DaveMiller

I'm tallish (6' 2"), so have never seen the holes which these covers cover!

Not sure about that. Do you not remember the sponsored (was it BP?) competitions where drivers (typically motoring journalists) sought to get greatest mpg over a set, and timed, course? One of the key winning methods was to accelerate fairly swiftly to allowed max, then coast. Turned out to be more economical (and considerably more inconvenient for everyone around!) than maintaining a light, level throttle. It offends my sense of how the the physical world works, but that was the claim!

Gosh. A truck with a caravan. And that’s the reason trucks have cameras? Pull the other one. 😄

How old is the car and what do you mean by ‘in pretty bad shape’? Worn very thin? Very grooved? Warped? Very rusty? If rusty, that might cause noise, and it can happen through low use - rain falls on the warm discs and forms rust. A busy car wipes off the rust when it’s just a surface coating, but if it’s left unused, the rust gets chance to eat deeper. My Kodiaq certainly gets brown staining on the discs after overnight rain, and I hear the rust being ground off with the first (but only the first) application of brakes. It suggests something about the metal used (I get zero staining and zero noise on the discs of my 26-yr-old Benz, which through lockdown has been doing less than 1,000 miles a year …) but I don’t think it's a warranty issue. Your case might be different?

Because manufacturers are so keen to achieve low emissions and good official consumption figures, I suspect that nowadays most cars come already “tuned” to the economy end of what’s possible; there’ll not be much left to gain with an after-market box. Two of the most effective ways to increase economy would be, of course, to avoid something so large as a Kodiaq, and to avoid 4x4!

The vibration is very regular, so I don’t think it’s anything to do with hard tyres / ride quality. It looks like something is unbalanced. (incidentally, on my 1.4 Tsi DSG, going into 2-cylinder mode has never produced any discernible extra vibration at all.)

Difficult to decide from your description whether there’s a problem, or just a difference in ride quality from your Prius. (Although it sounds like a problem.) If it’s subtle, a dealer may just say “nothing found”. I suggest you somehow get a drive in a different Kodiaq, and see if the jitteriness is there.

No need to avoid DSG automatic if you’re concerned about power. The old torque-convertor automatics used to sap a bit of power (lost in stirring the oil around), but a DSG has clutches and cogs, just like a manual gearbox, and puts the power to the wheels just about as efficiently as a manual. My leaning, for a car without excess of power, would be to choose the DSG. If the smaller engine means more frequent gear changing, you are conscious of that with a manual. With the DSG you’re not. You get to a motorway incline and perhaps need to down a cog; the DSG will do that for you (and you won’t even notice, unless you look at the rev counter). The net effect is that the DSG feels more capable. It also changes from one gear to another very rapidly, so if it is working hard it doesn't lose so much momentum between gears.

Three is “several”, isn’t it?

I used to think that ... till I tried one. Wouldn’t now have a vehicle without!

The car won’t know how wide your trailer is, so won’t be able to take that into account.

My two penneth: Avoid diesel if you only do low miles. If you even think you may want a tow-bar, search out a factory-fitted one. Don’t fuss over heated seats (both my Superb and Kodiaq have had working - and tested - heated seats that are nowhere near as quick and effective as those I’ve had in Ford, Saab, Volvo and Mercedes-Benz (I expect to feel the heat in the first 200 m, not five minutes later!) Go with DSG - so easy. Yes the 2.0 diesel will have more “oomph” than the 1.4/1.5 petrol. The real question, though, is how much oomph is enough, for you. I have been surprised (no, amazed) at how well my 1.4 handles five adults and a bootfull of eight cases. The only way you’ll know if it’s enough for you is to get a decent test drive.

Accidentally knocking the lever, briefly? (With coat cuff, or something?)

That certainly seems to be the case. In an older torque-convertor automatic, there’s some “drive” still being applied while you’re stopped and in gear, so it’s sensible to move to neutral for longer waits. You can see the drag when you put it in gear, because the revs drop. That doesn’t happen with the dsg.

I leave mine in gear, and let the stop/start and autohold get on with their jobs. If you are using autohold, and are stopped, do NOT suddenly change to neutral, as that will release the autohold and the call might roll forward or backward.

I’m getting a bit lost. You say you plugged a “device” into the 12V socket of the Volvo, and it gave fast charging ... so what happens when you plug that device into a 12V socket on the Kodiaq?

I think the difference is that the Volvo was just providing 12V, with a limit of perhaps 10 to 15 amps, controlled only by a fuse. In the Škoda, there will be some level of electronic control over what the USB-C socket delivers?

The main difference, of course, is that the 7-seater Kodiaq boot is partly occupied by two folded-up seats. I just measured the vertical height below the centre of the cover on the 5-seater: 680 mm.

Thank you, SinglePoint. I can now see advantages in using the phone’s capability. I’ve never done so, as I’ve never yet had wireless Carplay!

Gosh. I lead a simpler life, obviously!

Er ... my Skoda DOES have variable zoom level. And (when the zoom is set to “auto”) zooms in when approaching a junction. I’ve only once in three years had a downright ridiculous route suggested, and that’s about as often as I’ve had them with handhelds. Often, though, the Skoda suggests a route that I wouldn’t normally have chosen. I’ve assumed that that’s because of the way that live traffic has been taken into account - it will select something odd but half a second shorter, perhaps. One thing I would change is the way that, once you’ve told it where you want to go, it asks whether you want to go there. Answering “yes” without sarcasm is difficult (why the hell would I have asked it to navigate there if I didn't want that?) and a sarcastic “ye-es ...” is not understood ...

I’m surprised at the disgruntled comments about the built-in nav system. Perhaps I don’t push mine as hard as some do, but I find it very clever when I can suddenly decide to press one button (on the steering wheel) and say “home” and magically it just gets on with it. I've never had a handheld that can do that (and they all would need to be remembered, brought along, plugged in, turned on, and tuned to satellites, before I’d get any response at all!). The inbuilt system (in my experience) does much better, too, when fuel gets low in the car. It notices, for a start, and gives smart choices for filling station. Does a handheld even know your fuel level, or the brand and current price at the nearby stations? i think any nav system will give you only one point for just a postcode. It may or may not be usable, depending on the shape and size of the postcode - and that’s more about the design of postcode areas than nav systems. If it’s a country area and you’ve been given no more than the postcode, then blame the giver. If you’ve been given the full address, then use it?

Have a look. When it’s reading hot, is the fan spinning? (If the fan is NOT spinning, it suggests a fault with the fan/switch; if it IS spinning, it suggests a fault elsewhere, such as blockage, airlock or faulty temperature sensor.) Either way, it gives a bit extra for you to report, when you check it in for investigation.

Obvious questions, first: what’s your coolant level like, and is your fan coming on?

So do mine. I just checked: 1. Car locked, tailgate is opened ... interior lights all come on. 2. Car locked, driver’s door opened, interior lights on, close door and wait for lights to go off (so the car is in the situation where it’s “already in use”. Tailgate is opened ... interior lights all come on.