juux

800 km, or about 500 miles in old money, from Luxembourg to Biscarrosse in Gascony.

Handed my 280 L&K estate back last week and thought I'd just note down the good and the bad after 11 months and about 25,000 km Engine: A- Lovely, linear and smooth, albeit never seeming to have quite the shove the headline figures suggests it should. I came to it from an E61 535d which felt a lot more brawny when being extended (full to-the-red-line stuff, not talking about squirting from 2000-3500 rpm where diesels are normally king) and I wouldn't have thought that before I got in the Skoda. Gearbox: B- Effective enough and I suppose I got used to it. Weird choice of ratios and not as intelligent as it probably should be. Normal too dull-witted, Sport too eager to downshift, a pedal box etc. probably sorts it all out but wasn't an option as a company car. Always pined for a 7th cog, too busy at motorway speeds. Economy: B+ Without the 2500 km round trip to South of France with four bikes on the roof just before I handed it over (about 23 mpg for that little lot!) I reckon I got about 28 mpg overall, so about what I expected. No doubt a lighter foot would eke out a good bit more, but life's too short and fuel is on the company Size: A+ It's huge! And flexible! Yet with small overhangs and camera/sensors it's a doddle to park. Just a great car for doing *anything* with. All the little Simply Clever stuff: A+ Makes it a joy to own. The little velcro battens in the boot are genius and all family cars should come with those iPad holders Tech: A Despite initial reservations I managed to get on with all the auto-gubbins. KESSY, online services, phone app, electronic handbrake, adaptive cruise, lane guidance, remote heater start etc. all good Reliability: A+ Nothing broke or fell off, despite *ahem* spirited use by me, and abuse at the hands of my offspring. Infotainment: A New Columbus is great. Not as slick an interface as BMW, Audi etc. but it all works pretty well once you're used to it and with a lovely touchscreen, very responsive (for a car) Ride: D One word? Crashy, and this was with 18"s. Even our second car, an £10k Up, which I hardly drove when I had the Skoda, embarrasses the bigger car when it comes to dealing with road imperfections. The DCC helped a bit but in the soft setting was too wallowy on motorways, leading to an off-putting pitching motion on anything but dead flat roads, so it was inevitably left in Normal. This was probably the one thing that I found increasingly bothered me about the car the more I drove it. The small 3cm kerb into my driveway *always* made the whole bloody thing shudder, even at a crawl. Refinement: B- Actually pretty good. I was expecting more wind and tyre noise reading some of the comments on here and elsewhere, but it was refined enough. It's no S-Class, but perfectly acceptable. I docked a bit for the ride though, a big shudder as you go over a ridge in the road rather ruins the limousine effect if you're trying to chauffeur someone discretely to the airport. Handling: C- It was never going to be great, but it was really just adequate and no more. Shame, as the drivetrain deserves better. I drove a new Mondeo recently and it really showed the Superb up, light years ahead. Dealer: A Did everything they said they would, when they said they would. Can't complain. Overall then? B+ With a decent ride there would be no doubt of an A or A+, it's really the only thing that lets the Superb down compared to more "premium" competition. A great car then. I'll miss it

Nothing directly as yet, will see what next job comes with. Currently bimbling about in our second car, an Up.

Handed it back!

The French have some crazy rules but priorité à droité is the worst. Seemingly random in application and observance. Stupid system.

Mine is fine, even in these warmer temperatures. The refrigerant does take a bit longer to cool than some other cars I've had though, so jumping in and setting the fan on anything more than one or two and it'll take a long time to chill down properly. Best to let it cool fully before whacking the fan up.

Yeah, you can buy keys online pretty cheaply. No doubt Skoda will sell you one for £45 though.

In the UK it is of limited use during the day on 90% of the motorway/A road network as the distances are too small and the traffic too busy for it be left alone for any significant time. Different story on much of the continent though, I get a lot of use out of it. Apart from the odd tollbooth, when trundling down to Strasbourg I might not have to touch it for 50km at a time, it's generally pretty quiet.

Make sure the sensors are clean, even a squashed bug can make them trigger a lot more often.

My car only really picks up cars in other lanes on bends, if the road is straight or nearly straight then it'll cruise straight past slower traffic. I've probably done 4-5,000km using ACC now so pretty used to it. I know the system has to be calibrated (if the windscreen is changed etc.) so maybe there's an issue there? Pretty hard to diagnose though, if it is happening on straight roads and not just bends you'd really need to check another Superb or get someone who is familiar with how it should work to try yours.

Looks great, good job , but have you ever seen how much an exhaust moves around when driving? Can't see this small a gap being a long-term solution, something's going to give. Here's a stock Mk2 Octavia as an example, with even half of that movement your exhaust will be constantly hitting the bumper cutout, never mind the heat damage.

I would suspect the delays caused by WLTP certification are responsible here and that this is not just the usual MY changeover. Could be a while.

An air con bomb will work, friends have used them in the past, but then they were obsessed with "turning it off when I don't need it". Never had the problem in any of my a/c equipped cars, but then I just let it do its thing.

The damping and suspension bushing to be much improved to avoid crashing over bumps. Another ~70hp That's about it

Yup, 'Bremsprobe' = 'Brake test' auf Deutsch. Nice of them to let other motorists know. Not quite sue about the new front bumper design.

The thing with the Superb that the front overhang is actually pretty small. It's a larger car than my old S124 300D or E61 535d in pretty much every dimension but feels much smaller to park than either. Sensors are handy though, as is the camera which allows millimetre-perfect parking, handy when many parking spaces are so short for such a long car.

It doesn't need to be freezing to use it, I find I use it whenever it gets 'a bit parky'. Even used it this month. We had relatively few freezing mornings this year here and it still got used most mornings through the winter. Would actively spec it in any new car I can get one in, which surprises me as I thought it would be a gimmick for use only a few times a year. Great value as a factory option, maybe not so much if it's a couple of grand aftermarket!

That's about the sum use of it here too

Great write-up, I'm never organised enough to do the same on road trips. You always think you'll remember everything but of course you don't...unless you entrust it to the internet like this!

Ain't gonna get your interior all nice and toasty though, is it?

Engineers spend thousands of hours , including extensive hot weather testing, designing stuff like this; it's like that for a reason. The large grille is primarily aesthetic, the gap is designed to work in harmony with the cooling system and thermostat fitted. Even the 280 doesn't need any more cooling than is provided by that open area in the grille. By opening it up all you will succeed in doing is: Increasing drag, so using more fuel Likely making the car run cooler in the majority of situations, therefore less efficiently, particularly after startup when the majority of emissions and engine wear occurs Potentially messing up the airflow under the bonnet, potentially causing more noise and fouling of the engine bay. It's not beyond the bounds of probability that increasing airflow in one area would also reduce it/increase pressure in another, perhaps reducing an ancillary cooler's performance. Good luck with a warranty claim if they can finger a mod like this led to a failed turbo bearing etc. Wasting a perfectly good Saturday afternoon filing expensive bits of black plastic from your car Don't muck about with it

Another vote for the Webasto heater. Zero theft (or insurance) problem, much more convenient.

Plenty in the manual for the system as fitted to the L&K, but be aware it is actually called 'Columbus'. Canton is just the audio brand who help Skoda with their top systems so is only mentioned where audio options specific to Canton are concerned (surround settings etc.). Don't think you can have 'mixed' presets (e.g. DAB & FM) but you can use the settings to change whether the wheel arrows cycle through presets or stations (which can be further be sorted by name, genre etc.). It's only two taps to change from one frequency band to another though.

The right-hand bit can be configured to show what you want, I think you press the rectangular icon to the left of 'Images' and you can select Contacts instead.

Or, alternatively, that Macs nowadays are doing weird stuff like Windows used to which makes simple file transfers like this harder than they should be (Mac & Windows user )