Skoda Yeti SE

The Skoda Yeti is a brilliant piece of creative thinking from Skoda that takes advantage of the firms access to Volkswagen Group parts and technology. The result is a compact car that looks like a small SUV, has the performance of the slightly larger Volkswagen Golf and the flexibility of Skoda’s Roomster compact MPV.

There’s a wide range of models of differing characters: petrol and diesel, manual and semi-automatic and front or four-wheel drive. The common bond is that all are excellent family cars that are great to live with and huge fun to drive. SE is the mid-range version, and it comes with 17-inch alloy wheels, rear parking sensors, cruise control, separate air conditioning controls for the left and right sides of the cabin, privacy glass, a better stereo and a full safety spec including electronic stability control and a driver’s knee airbag. It’s not as much of a budget car as some of Skoda’s other models, however. Prices for SE models start at around £17,000, so it’s more expensive than the larger Octavia.

Good points

The Yeti is a great family car with plenty of space for five, the versatility of an MPV and a big boot that becomes truly massive when you fold or remove the rear seats.For more regular family use, there are a couple of 1.2-litre turbocharged petrol engines, a turbo 1.4-litre petrol plus a 2.0-litre 108bhp diesel, all delivering strong performance with sensible running costs. The Yeti is built to the high standards of all Skodas, and is well equipped – two of the reasons why the Czech company’s cars always do so well in customer satisfaction surveys.

Bad points

It’s not so much that there are bad points: merely things to bear in mind. First, the Yeti isn’t a cheap car. In mid-range SE trim, prices start from around £18,500, while the four-wheel-drive versions are on the top side of £20,000.The rear seats are quite heavy to fold and remove, and are awkward to replace, so the car’s versatility does demand some physical effort.The high stance and raised driving position causes a bit more wind noise than in conventional hatchbacks, too.

What you get

• Alloy wheels
• Folding rear seats
• Rear parking sensors
• Tyre pressure sensors
• Passenger & Driver airbag
• Front side airbags
• Curtain airbags
• Front fog lights
• Auto climate control
• Height adjustable driver's seat
• Front electric windows
• AUX stereo input
• Cruise control
• Stop/Start
• Rear electric windows
• Bluetooth

Recommended optional extras

• Reversing camera

Our choice

The 120bhp 1.2-litre petrol is perfectly adequate for most needs. Forget its small capacity – it’s turbocharged, so it delivers as much pulling power as a 1.6-litre.