mumpsim

An old friend of mine owns a tyre supply and fitting company and has contacts in the same trade all over the UK. He deals with the wholesalers and has contacts with manufacturers. We speak most weeks. He has a more wide-ranging overview of the business than any fitter. I too liked Michelins made in Dundee and liked going round the factory, but they were mostly the smaller, cheaper sizes and PCP deals killed them as nobody is going to fit top-quality tyres when they are due to hand a car back.

Yes, people in the trade, who see far more tyres than any of us here, are seeing too many Goodyears being scrapped because of big bulges in the sidewalls. In other respects many of their tyres remain excellent. Goodyear develops its tyres for the European market at Hanau near Frankfurt and Colmar-Berg in Luxembourg. They don't have many of our crater-like potholes and vicious speed bumps in those parts.

The 4x4 version has 225/45/19 tyres as one of the standard fitments. 245/40, as I was proposing, is another. Both the Crater and the Vega 19-inch wheels on the Karoq come from the factory with any of the following: 225/40, 235/40, 225/45 and 245/40 tyres.

Nobody so far on this thread has suggested that.

The Goodyear Vector 4Seasons is still a good tyre and I used them on a Yeti a few years ago. However, when buying all-season tyres for our Karoq Sportline 1.5 last month, I decided against them for 3 reasons: 1. They are said by some people in the tyre trade to have thinner sidewalls than the competitors, making them more susceptible to pothole and kerb damage. 2. When I was shopping last month, the 4Seasons Gen 3 (the current tyre) was on sale in very few places; most places were still selling the 4Seasons Gen2. Moreover, according to this page, the 4Seasons Gen 3 is not being made in the 225/45 R19 size: https://www.thetirelab.com/goodyear-vector-4seasons-gen-3/ 3. Compared to more recent designs, the perfomance of the Goodyear 4Seasons is now a bit middling. See https://www.tyrereviews.com/Article/2023-Auto-Bild-All-Season-Tyre-Test.htm Instead I bought the Bridgestone Turanza All Season 6, the newest of the all-season designs, having gone on sale in 2023. It is nothing like the rather hard summer tyres that one is used to seeing from Bridgestone. Our Karoq with 19-inch Vega wheels came on a set of those summer Bridgestones (225/40 R19 Turanza T005) and I couldn't wait to get them off. On the Turanza All Season 6, the ride is transformed as well as the grip. For one example, sometimes I can't feel cats' eyes, only hear them. Some will say why not go for the obvious choice, the Michelin CrossClimate 2? The original CrossClimate revolutionised the all-season tyre market and is the best-selling all-season tyre in Europe. It still wins many comparative tests -- on several criteria but not all. In particular it beats all competitors on snow perfomance. Michelin optimised snow performance to a remarkable extent in moving from the original CrossClimate to the CrossClimate Plus and then the CrossClimate 2. They know their market. The tyre is aimed at all those parts of Europe that get more snow than we do and appeals to people who can use it to get snow performance almost equal to a winter tyre without the bother of swopping from summer to full winter tyres. But - and it's a big but - Michelin optimised the tyre's snow performance by reducing performance on cold wet roads, both in braking and in lateral grip. Does that suit the UK market? How many days of snow per year do you get where you live? Maybe none, maybe two or three? Now how many days are there with cold wet roads? Fifty? A hundred? The Turanza All Season 6 beats the CrossClimate 2 easily for wet braking and wet handling. That makes it a better choice for much of the UK, I suggest. However, I did not replace the 225/40 R19s with 225/45 as you are contemplating. Instead I went for 245/40 R19. That size is a Skoda-approved tyre as one of the factory fitments to Crater wheels for the 4x4 Karoq. Some dimensions: 225/40 R19 -- 89 mm sidewall height, 481 revs/km 225/45 R19 -- 102 mm sidewall height, 465 revs/km, a 3.46% increase in circumference 245/40 R19 -- 99 mm sidewall height, 469 revs/km, a 2.55% increase in circumference. A tyre does not get its final width until mounted on a rim. Widths when mounted on 8J rims will (I think - open to correction!) be 230 mm for the 225 tyre, 242 mm for the 245 tyre. So the 245 in use is 12 mm wider than the 225, not 20 mm as one might think. Thus if you choose 245/40 instead of 225/45 as you were contemplating, you will get 12 mm more width at the rim (6 mm each side) for better kerbing protection, only 3 mm less sidewall height than the 225/45 but still 10 mm more than the 225/40, so adding a useful amount to the ride improvement given by the softer all-season tyre, and a bit less of an unwelcome speedo error. 245 tyres will use a little more fuel than 225 but that will be offset by the small increase in gearing, not that you'd notice either change. In conclusion, the Turanza All Season 6 tyres in 245/40 R19 suit our 1.5 Karoq perfectly and have transformed its comfort and its grip on winter roads. I also regard their size as looking better suited to the car. You could of course get an even softer ride by fitting smaller wheels, but I didn't have the money to spend on that as well as tyres. With the right tyres the 19" wheels are quite OK. I must thank those who have posted here in the past on the tyre threads for helping me reach a good decision, particularly Carlston.

This is more about the facelift in general than the Sportline in particular, but may nevertheless be of interest: https://www.skoda.co.uk/news/details/the-new-skoda-karoq-a-more-striking-look-with-greater-aerodynamics I may have time to say more later.

Kenny R is of course right. Tick the box to show traffic signs. The maps do not always have the correct speed lmit data, so it is not 100% reliable, but the car changes its display promptly after a change of speed limit.

Traffic sign recognition is part of the optional 'Travel Assist Package' (£1,145) and the 'Travel Assist Package Plus' (£1,590). Automatic headlight control is part of the 'Light Package' (£2,075). There are some phone apps that can display the current speed limit.