croquemonsieur

My Karoq 1.0 DSG came with Turanzas on 17" wheels that weren't in my view as bad as some people find for noise and ride. i changed last year to 16" wheels with Hankook Synerguy 4S2 All weather tyres as they seemed highly rated all round in 2022 in more than 1 tyre comparison test review. If anything i found the handling a little sharper with the new 16"wheel/AWtyre combo. Anyway the 2023 all weather tyre tests are now in and here's a rather lengthy summary I'm afraid AutoExpress magazine They liked the Hankook Kinergy 4S2 best in the previous 2 years, but now relegated to 5th place. The overall rankings were as follows, but it should be noted that the overall scores in the top 6 were close. The Hankooks & Pirelli were marked down due to their worse rolling resistance, which the mag says translates into a 2% less economy, i.e. about 1mpg maybe - hardly a factor in my view. 1st Goodyear Vector 4Seasons Gen-3 2nd Vredenstein quatrac 3rd Michelin Cross Climate 2 4th Firestome multiseason GEN 02 5th Hankook Kinergy 4S2 6th Pirelli Cinturatos All Season SF2 ( a tyre that hwas seemingly out of production last year but now back in revised form https://www.tyrereviews.com/Article/2023-24-Tyre-Reviews-All-Season-Tyre-Test.htm 1st Michelin; 2nd Goodyear 3rd Hankook https://www.tyrereviews.com/Article/2023-Auto-Bild-All-Season-Tyre-Test.htm 1st Michelin; 2nd Continental AllSeasonsContact 2 3rd Bridgestone Turanza All Season 6 6th Goodyear 7th Hankook Pirellis not tested https://www.tyrereviews.com/Article/2023-Auto-Zeitung-All-Season-Tyre-Test.htm 1st Goodyear 2nd Michelin 3rd Hankook I suspect Hankook have changed the compound formulation yet again, aiming for long life in tests possibly moderately at the expense of snow performance and noise/comfort. The tyres I bought were likely this more recent brew, sadly, though I'm still pleased with them. These days I seem to be doing only 6,000miles per annum, (a few years ago was more than double this) so going by what Autobild expect the tyre life to be, my Hankooks should last 6 or 7 years. I may want to change them sooner, depending on what's available in a few year's time. Turning to noise and ride comfort, AutoExpress assessed noise inside the car (where my Hankooks they reckon aren't now near top), the Pirellis were very good in this regard with Goodyear & Vredenstein not too far behind. Tyre reviews also assessed comfort inside the car (combined ride/noise rating) the Goodyear top this time but Hankook & Michelin a close (ish) 2nd. The other 2 reviews only measured noise outside the car which is of little guide to internal cabin noise levels. However Auto Zeitung separately looked at comfort, presumably meaning ride and here the Pirellis were an easy 1st with Michelin 2nd & Hankook 3rd. The Pirellis have in previous years been rated as very good for comfort and it's good to see that after a break and now in slightly revised form, they still are class leaders herer and not bad all round too, pity they weren't available last year when I was buying, I'd have likely gone for them. It would seem that you can't go too wrong with the Cross Climates though, with their overall strengths and few weaknesses - as many people have commented in this forum. I should note however that I had Cross Climate 1s on my previous Yeti and they were very prone to getting stones and pebbles stuck in the sipes, which I found annoying, whereas my current Hankooks don't seem to suffer this.

This week's Auto Express tested 2 SUV All Weather tyres on a 4WD Tiguan and compared them with a Summer tyre & a Winter tyre. The AW tyres were Goodyear Vector 4 Seasons SUV Gen-3 & Michelin Cross Climate 2 (not sure if the latter was specifically an SUV version of that tyre). The Goodyear was rated as slightly better, but both came out well, the Michelin seemingly rather noisier than the other 3 tyres, whereas the Goodyear Vector & Winter tyres dry braking performances were poorer. The summer Tutanza 6 Enliten tyre was pretty good all round except for snow, where it was terrible. Whether the Goodyear/ Michelin rankings are relevant to the lighter fwd Karoq, I can't say. In another interesting article in the same mag, they also looked at winter grip attachmentss, fitted to a summer tyre. None were as good in the snow as the straight winter or AW tyres they used as a reference, but snow socks came closest, tyre sprays and snow chains just weren't in the running - the latter surprised me.

Warrier, interesting, my CTEK has an AGM setting, so I emailed CTEK in Sweden a few years ago soon after purchase, asking what I should use for my EFB battery and they said to use the ordinary battery option, not the AGM one. As an aside I charge through the cigarette lighter, having bought the necessary extra lead. I tend to drive with stop/start off, just turning it on if I anticipate a longish wait at traffic lights etc. otherwise I'd feel guilty watching the journey average mpg dropping noticeably while stopped. Stop/start does seem to make a difference to mpg, so glad I've got as a switcheable facility, my first car with stop/start.

Fabil, should your stop/start issues be due to the battery not be working 100% + you say you've got a CTEK battery charger. If it is the same CTEK model as mine, it will have a battery reconditioner option that can be selected. It restores damage done by sulphation, that I believe is the normal cause of battery ageing. CTEK recommend you carry out this proceedure every year. Thought of plugging myself into it too. I haven't done this testoration proceedure yet on the battery in my 4yr old Karoq, but intend to do so soon. I did however occasionally charge my car battery during Covid lock down, when the CTEK does check for sulphation and each time the CTEK told me there was no such damage, but that was a while ago now. I'm trying to see how long I can make my car battery last, as replacement on the more sophisticated ones in modern cars, is costly.

Carlston may have been talking about my Yeti where I downsized the wheels. I changed from, what were described by a knowlegeable friend, as rather non descript Dunlops to Mk1 Michelin cross climates at the same time (by the way the mk1s were more heavily weighted to summer conditions than the current wintery X climate 2s). The steering was just as sharp - ride and road noise were better if not not dramatically so (I was actually somewhat disappointed in the latter aspects). A friend also changed the tyres on his BMW Mini to X climate 2s soon afterwards keeping the same wheels - he said they were quieter but the ride was worse. Mind you some people like a firm ride and at that time my 90yr old Aunt thought my originally shod Yeti ride was ideal - I didn't. My current Karoq came with Bridgestones on 17" wheels and the ride was quite a bit more compliant from day 1 than the rather rubbery firm Yeti, even after that car's wheel/tyre change. However I'm fussy about such matters and recently changed the Karoq to 16" wheels with Hankook AW tyres. These have done very well in reviews generally, including for ride & noise. The ride and noise levels are clearly better, if maybe still not quite a Jaguar XJ6 (not that I've been in one for decades). Driving in the last couple of weeks, the ride seem better still for some reason, whether it's down to cooler weather - just possibly the Hankooks prefer this, or maybe they are bedded in properly now, or am I just imagining it. Any way, pleased I took the trouble to make the change, the car is really quite serene on motorways these days, not that it was too bad on the Bridgestones. It ls coarse aggregate surfaces where I now notice the big noise improvement. Every AW tyre I could find, including the Hankooks were XL rated and so include extra sidewall reinforcement, which makes them more robust, but that does mean they are likely to transmit road roughness through to the car body more than non-XL tyres, but it seems difficult to find even summer non-XL tyres these days. The ride on my car is still a bit firm on broken road surfaces, but I haven't been in other cars in recent years to compare (except a Juke, which was definitely worse all round than my originally shod Karoq). Steering after the Karoq wheel & tyre change was, if anything, sharper, but whether the car holds on to the road quite as well as summer tyres in the dry, I don't know. I do know they will certainly do better in wet cooler weather and on broken road surfaces, in bends, than any summer tyres. Quite a few people on this site sing the praises of X Climate 2s, but I'm skeptical I'd find them such a huge improvement in ride as they indicate, but you never know. They are certainly well reviewed with the proviso that they are very much like winter tyres. One down side to my older Mk1 X Climates was that lots of pebbles got embedded in the tread grooves, resulting in annoying clicking noises. My Hankooks don't have this problem anything like as much. One person has said the Xclimate 2s also suffer this, but it didn't worry him. The Hankook weak point is they are supposed to wear out quickly, but then a German review last year said the same thing about the X Climate 2s, giving them about the same longevity, which sounds very unMichelin - strange.

I think I gave out duff information there - my friend isn't in the best of health, so he couldn't recall where he found then price I quoted. He did think that Varta had beeny an East European company and didn't know they'd been taken over by Bosch (rather like the Skoda / VW situation). Anyhow I looked up prices in Eurocarparts for my MY2019 1.0 and they give non-EFB, EFB and AGM options with various suggested makes for each of the 3 battery types https://www.eurocarparts.com/car-battery They do quote substantially higher prices for Varta over Bosch batteries, except for the cheap non-EFB type (which anyway are no good for Karoqs) A Bosch EFB would cost a little over £155 & the Varta equivalent £191, but I haven't done any detailed checks on the sizes & specifications. My 4+yr 59amphr Varta EFB is seemingly in the best of health just now. I last charged it with my CTEK charger almost a year ago and it reported there were no sulphation problems then. There is a recondition (desulphation mode) only option on the charger which I might try soon. They suggest doing this once a year to keep the battery in tip top condition. A 5 year battery life is what I've come to expect in cars, so it will be interesting to see how long I can eek out my battery life with this CTEK proceedure. I don't use stop/start all the time, only switching it on when I think I've a bit of a wait at say traffic lights, which presumably puts less strain on the battery.

I was talking with a friend the other day about batteries. He said that he had to replace one on his BMW Aactive Tourer some months ago and was advised by someone he reckons is 'in the know' that Bosch batteries are particularly good and better than the OEM BMW ones, so he accordingly bought a Bosch. While i was there he looked up my car (Karoq 1.0 DSG SE Tech) from the supplier he used andI recall he said a Bosch replacement EFB would be £109, which seemed very reasonable He also noted that Japanese Yuasa batteries have a good reputation, with some features incorporated that increases the battery voltage by 0.5volt. Whether or not that would be compatible with the fancy stop / start electronics in the Skoda I don't know https://www.tayna.co.uk/car-batteries/yuasa/ I thought my friend had used the Tayna site to find my Bosch battery, but apparently not - a search there only come up with batteries for diesel Karoqs and then some obscure make. I must talk to him again.

Does silicone harm the bushes in any way. So would it do any harm to treat a car with no apparent suspension faults with silicone lubricant - just a thought. I say this that I've sometimes noticed in past cars that in wet weather a car's ride can soften a bit over ridges and a garage man I used to know said that was due to water finding it's way into the bushes. Of course the extra sloshing noises in such weather does partly drown out other car noises including road noises and that can on its own subjectively make the ride seem a bit better.

Yes, I was charged quite alot for the spark plug change in my 1-0 TSI, recently at the 4 year service. I was told they have to be special high quality items that last for 4 years and just accepted the cost.

I'd actually prefer to sacrifice a little handling sharpness for an even softer ride, not that the Karoq has a particularly hard ride, but it is a bit restless with mild thumping over ridges on broken road surfaces, even with my replacement 16" wheels & AW tyres. I must try a Kamiq, even though it does have a lower seating position.

fabill, you seem to be suggesting that the Kamiq has a better ride - interesting. Any commsent about road noise, which is the quieter. Yes I like the T-Cross appearance and also the fact it is taller than the Kamiq. Always interested in what I might get next - eventuall. I recently sat in a VW T-Roc - I much prefer the greater sense of space around the Karoq front interior, but the T-Roc pedals are arranged better, with somewhere to rest the right foot when the Adaptive Cruise Control does all the driving for you. I'm not quite sure, but it seems that the T-Roc is now only available with with DSG box. Not driven either VW nor Kamiq yet.

I refer to the Noisy Aircon thread a few weeks ago and also to much earlier topics where some people were dissatisfied with the ability to cool their Karoqs in hot weather. A week ago, I drove home from North London with the outside temperature registering 31.5C at times. I have only the aircon switched on, temperature set to 20C both driver and passenger side + have the fan set to just the first notch (low speed, nice & quiet). I certainly don't bother with the auto - Climate Control feature - as for one thing, I don't like the racket when the car first starts off in hot weather. This time as usual in hot weather, I opened the 2 passenger windows for a short time. This cooled the car pretty quickly, and I shut the windows a few minutes after setting off. The aircon pretty quickly had the car at a comfortable temperature for the journey home. I don't know how it would cope at really high temperatures, as I did read, either in a message here or in the handbook, that the aircon will only reduce the temperature inside the car by a maximum of 14C, that's compared with the prevailing external temperature. Still, I suppose 26C would feel substantially cooler than 40C. I should note that when parked in direct sunlight, I do protect the car interior with a Halfords silver windscreen cover. This time I'd parked in the shade of a tree, but the sun had moved round, directly shining on the car for maybe 2hrs before we set off back home. Anyway, no complaints about the aircon effectiveness at a little over 30C in my red Karoq, which is not the best colour for reflecting sunlight away.

Yes, on all my cars open rear windows caused even more buffeting than fronts (not tried the Karoq), but I think I remember correctly that open front windows were also a problem on my previous cars, above say around 30mph. Lilyrosemary - yes that accurately describes the buffeting effect, it's most uncomfortable. I assume then it did happen with even only the front Octavia windows open.

Opening the front windows on while setting off, to cool the interior in recent weeks after my Karoq had been standing in the sun, I've realised that with either one or both open, it doesn't produce the very annoying buffeting / loud low frequency thrumming up to say 40mph that I recall bedevilled previous cars, including Yeti, Saab 9-5, and possibly my old BMW 5 series. I then tried opening just the driver's front window at around 55mph, still no buffeting but of course a healthy roar from the air rushing past. Thumbs up Skoda and something to look for when trying out any future car I might be interested in.

In the last 2 days I haven't noticed the air-con noise so much but I havve had other things on my mind. I'm actually wondering whether the noise followed on from a period of time when the air con was switched off - only noticed in that recent hot June month. I believe it is best for the air-con system if it is kept on all the time and don't know how long mine had been off - could have been many months - must have been knocked sometime or other. I might get an air-con specialist to look at it sometime. Anyway I'll continue to monitor the situations when the noise is or isn't there and report back later. Thanks for the YouTube link on replacing the pollen filter, Apprentice.

I started to notice a sort of whirring noise coming from the front a month or 2 ago on a MY19 Karoq SE Tech. I only just got round to reading this thread this morning and so on a short journey today, can confirn that mine does similar - turn aircon off and noise goes instantly. However, on mine I seem to recall the noise dissappears when I'm idling and does not happen for a while when starting from cold - I'll check & report back further on these last 2 events and also try some of the other proceeduress noted above. I should note that the 1.0 DSG petrol engine is very quiet, but I wasn't aware of any such noise until recently and would be nice to get rid of it. I wonder how easy it is to get at the pollen filter. It should have been cleaned or is it replaced at a 4yr service one month ago. Garage is normally pretty good from what I can tell.

I don't know I think there's something to be said for thouse plastic aero inserts, I don't find them any more unattractive than most alloy wheels, which are to my mind just a fashion accessory. In fact with those plastic inserts we could go back to those sensible steel wheels that are potentially lighter, easier to repair and cost less in the first place. I'll now go into hiding.

I did a week or so ago, delete a couple of destinations, somehow or other, probably as above, but can't be sure now. (My19 Karoq SE Tech) However I've also been trying to delete 'my Home Address' that I must have input soon after buying the car (or did the dealer do this for me 4 years ago, can't recall?). This is because I recently read that it is advisable not to have this information stored in infotainment, in case the car is stolen, particularly if some distance away from home or even abroad. That bad guy, if able to get the satnav going, would guess that that I'm probably on holiday and so my house is empty. He would then pass this info onto another of his associate bad guys nearer home, who would thereafter be able to do over my house, while we're not there. Selecting my home address from the destination button bottom near LHS just gets my route guidance going with no way of doing anything else. I have nevertheless managed a partial fix - with SatNav selected on my Amundsen centre infotainment screen and then 'settings' bottom RHS, then 'manage memory', then 'define Home Address' + 2 further steps, I can go into my home address and at least edit the street number and have done so. A house some distance down the road is now showing as my home address. It won't let me edit the street name or anything else though and I suspect it is something to do with the post code that I must have included initially. I can't now see any way to alter that either, as it doesn't appear as an editable item. For some reason, the post code in this instance, when displayed in a particular window, has the last 2 letters missing!!!! I'd much prefer to delete all the 'my home address' information, but can't see how. Although perhaps getting on a bit, I can still remember my post code and would be able enter this manually each time I needed to plan a journey home. I should add that I did all of the above with the ignition turned on, but without starting the engine, but I don't suppose that makes any difference.

Thanks for that info, very useful. Wife got the iPhone 13 mini on Monday from J Lewis & after a suggestion by the salesman, I found I could take the SIM out of her 7yr old Motorola, remove the outer layer reducing it's size to Micro, put it in the iPhone & it worked straight off. Must say the phone does do very nice photos too - actually I suspect artifially enhanced / too good to be true, but the misses likes that. It copes well with bright lights mixed in with darkish backgrounds so much better than the Motorola. Will do a U-Switch in the next few weeks as O2 put up the price alot after taking over from Virgin and roaming is extra, but that's all OT. I got a couple of Anker Lightning cables with from Amazon (under £8 - Apple ones £19), but awaiting some extra USB C to A adaptors for the car. Will try connecting the cable to the car in a few weeks - which may test my brain to the limit - old monkeys & new tricks syndrome.

My wife is thinking of changing here old Motorola to a new i Phone SE or 13 Mini and I may do the same a little later. These currently seem to come with a cable with Lightning connector at phone end and USB C connector at the other, preumably fine for newer Karoqs but not mine with old style USBs. You can buy Lightning cables with an older USB plug at the other end, maybe made by Apple, but certainly 3rd party ones. However experience with my Motorola (advised several times at shops etc. at least with Android phones) tells me that you tend to to have to use the cable that comes with the phone, but these have got all mixed up with other cables at home and I've never been able to find a cable that successfully links my phone to the car older USB slot, for say using Google maps. Bluetooth connection works fine for phone calls and contacts listing though. The question is, will I be able to connect a new iPhone with a non supplied cable, not supplied with the phone, to my 4yr old car & its 4yr old USBs or is this just an Android peculiarity. Any help appreciated.

Gayrisafi, does that low speed noise occur with other cars you've been in or owned? There's probably no easy fix. Some sort of low frequency air volume or panel resonance is taking place, excited by vibration from the tyre tread hitting that particular road surface, but it is often difficult to establish which panel or air volume can be causing a particular boom. The vibration is of course transmitted through the tyres and then the car suspension mounts & bushes. Most tyres these days, in UK at least, are XL rated, with reinforced side walls that makes them more robust at surviving knocks and scrapes, but this reduces sidewall flexibility and probably makes noise transmission from the tread greater, but there are supposedly a few (or there were) non XL tyres around and I would have liked to fit some. I suspect also your Prestige has low profile tyres and some years ago, having tried a 4WD Karoq with 19" wheels and finding too much road noise, I did go for a basic SE (tech) 2WD model with 17" wheels that I found somewhat more serene. I recently went further & changed to even smaller 16"wheels with correspondingly higher profile tyres, but many would think that changing wheels or even just changing tyres is a step too far, though I enjoy tinkering around with such things. I'm actually particularly fussy about any sort of road induced noise - it's an interest or is it an obsession - I just find road noise tiring. and in cars I've had over the last 10 years or so, have always taken measures like damping panel resonances with bitumen pads, in addition to wheel & tyre changes, in order to reduce this - sometimes successful, but not always. Worked well with my Karoq anyhow after some trial and error, with low frequency drumming noticeably reduced (even if it still intrudes a little now & again), but then it was a fairly quiet car to start off with. I suspect the Karoq Prestige has the rear seats that can lift out, which means there is only a roll up fabric cover closing off the boot from the car interior. The cheaper variants with fixed seats like mine have a more solid shelf which partially limits noise transmission from the boot, where road noise often comes from.

"Easy to move off jerk-free simply by “tickling” the throttle pedal. Saves faffing with parking brake release." It's the tickling of the throttle pedal I find annoying - throttle far too sensitive, but maybe that's because I'm flat footed in my right foot and some arthritis in my big toe there (both only recently diagnosed) that gives me twinges in that foot - thank heavens for DSG & ACC. Got to say I can't always be bothered with that E Brake proceedure that I said I'd started doing. If not, I tend just use stop/start (blow the car behind) and either try to be careful with my right foot or just put up with a somewhat jerky start. It is possible to a smooth start using stop/start, just requires some concentration, at least in my case. I find Sports mode makes even the 1.0 DSG a surprisingly responsive car, but haven't used it much from standstill starts so far.

Thanks Gomezz & SSC. Looks like I don't worry too much, if in the end I do need a windscreen replacement. The horizontal & vertical cracks under the chip haven't got any worse since last Friday - been too busy to check with alternative window repairers just yet and this will have to wait another week or so.

I now do that, flip to the starting brake once someone's behind me - no effort to do and helps keep me alert while driving. I also have now started to release that parking brake, just before moving off, letting the car creep forward before foot goes on accelerator. That's if I've time to anticipate this at traffic lights - i.e. not first in the queue. Requires a foot on the brake pedal but leads to a really smooth jerk free take off.

Will do.