Skoda Scala Review 2025

The Skoda Scala is one of the roomiest cars in the class, yet also one of the most affordable. As a general rule you usually get what you pay for, so what's the catch? In this review we'll show you what compromises you have to make to get an otherwise excellent family hatchback. 

Skoda is already very well-represented in the family hatchback market by the excellent Octavia, while family SUV buyers are also nicely catered for by the Karoq. So what's the reasoning behind the Scala?

Well, this isn’t a car that’s trying to directly steal sales from its established siblings. It has its own appeal, and it’s designed to offer something back-to-basics. While the Octavia is - and continues to be - popular for providing limo-like space for hatchback money, along with loads of luxury kit and a (relatively) posh-feeling cabin, the Scala caters for different buyers.

Not everyone needs as much space as the Octavia provides, and not everyone cares as much about quality and kit as they do about the price tag. With that in mind, the Scala is a smaller, more budget-focused offering to satisfy those people who might otherwise be drawn to rivals such as the Kia Ceed, Vauxhall Astra and Citroen C4. 

Of course, when we say ‘smaller’, everything is relative. The Octavia is huge inside by class standards, and so the smaller Scala is still one of the roomiest cars in the class, both in terms of lugging passengers about or swallowing luggage. 

Yes, you will see evidence of cost-cutting in a few other areas: the interior is trimmed with fairly dull-looking and hard plastic, and while lots of equipment is offered, not all that much of it is standard at the lower end of the range, especially in early cars. Still, what do you expect when the price undercuts that of pretty much every rival?

Importantly, you won’t detect any signs of cost-cutting on the road. The Scala is an impressively comfortable and easy-going car to drive, with a smooth ride, controlled handling and perky yet efficient engines.

You’ll also enjoy the fantastic all-round visibility it gives you, the user-friendly nature of all the various controls and the peace-of-mind you get from its five-star Euro NCAP safety rating. In fact, quality finish and kit list aside, the Scala is an exceptionally good all-rounder. And all for a bargain-basement price. If you like the finer things in life, it might not be for you, but when you stand to save thousands (or a healthy chunk of monthly payment cost), surely it’s worth a look, right?

The Skoda Scala has a soft, forgiving suspension set-up that keeps life impressively comfortable, and that’s regardless of whether you're crawling along craggy urban streets or steaming along motorways.

And despite the impressive comfort, there’s still enough control in the suspension to keep the body from bouncing up and down too much on undulating country roads, or from leaning over too much in bends, making the car feel secure and tidy.

Okay, so it's not the sharpest-handling hatchback you'll ever drive - a Ford Focus will provide plenty more thrills for keen drivers - but its mixture of civility and security is arguably more important, and certainly worth the trade-off given the price tag.

Having said that, the one thing the Scala is lacking is refinement. It's not noisy at lower speeds as the engines are subdued, nor is there loads of unwanted vibration. At motorway speeds, however, the amount of noise from the road surface and (to a lesser extent) from the wind means you'll be turning the radio volume up. 

The Scala is also offered with an adaptive sports suspension, which changes its behaviour according to which driving mode you select. Even without the extra cost, we’d avoid it. Regardless of the mode, it makes the ride quite a lot firmer and lumpier, and it doesn’t really make the car any more enjoyable in the corners. This system was an optional extra on early cars, but later became standard on Monte Carlo variants.

Scala buyers have the choice of three turbocharged petrol engines: a pair of 1.0-litre three-cylinder engines with either 95PS or 115PS (that latter was also offered with outputs of 110PS and 116PS at various points during the car's life), and a four-cylinder 1.5 with 150PS. The 95PS version is perfectly adequate, but the 115PS model is great. With impressive low-down pull, it feels responsive and surprisingly strong from anywhere on the rev range, so not only is your progress adequately brisk, it’s also easy and effortless.

The 1.5 is a fraction quicker against the stopwatch, and has a similarly perky character. However, in 90 percent of driving situations, it doesn’t feel a whole lot faster than the smaller engine, so we’d probably save ourselves the extra it costs to buy.

A diesel choice was once offered, and can still be had on the used market: a 1.6 with 115PS. It gives decent pace, but it doesn’t feel as lively or as eager as the equivalent petrol, and overall, it doesn’t suit the car as well with reduced refinement with that groaning diesel note. It cost quite a bit more, too, and you’ll have to cover a lot of miles before its superior fuel economy overturns the difference.

All engines are offered with a reasonably slick six-speed manual gearbox, while all but the 95PS petrol are also offered with a seven-speed twin-clutch automatic. It slurs through the gears pretty effectively, keeping your progress smooth and responsive, although you can catch it out when you want to pull away very quickly. 

It's a bit of a mixed bag here. Importantly, the Scala scored the full five-star rating when it was smashed into various things by the experts at Euro NCAP, and its individual section ratings also look very good as well.

The safety kit you get as standard includes a very run-of-the-mill six airbags, automatic emergency braking, lane assist and automatic emergency calling.

However, lots of other stuff that rivals might provide as standard costs extra on the Scala: a driver’s knee airbag, rear side airbags and adaptive cruise control, for instance.

The Skoda Scala is not an especially good tow car, managing a braked maximum towing figure of 1250kg: that goes for the 1.5-litre petrol and the now-defunct diesel. The 116PS petrol isn't far behind at 1200kg, but the entry-level 95PS petrol is way back on just 1000kg. Whatever the case, we'd only tow a small trailer with it: even the smallest caravans might be a stretch. 

Nobody’s going to struggle for space in the front seats of the Skoda Scala, and there’s also more rear space than in most rivals, with generous headroom and legroom that allows lofty passengers to stretch out. A pair of bulky child seats will be no bother, either, with two rear Isofix points as standard. 

The cabin is narrower than it is in some rivals, making it a bit more of a squeeze to carry three people across the rear bench, but there isn’t a car in this class that can perform such a task without forcing passengers to get overly familiar with each other. 

The boot is also considerably bigger than in most rivals. The Octavia has more space, but the Scala has pretty much every other rival beaten on this score with its 467-litre boot capacity. To get more space for the money, you'll either need a Dacia Duster, or you'll be looking at used cars. 

The space is also a nice square shape, and the rear seats fold in a 60/40 split to allow you to boost your load-carrying capacity. However, those seats lie at a slight angle, and there’s a sizeable step between them and the boot floor, not to mention a sizeable load lip at the boot opening itself.

In terms of exterior dimensions, the Skoda Scala is 4362mm long, 1793mm wide and 1471mm tall. Those are about average figures for the family hatchback class. 

There’s some soft-touch plastic to be found on top of the dashboard, but pretty much everything else inside the Skoda Scala is constructed from stuff that’s harder, scratchier and less pleasant to look at or touch.

What’s more, we wish Skoda had spent a little cash and effort on brightening up the cabin, as everything from the dash, doors and upholstery is rather grey and monotone. In truth, most rivals have a more appealing interior than the Scala, and that’s the case regardless of how far up the Scala’s trim structure you go.

That said, while the materials aren’t the last word in plushness, they do look and feel incredibly robust, and the substantial way in which they’re bolted together also helps give the Scala a built-to-last feel. We've no doubt the Scala's cabin will stand up to years of abuse. 

With early versions of the Scala, the nature of the infotainment system you got depended entirely on the grade of car you choose. The entry-level S-trimmed car got a very basic system with a tiny 6.5-inch touchscreen display, along with Bluetooth, DAB radio, four speakers and a couple of USB-C ports. It was pretty rubbish for its time, and feels even more out-of-date now.

If you upgrades to the SE, you got a bigger 8.0-inch screen with eight speakers, but the bigger difference was that it came with Smartlink, a system that rolls up Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and Mirrorlink - the most common smartphone integration tech - into one package. So, whatever phone you have, the system should be able to work with it, and it means you can use your phone’s navigation functionality through the car’s screen.

The SEL and the Monte Carlo both got a system with a bigger 9.2-inch screen and built-in navigation, along with a 10.25-inch digital instrument screen. These look great and work well, but there’s very little wrong with the conventional dials found in other Scalas. Later on in the car's life, from late 2024 onwards, this range-topping system was made standard throughout the range.

Each touchscreen system uses the same basic user interface, and it’s intuitive and easy to find your way around. Being a touchscreen, it’s a little more distracting than some other types of interface because you have to stare at the screen so intently to make sure you hit the right bit, but as touchscreens go, it’s not bad at all. And at least you get physical controls for operating the air-con.

The Scala is designed to undercut its rivals on price, and it does. Compared with more established rivals like the Volkswagen Golf and Honda Civic it offers substantial savings, and now that the Vauxhall Astra has moved upmarket, only the Hyundai i30 is within touching distance on like-for-like affordability. 

Prices start at around £24,000 for the 1.0 TSI 95 manual in SE Edition trim. Prices used to start much lower, but the most basic trims - and they really felt it - have since been canned, so while headline prices are no longer as low, at least all versions are now well-equipped.

Prices rise to upwards of £32,000 for the 1.5 TSI 150 Monte Carlo Edition automatic, which sits at the top of the range. It's not a version we'd recommend, because you can have all that's good about the Scala for a lot less. We reckon the sweet spot in the range is probably the SE L Edition with the 116PS 1.0 TSI engine and a manual gearbox, priced at around £27,000.

If buying brand new, do bear in mind that the Scala doesn’t cling onto its value quite as well as most rivals, so you’ll get a smaller slice of your outlay back when the time comes to sell the car on. Don't worry too much, though, as the difference versus rivals isn't that massive. These weaker resale values will also mean marginally higher monthly repayments for finance customers.

New buyers' loss is used buyers' gain, though, as these weaker residuals mean even keener prices on the used car market, especially now that the Scala has been on sale for several years, so pre-owned prices have had plenty of time to come down. For a budget of £11,000, you'll have your choice of examples from 2020 or 2021. These will be low-mileage (30,000-40,000 miles) 1.0 TSIs, or higher mileage (50,000 miles) 1.5 TSIs. Either way, it's a lot of car for the cash.

The official WLTP fuel economy figures say that whichever of the Scala's turbocharged petrol engines you go for, you should get upwards of 50mpg, with the very best of them - the entry-level 95PS 1.0 TSI engine - achieving upwards of 55mpg.

We'd be sceptical of getting that in the real world, however, and if anything, we think that real-world returns will probably be better on the more powerful engines since they don't have to work as hard for equivalent performance. Whatever, the case, though, it's safe to assume that your Scala's fuel bills will be far from ruinous.

If you're buying used, and you're likely to use your car mainly for pounding up and down motorways, then you might want to seek out the diesel version that was discontinued in 2022. This has an official figure of around 60mpg, and it's at its best with motorway use.

If you’re buying a budget-focused car like the Scala, you don’t want to pay a king’s ransom to insure it, and the good news is that you won’t. Insurance groupings range from 10 at the bottom of the scale to 21 at the top, with most versions sitting at around the 14 mark. So, if you have a decent no-claims-bonus, premiums should be very palatable.

And, whichever version of the Scala you pick, you’ll pay annual VED tax (road tax) at the flat rate of £195 per year, with no fear of being bothered by the expensive luxury car surcharge thanks to the Scala's low price.

It's fair to say that with early examples of the Scala, the lower-end versions weren't terribly well equipped. The range started with the Skoda Scala S, and the standard kit on this version included:

• alloy wheels
• manual air-conditioning
• LED headlights
• remote locking
• four powered windows
• electric door mirror adjustment
• basic infotainment system

We reckon the S version's basic infotainment system was reason enough on its own to upgrade to the Skoda Scala SE, but doing so also earned you niceties including:

• automatic lights and wipers
• 16-inch alloys
• cruise control
• front foglamps
• rear parking sensors

Then came the Skoda Scala SE Technology, which had:

• front parking sensors
• chrome window trim
• upgraded 9.2-inch infotainment display with sat-nav

Next up was the Skoda Scala SE L, which had:

• Virtual Cockpit digital instruments
• 17-inch alloys
• rear-view camera
• privacy glass
• two-zone climate control
• LED rear lights
• part-suede-effect upholstery
• keyless go

At the top of the range was the Skoda Scala Monte Carlo, which added:

• sportier styling touches
• panoramic roof
• extra leather interior trims

However, the amount of stuff left on the options list, even on the range-topping versions, is perhaps a little surprising. Electrically adjustable seats, part-leather upholstery, a reversing camera, adaptive cruise control, wireless phone charging, a variable boot floor, front parking sensors and heated seats are all available, but no version gets them as standard.

At the beginning of 2024, the Scala was facelifted, and in the process, the trim levels available were whittled down to just SE, SE L and Monte Carlo, and a significantly enhanced level of equipment was provided across the range. Then, in September of the same year, the trim levels were renamed SE Edition, SE L Edition and Monte Carlo Edition, and each was enhanced a little further. This remains the case today.

The now-entry-level Skoda Scala SE Edition comes with:

• 16-inch alloy wheels
• metallic paint
• full LED lighting
• front fog lights
• leather multifunction steering wheel
• 9.2-inch central infotainment screen with 1.25-inch virtual cockpit digital instruments
• satnav
• wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto
• dual-zone air conditioning
• rear parking sensors
• reversing camera
• cruise control
• keyless go

On top of that, the Skoda Scala SE L Edition adds:

• 17-inch alloy wheels
• dynamic turn indicators
• chrome window surrounds
• rear privacy glass
• part-microsuede upholstery
• heated front seats
• ambient cabin lighting
• keyless entry and go
• front parking sensors
• automatic lights and wipers
• power folding door mirrors

At the top of the range, the Skoda Scala Monte Carlo Edition has:

• heated steering wheel
• adaptive suspension
• adaptive cruise control
• wireless smartphone charging
• panoramic roof
• matrix LED headlights
• sportier exterior and interior styling