Arianne

£100 seems well worth the investment, especially when measured against the time taken to clean these wheels. My back will also be grateful! Still a bit unsure of the front protection film. You're right about the fragility of the paint these days and we picked up a bonnet chip within just a few days of taking delivery 😢. This is something I will investigate further. If you would be so kind as to let us all know how you find cleaning the rims after the ceramic application? Appreciate it will be next summer before you're able to do that. Best wishes.

I'd be very interested to learn from your experience with the rims after you have had them ceramic coated and they are recmounted for the summer months. Also, do you have thoughts on the approximate cost? Thank you @Coral-C

Well, today was the second wash and a proper one. Plenty of road grime and brake dust from our recent 800 miles round trip to Southern England. Honestly, while the Veritate 19" rims are elegant, they are amongst the worst wheel design I have ever experienced for cleaning. If not the worst. My toothbrushes, did I just say that, were only marginally helpful. I threw everything at these rims: microfibre cloth, several soft brushes, five different variations of Wheel Woolies and of course the adapted toothbrushes. What a pain these rims are with their intricate design and that evil gutter running around the barrel. It makes me yearn for a 1990s plastic wheel trim which, if scuffed, cost peanuts to replace rather than £90, and a day with the alloy rim repair shop. That's progress! Thankfully this will be the last time I will need to clean these rims on the car because next Wednesday is Crystal 17" winter rims day. Hurrah. The Veritates will then get one wash and protection before being stored on the rack in our garage until next April. The car will look dowdy but washing the rims should be easier and that seems like a fair trade! If anyone has any advice then please speak up. There must be an easier way to wash and clean these rims because I cannot believe owners are prepared to spend so much time as I have today. Waiting....more in hope than expectation 😥

I will give it a go. Thank you!

3m x 15mm / 22mm copper pipework and plastic waste pipes. That tablet stuck in the middle of the dashboard will prevent me feeding the pipes down the middle and resting them on a cloth on top of the dash. You made me think about that!

@Coral-C Interesting. Like you, I think having the smart dial with the sport setting right beside the individual mode is excellent. I had something similar on our Velar until.....an over the air software update reassigned this function to the touchscreen. A sad day! Next time we are travelling over the hills of North Northumberland and the Scottish Borders, I will try the more extreme sports settings. I suspect this end of the DCC+ spectrum may prove self-defeating because the tyres may struggle for solid contact on the broken tarmac but it's worth the experiment. The speed limiter is an interesting subject. I can understand how you deploy it and why. I have considered this too as a countermeasure to getting snapped by a mobile camera etc. But I worry that I will forget it is active and then, just when I want a burst of speed for an overtaking manoeuvre, it stutters in a potentially dangerous situation. Or does it yield if you apply what we used to call kickdown? Best wishes.

...and the skis 😅

May I ask what dynamic mode setup you chose for this part of your journey? We tackled the A68 from Corbridge into the Scottish Borders last night on our return home. We popped the suspension into sport mode. It made for a predictable and pleasant enough drive over the wilderness of North Northumberland and the Borders but not exhilarating. In sport mode the suspension still provided a reasonably decent level of cabin comfort despite our 19" rims and the variable road surfaces. In all truth, it's just nice not having to hustle an SUV along such roads and we didn't expect the Superb to provide driving exhilaration or amazing feedback. She has surprised me though for what she is! So did you just choose Sport, did youselect the sport DSG option or did you choose an individual setup? Any tips would be appreciated. Best wishes.

@BillyParker it was interesting that, in the same AutoCar article, they offered three possible alternatives to the E450d. Your Superb TDi was one of the three! They noted the huge range from a single tank of fuel. The other option was a RR Sport (straight six) but I cannot remember the third. Nonetheless, for the Superb to even get a serious mention is quite an achievement. Bears out @Coral-C and his thoughts regarding his Mercedes C- Class. We have now completed our first serious and lengthy trip to and from Windsor (we live in Southern Scotland). We absolutely love the car for so many reasons. One such reason is that 'it just works as intended'. With our XC90 we were asking the dealer to check the clutch mechanism on the seat belts because they were clicking in sync with our breathing! The Jaguar F-Pace 3.0d V6 had been rejected after a fortnight and our RR Velar D300 V6 had developed a droning noise caused by the unsprung weight of the 21" rim causing resonance through the half shaft. It took JLR six months to find the cause, manufacture a new half shaft made of different metal and then supply and fit it. To have a new car that simply works as intended is surely not asking a lot. Thankfully, I think and hope we may have found one! And despite the queuing traffic on the M1 northbound yesterday, the fuel economy for our petrol 2.0 TSI is pretty encouraging. Not quite TDi territory but better than we had expected Best wishes.

Oh sorry. Yes, on rereading your original post I can now understand what you meant. Best wishes.

Hi Tim ( @kempus ), I've asked my AI assistant to investigate this because my own 2026 Superb L&K behaves differently. Here's what it found: AI ASSISTANT RESPONSE BEGINS HERE: The issue appears to be the distinction between the Individual driving profile and the Individual ambient lighting setting. When ambient lighting is set to MODE, the car automatically selects a colour according to the driving profile: Eco – Green Comfort – Blue Normal – White Sport – Red Individual – White So your experience is entirely consistent with the way Škoda has programmed the system. However, there's a solution! Rather than choosing MODE in the ambient lighting settings, select Individual within the ambient lighting menu itself. You can then choose your preferred colours and brightness independently of the driving profile. For example, we have selected red ambient lighting in our own Superb L&K, and it remains red regardless of whether I'm driving in Normal, Sport or Individual mode. I found confirmation of all this on the German Škoda Community forum. A Superb Mk4 L&K owner, posting as stbufraba, describes exactly how the system works, including the five MODE-linked colours and the ability to select colours independently. Here's the discussion (see post #9): https://www.skodacommunity.de/threads/ambientebeleuchtung-l-k-farbanzahl-erweiterung.151263/ In short, you don't need to put up with the bright white lighting when driving in Individual mode. Just separate the ambient lighting colour selection from the driving profile. Hopefully this resolves one of your frustrations! END OF AI RESPONSE I hope this helps. Best wishes, David.

Ever such an interesting article in this week's Autocar magazine. One of their journalists took his E-Class, or more accurately... Mercedes-Benz E450D 4Matic AMG Line Premium Plus Estate .....doesn't it just roll off the tongue, from the UK to the northern tip of Denmark, Jutland. I enjoy Autocar Magazine as the articles are a little deeper than AutoExpress. He loved his car and, reading the article, I can understand why. This is what these 6cyl diesel estates were made for - pan Euro mile munching. But I couldn't help asking myself the question about the law of diminishing returns as I finished my read with his question: "Is there a better car for the job?" If money were no object, both the initial purchase, the £190ph labour charges plus complexity and expensive parts, then the answer is as he replied: "I think not. Bravo, Mercedes." But with a list price of £90,770 it dawned on me that this German rocket ship is almost twice as expensive as my newly acquired Superb TSI 265PS 4x4 L&K. I have driven at 130mph on unrestricted German autobahnen and, as the journalist noted about his 155mph stint, the mental load is huge. You scan the dots on the horizon knowing that any middle lane hog who pulls out into Lane 3 is a potential hazard to life and limb. Plus, you can visibly see the needle on the fuel gauge moving to empty. I once found myself allocated a desk next to the Fleet Manager of my employer. She was a dragon from the Kingdom of Fife, but she took a shine to me and would slide the keys of whatever demonstrator she had been gifted for the weekend. A Suburu Impreza STi was one car I was keen to hand back on the Monday, before we destroyed each other (the car and me, not the Fleet Manager). It was then that I learned how there is a point at which fast, is fast enough. I discovered briefly on the A7 southbound that our Superb can dispose of a convoy of traffic without any drama or delay. You're out, past and back in rapidly without any fuss. One test of whether one loves the car is whether we relish the opportunity to embark upon another lengthy journey. And yes, I am. The journey back from Windsor to Scotland is just a couple of days away. Jutland? No, my goodness that Danish peninsular was hideously tedious on our 2014 journey to Urke, Norway. The Scottish Borders? That'll do just nicely thanks. Best wishes. Have a happy Thursday, Arianne. Alnwick, Northumberland. October 2026.

Just to confirm: M6 southbound in England. Travelling in middle lane of three. All three lanes display, including trucks and cars. Our Superb is a July 2026 factory build. Arianne.

@Coral-C : So, we have just completed the 360 mile trip to Windsor from Scotland. M6 / M40. Not the best journey due to a combination of heavy rain, English half-term school holidays and the usual weekday traffic - plenty of accidents and delays. Get a grip people! Speaking of grip, I focused on the issue of gripping the steering wheel while using the semi-autonomous driving technology. It's a bit weird. Initially, travelling south from Carlisle to the Tebay Services in the Lakes, I had very few alerts such that I was already formulating my response to you that things were fine in our Superb. The second stint to the M6 toll services was not so good though. Plenty of alerts such that it spoilt the experience of the technology. I found myself bemoaning it to the ever-patient Mrs A over an overpriced cuppa, on the overpriced Midland Expressway toll road (I shall never complain about French or Italian tolls again, even if the Italian motorway infrastructure has a record of collapsing in and around Genova). But then the final stint down to Windsor was pretty good with only one alerts. My tentative conclusion? I need to test it again when we head north! I wonder if using the heated steering wheel might affect it. I know that a slight wriggle of the steering wheel clears the warning but so does simply tightening my grip of the wheel, in any position - debunking the theory about specifically positioned contact sensors. On that final stint I was very conscious of my hand placement and grip, somewhat defeating the purpose of the technology which is meant to lighten the mental load. I only had one warning about not paying attention which was justified as I was preoccupied with the touchscreen at the time. I hate using the screen to access settings while driving and ask Mrs A to watch the road while I am briefly fiddling. I did get warnings about taking a break after as little as 70mins which tells me that the car doesn't rate my normal driving style then 😅. More generally, I found the technology very useful in traffic jams or convoys. But my brain is still far better at reading the road ahead, second guessing the behaviour of other road users and maintaining flow & momentum. But the technology lulls me into laziness, even if the overall drive is not so enjoyable. And I enjoy driving. So the technology is good, very good but not perfect. I am glad we have it though and with time I will become more adept at using it seamlessly. I will test this again on our way back to Scotland later in the week and post again on this thread. Best wishes.

@Coral-C you're right, this thread is almost comical 😅 I am thinking of submitting a patent application for my 45deg toothbrushes. The only thing holding me back is deciding what unique characteristics will support my intellectual property rights! I'm unsure if 45deg is the right angle but the jug of very hot water can be redeployed to increase the angle further if needed, and I have four other toothbrushes available because Tesco were offering a deal - maybe they have seen a surge in demand from Skoda owners? @rum4mo makes a good point. The shaft could, over time, impact on the rim even though it is made of plastic. Caution pays, as per the lyrics of Wham (George Michael & Andrew Ridgely). One last thought: I am glad our driveway is surrounded by a beech hedge because I honestly will feel a complete idiot holding a toothbrush while cleaning my Superb’s rims 🫣. It could be worse: it's not a Jaguar Type 01. Have a nice weekend.