Skoda Kodiaq 4x4 2022 long-term test

Speaking of that 2.0-litre TSI, despite being a relatively big and potent petrol engine hauling a heavy SUV, it would manage 40mpg at a cruise, which is very respectable indeed. I suspect the 148bhp 1.5 TSI would have been sufficient for my needs and would have returned even better fuel economy.

However, a commenter on the Autocar website said they had a Volkswagen Tiguan with the 1.5 TSI and an automatic gearbox, yet could manage only 44mpg on a long run, so maybe the 2.0-litre is the one to have, after all. On the whole, it is an impressive engine. That said, the 1.5 would be a £3850 drop in list price and below the £40k mental barrier.

The 1.5 can also be paired to a good old-fashioned manual gearbox. The three-pedal option appeals, not because the Kodiaq is a car for the driving purist, but because taking control of the gears and clutch myself would have avoided the frustration of the DSG’s indecisiveness in town. It had a habit of going between second and third needlessly and not particularly smoothly.

While on the topic of spec choices, it is strange that most versions of the Kodiaq have seven seats as standard. I can’t be the only one who has no use for two tiny seats but could always use some additional underfloor storage to hide valuables away. Not that I struggled for room with the 765 litres of boot space, which can be expanded to a van-like 2005 litres if you drop the second row of seats as well. Nevertheless, Skoda’s options policy is fairly flexible in general, so why not let buyers combine the bigger engines and plusher trims with the five-seat layout?

It’s easy to damn Skodas with faint praise, because they tend to do their job competently and without drawing too much attention to themselves. There is something to be said for a car that doesn’t annoy you every step of the way.

The driving position is faultless, the assisted driving features never gave me much grief, and neither did the infotainment system. I’ve tended to use Apple CarPlay, but on the odd occasion that I’ve used the built-in navigation, it worked reasonably well. The temperature and fan speed are adjusted using simple buttons. Such a thing might catch on, you know.

Our Kodiaq was also pleasantly free of overenthusiastic driver assist features. The lane-keeping assistance is well tuned and easy enough to turn off if needed, and I’ve had no grief from the collision avoidance system. That said, a good blindspot monitoring system with a telltale in the mirror would have been useful. Modern cars don’t have the visibility of old ones and a bit of help would be appreciated in this large vehicle.

The tyre pressure monitoring system also stopped Kris Culmer, the car’s initial keeper, from driving on for too long when he suffered first a puncture and then an incorrectly fitted replacement tyre. What’s more, the Kodiaq comes with a space-saver spare, which is always reassuring. 

Second Opinion

I always enjoy my time in Skodas. They have a distilled ‘essence of car’ vibe that just lets you get on with whatever else you’re doing. The Kodiaq is no exception. Having spent some time in a car that was the twin of Luc’s, I didn’t experience the gearbox issues he’s mentioned either, so maybe a simple software reset could have cured the issue 

Illya Verpraet 

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Love it:

User-friendly cockpit Ergonomics are spot on and the interior is full of easily proddable buttons. 

Lost in space All the space in the world for camera gear or bikes, or for a photographer shooting the car following behind.

Economy Fuel consumption was impressive for a 187% 2.0-litre pulling a heavy four-wheel drive SUV.

Loathe it:

Dithering DSG The Kodiaq's dual-clutch automatic gearbox could be fairly clunky in town.

What the bleep? We appreciate the warning, but the tailgate emits a loud beep right into your ear every time it opens.

Final mileage: 12,732

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Not entirely ergonomically sound - 20 July 

For a brand as sensible and focused on practicality as Skoda, it is surprising to see how much of a meal it’s made of the cupholders in the Kodiaq. The car simply doesn’t have any dedicated cupholders. Instead, there is an insert in the centre console storage bin with roughly circular cut-outs. Trouble is, they’re very small and close to the side of the bin, so wider cups don’t fit. 

Mileage: 12,732

Our photographer rarely considers off-road mode - 13 July 

Four-wheel-drive Kodiaqs like mine get an off-road mode, which relaxes the ABS and stability control, primes the torque vectoring by braking to mimic a locking differential, activates the hill descent control and shows some auxiliary gauges in the infotainment. I rarely do more than park on a grassy verge, but it’s nice to know that tech is there.

Mileage: 12,379

Life with a Skoda Kodiaq: Month 2

Skoda's umbrellas have us singing in the rain - 29 June

Our Kodiaq doesn’t have all of Skoda’s ‘Simply Clever’ features, since things like the ‘sleep package’ and the little rubbish bins in the doors are options. They do contain the umbrellas, though. They are too flimsy to hold up in a storm, but have kept the journalist idly milling about as I shoot details on a car dry on more than one occasion. 

Mileage: 12,004

Long drive to Yorkshire has us considering the wisdom of our powertrain selection - 22 June

My time with our Skoda Kodiaq is almost up, but before then, I still had a schlep to Yorkshire to do in it. 

Long journeys like that are where this SUV is at its best, since the seats are pretty comfortable, the noise isolation is on point and the 61-litre tank means you’re never worried about range.

For a big car with a powerful petrol engine, its consumption has been surprisingly acceptable. In fact, it consistently beats its official figure of 34.5mpg. It returns mid-30s on a regular basis and even hit the low- 40s on one long run. That equates to a range of around 500 miles. 

Even so, I can’t help wondering if the 1.5-litre engine would have suited me even better than the 2.0-litre one, for a number of reasons. 

The most obvious is that, in theory, it can eke five miles more out of a gallon of petrol. And with today’s prices, that has never sounded more appealing. And while it’s, of course, nice to have 187bhp and 236lb ft at your disposal, I suspect I’m representative of most Kodiaq drivers in that I rarely use the engine’s full potential. 

As long as the car is able to comfortably maintain my chosen cruising speed on a hill, that’s enough for me. With 184lb ft of torque, even the smaller engine is unlikely to struggle. The extra poke of the hot Kodiaq vRS especially seems like overkill to me.

I might come to regret those words, though, since the Kodiaq is due to be replaced by a Dacia Jogger with an engine half the size.

Another benefit of the 1.5-litre unit in the Kodiaq would be that it comes with a manual gearbox as standard. It feels slightly incongruous to have a large SUV with a gearlever and a clutch pedal these days, but I still haven’t got completely used to the quirks of the seven-speed dual- clutch automatic in my car.

Pootling through the 20mph and 30mph zones in town, the DSG’s indecision about whether to use second or third gear can be tiring. On more open roads, you can use the paddles to pre-empt hills and corners, but in town you just have to live with the lack of smoothness.

Other than this, there haven’t been many niggles to mar my time with the Kodiaq. For the most part, it just does what Skodas usually do so well: exactly what you need them to do unspectacularly but unobtrusively.

There is one area where Skoda’s usual thoughtfulness seems to be missing, though, and that’s the boot. As a photographer with lots of gear to cart around, I’m obviously delighted with the Kodiaq’s huge boot. I have yet to use the third row of seats, but as they fold neatly into the floor, they have never bothered me.

The trouble is that the slightly improvised-looking luggage cover always leaves a gap to the back of the rear seats, which isn’t ideal when you’re trying to hide several thousand pounds’ worth of equipment from prying eyes.

Also, every time you open the boot, it emits a loud beep right into your ear. It’s quite a piercing noise first thing in the morning. I suppose I could use the Virtual Pedal and quickly step away, but I’ve only once managed to make that work.

Love it: 

All mapped out

I usually default to Apple CarPlay but occasionally use the built-in sat-nav. No complaints here: it all works flawlessly.

Loathe it: 

Another black mark

The dash and doors have a carbon-effect trim, and I wish Skoda had used that for the centre console too, as the gloss black plastic there gets grubby very quickly.

Mileage: 11,705

Skoda has the premium feel of costlier rivals - 1 June

Premium feel can be tough to define, but I think our Skoda definitely has it. Several have stopped to comment on how smart it looks, most of them unaware of what they were looking at – and many not put off when they were told. I reckon the unusual grey paint helps. There’s a bit of premium allure inside, too – although the shiny chrome trims on the steering wheel seem unnecessary additions and actually just reflect the sunlight, distracting you. Some adornments aren’t worth having, after all. LL

Mileage: 10,900 

Life with a Skoda Kodiaq: Month 1

Not all SUVs pass the lifestyle test, but this one hasn’t put a wheel wrong yet - 18 May

Lots of people would look at a car like our Skoda Kodiaq, see a sizeable SUV and imagine that it could probably carry enough cargo and equipment to meet any daily requirement.

That’s no doubt why SUVs sell so well, even to people who don’t actually have those needs but simply want to be ready for the day when they might.

I guess I’m a bit different, but then my last long-termer but one was a Ford Tourneo van with an extra row of seats. My weekends often involve friends, tents, beaches, mountains and mountain bikes. It’s the kind of lifestyle that a crew van takes to naturally but can actually be a tough test of a conventional car, even if it does have seven seats and a big boot.

The Kodiaq has both, and yet I was relieved to discover that it will carry a couple of mountain bikes, as well as fairly big kit bags alongside, with room to spare if you fold down the seats in rows two and three.

The loading height is convenient and the bootlid is powered. Our car even has Skoda’s Virtual Pedal remote opener fitted as an option, so you can open the hatchback with a wave of your foot when your hands are full.

Well, you can in theory: as often as not, it doesn’t work when I wave a trainer at it. Maybe I need more brightly coloured footwear. Once loaded, the Kodiaq is great on longer-distance trips. It will beat 40mpg on the motorway with room to spare, and the 60-litre fuel tank makes for a 500-mile cruising range between fills, which is a welcome change for me after running several smaller-tanked plug-in hybrids.

The touchscreen infotainment system isn’t the most graphically eye-catching at first, but it’s nicely presented and really easy to use.

It offers wireless charging for your phone up front and a 12V charging socket for your laptop (or flash guns) in the boot, too. A busy photographer could ask for little more.

Last time out, I wrote about the Kodiaq’s modest and discreetly tuned active safety systems, which are nicely unintrusive, and how the only such system I would want to add would be a good lane-monitoring system with a graphical display to warn you when a car is in your blindspot.

That prompted me to have a look on Skoda’s online configurator to find out if such a system can be added (there are Lane Assist and Travel Assist systems listed, but it isn’t made clear if either gives the display functionality I’m after) and then to wonder about other options I might add with the benefit of familiarity with the car. Our car is pretty light on optional extras as it is, and I was quite surprised at how many – and what – you can add.

I’m certainly glad that it has the Canton premium stereo and Virtual Cockpit digital instruments, which are both very good. I’m not sorry to miss out on those aforementioned active safety systems or the Dynamic Chassis Control adaptive dampers at £1105 (the ride is fairly firm but pretty well judged). But Skoda’s Winter Pack (£695), with its heated seats in rows two and three, would have gone down rather well after a chilly and wet day on my bike, and I’m especially surprised that a safety-conscious brand like Skoda doesn’t include side airbags for the second-row seats as standard (they’re a £325 extra).

Love it: 

Golden Oldie

The 9.2in Columbus infotainment of Sportline trim is well worth the extra. The newer tech in my Cupra Formentor was a lot harder to use.

Loathe it:

Urban decay

The petrol-automatic powertrain feels a bit clumsy and unresponsive during town driving. It’s better on long runs, though.

Mileage: 8995

Our photographer takes the Kodiaq for a spin - 4 May 

There are lots of 20mph zones in my local area, and that seems to be the speed at which the Skoda’s gearbox swaps from second to third and back again. The downshifts make it difficult to pootle around smoothly in automatic mode, but the steering wheel-mounted paddles work well when you take charge. Things are much more refined at speed.

Mileage: 8034

One of its Pirellis puts the skids under our Czech honeymoon - 27 April

As is so often the case, this tale of woe begins innocuously. An orange symbol illuminates on my Skoda Kodiaq’s digital cockpit, warning me that one of the tyres has fallen below the required pressure.

Hoping that nothing serious is afoot, I head over to my local petrol station and hook up the rear-left tyre to the machine. I swear it never takes this long; it should be just a matter of moments before I hear the confirmatory beeps. I look up and, to my confusion, the PSI figure on the machine’s screen is actually falling, not rising. Have I done this wrong? Surely nobody can do this wrong.

I try holding the nozzle in a few different ways, but to no avail. Feeling the impatient gazes of the several motorists queuing for the machine boring a hole into the back of my head, I scram to the next fuel station. This time, for reasons unknown, the pressure rises. Phew.

However, by the time I’ve reached the office, 70 miles away, and done a day’s work, it has gone down again a little. Bugger: there must be a slow puncture. I reinflate it and head home. But now the pressure is really plummeting, and I have to stop to reinflate again. I really must get this sorted out tomorrow.

I’ve always found the concept of smart motorways scary, but at night, in the rain, on a fast-deflating tyre, with no hard shoulder and no exit for another four miles? Now that really does put the fear in me.

There is actually a spare wheel in the boot of the Kodiaq, but I must confess that I’ve never changed one solo and now really doesn’t seem like a great time to start. Rather embarrassed, I call the AA, who kindly put on the spacesaver.

Finally and dejectedly home, the concert I have a ticket for long finished, I arrange with Skoda to have a mobile tyre fitter meet me at work the next day. Driving to the office limited to 50mph is a miserable experience, but at least it’s one that I won’t have to repeat.

I’m wrong. The fitter comes out to our Twickenham base and puts on a fresh Pirelli Scorpion Verde R20, his smart van and uniform filling me with reassurance, and after work I set off to my friend’s place in Manchester for the weekend.

I’ve not even reached the M25 when the tyre- pressure monitoring system again rears its ugly head, but I’m not too worried. It’s a brand-new tyre, so clearly the system just hasn’t reset properly. I stop to use the toilet later on and find that I’m very wrong indeed.

I’m not one to let frustration get the better of me, but faced with the prospect of waiting for the AA for an hour, then driving for about five hours to Manchester or the same duration back home, once more stuck at 50mph, I feel close to it.

Another fitter meets me the next morning, filling me with zero confidence in his rust-covered plain van, oil-splattered overalls and dangling cigarette. Well, I should learn to not judge by appearances, because he finds through some methodical investigation that not only is the seal of the new tyre not sufficient and its valve not aligned but also that it has been fitted inside out. Yes, really.

He then patches up the valve and refits the expensive Pirelli. Driving home after an otherwise enjoyable weekend, I’m happier than I ever have been or probably ever will be again to be doing a steady 60mph.

Safe to say that I’ve learned a few hard lessons. But please: never again.

Love it

Let it go 

Once my tyre worries were banished, eating up motorway miles on the cruise control was as simple as could be.

Loathe it

Sick and tyred 

Of course it wasn’t entirely the car’s fault, but I never again want to see a tyre- pressure alert appear...

MIleage: 7117

Welcoming the Skoda Kodiaq 4x4 to the fleet - 20 April

When I entered automotive journalism six years ago, the Volkswagen Group was in the ascendancy.

It had the budget and mainstream markets wrapped up with its Seat, Skoda and Volkswagen brands, while Audi and Porsche were going from strength to strength at the high end.

This seemed an impossible position to fall from. It had, as far as we were concerned, almost perfected the creation of everyday cars.

And then there was a sudden fall from grace into a mire of problems that it’s yet to escape, as it struggled in making technology the central point of cars, rather than driving or practicality. Seat Leon, Skoda Fabia, Skoda Octavia, Volkswagen Golf, Volkswagen Polo, Audi A3… All stayed the same to drive while becoming harder to use.

rive while becoming harder to use. However, one Volkswagen Group car that arrived at about the same time as me has avoided that fate so far, its recent update a facelift rather than a full renewal: the Skoda Kodiaq. Not only does that mean it still has fine ergonomics and strong driving attributes but also that it has yet to receive any electrification.

Our road testers said on first impression that “some facelifts are a tacit admission that there was something wrong with the original car; the Kodiaq is quite the opposite”, and I wholeheartedly agree.

Only a dedicated enthusiast could pick out a facelifted Kodiaq by the more upright front grille, new LED headlights and reshaped front and rear bumpers; other than that, there’s very little to give the game away.

Inside, it’s even subtler; not even the infotainment touchscreen has grown any larger (dramatic gasp!), although its software is updated.

We’ve gone for third-of-four Sportline trim, which brings (as well as flat-grey paint that will fool some into thinking you’ve shelled out for the hot Skoda Kodiaq vRS) adaptive matrix headlights; an extended roof spoiler; gloss-black exterior trim pieces; a rear-view camera; sports seats; and faux-Alcantara ‘microsuede’ upholstery with grey stitching. This all makes an affordable seven-seat family SUV feel just a tad racy.

The Virtual Cockpit digital screen is a worthy option at £405, allowing you to configure the dials in various ways (the sat-nav map between them is especially good) and surely helping it come resale time. Although having said that, putting a lap-timer in the display is surely pushing the sporty impression to the point of parody…

The powertrain certainly isn’t a parody, thankfully. We’ve chosen the more powerful petrol Sportline, with a 187bhp 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo petrol engine rather than a 148bhp 1.5-litre four-cylinder turbo petrol. There’s also a 2.0-litre four-cylinder diesel making 148bhp or 197bhp if you’re so inclined. The more powerful versions of both the petrol and diesel engines also add a driveshaft to the rear to enhance the sure-footedness.

My first impressions are very positive: this feels just like those previous-generation Volkswagen Group cars that I so enjoyed, and that’s even despite the fact that it’s a fully fledged SUV. For although it’s undoubtedly a big car, it’s certainly not as big, either literally or visually, as rivals like the Kia Sorento.

It has more than enough power to minimise stress on the motorway, while it doesn’t float or roll around like you might expect, riding quite firmly in order that it can serve up some semblance of sporty handling (furthered by steering that gains weight progressively as you turn). It is indeed only a semblance, but I see that as for the better, because it means the car still feels laid-back rather than always raring to go like proper sports SUVs, for instance our Ford Puma ST. (You could also add Dynamic Chassis Control for £1105 if you wanted to.)

It also feels eminently practical, right to the brief, with loads of space for passengers and luggage, convenient little features, a big boot with a third row that’s easy to erect and then fold away again and all the gear you could reasonably expect.

As such, in addition to the Virtual Cockpit, the only options fitted to our car are a USB-C port by the rear-view mirror (for further facilitation of our surveillance state), the Virtual Pedal (so you can make the boot open by swiping your foot beneath the rear bumper) and a Canton stereo, which has passed the ‘does it trying to do justice to drum-and-bass make me cringe?’ test but disappointingly for some reason isn’t possible to order in the UK at present.