roadside fix later and we were back on the road with the Skoda back to its best.

It’s a car that’s grown massively on me and, after a few weeks behind the wheel, I’m even liking its green paint job.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE MONTH: Starting to enjoy the Skoda’s out-there looks

MODEL: Skoda Octavia vRS Estate
PRICE: £35,910
ENGINE: 2.0-litre turbocharged diesel
POWER: 181bhp
TORQUE: 380Nm
MAX SPEED: 139mph
0-60MPH: 7.5 seconds
MPG (COMBINED): 55
EMISSIONS: 134g/km