Arianne

Thank you. A bit of a shame but, as you say, the LED door strips double up. Much appreciated.

@Coral-C I am also thinking the same, maybe professional ceramic coating on these rims would make sense. Your post has tipped me closer to that decision. And yes, once they're off the car, I shall be doing exactly the same decontamination process as you have planned. Have a lovely Friday.

First wash of our car with these Veritate rims. Total nightmare. Spokes are very close together and the gutter around the barrel is almost impossible to clean. My large wheel woolie has enough depth to get into the exposed groove but, as you say, the section around the back of the spokes is very difficult. I will try your toothbrush suggestion. Otherwise the car is surprisingly easy to clean, albeit huge. Having only been cleaning our SLC200 for six months made me forget how much longer a big car takes to properly clean. Although I probably spent more time on the four wheels than I did on the rest of the car! I am glad that I won't be running these rims during the winter months. The dwarf 17" Crystal rims have no such gutter or groove, thank goodness! Best wishes.

Hi folks, as per the subject title. The red inserts, do they illuminate or not?

Ooops. Correction made. Thanks for spotting this so quickly!

Evening All. Our winter rims have arrived from skoda-parts.com and they fit! This is a good news story. I ordered these just last week and they arrived yesterday by FedEx. The tracking app was excellent and I could see them at every step - from the store through to export / import in Germany / UK and finally on their way up to Scotland. They arrived well packaged, in perfect condition and are the genuine article. Importantly, they cost £850 for the four, plus £40 for delivery along with a couple of other items which we included in the order (less than half the UK price Skoda USB C cables). I am impressed. I had called them to discuss the order because I was worried about the import duty after Brexit but, even on an order of this value, the price I paid at checkout was the final price - FedEx didn't turn up demanding additional funds. The supplier is UK VAT registered and handles everything at their end. Seamless. I removed the front offside 19" wheel and mounted one of the 17" Crystal rims to check clearance over the larger front brake caliper and the clearance is fine. Phew! I recall these rims being listed on the Certificate of Conformity for our first order but the paperwork wasn't in the car when we collected our second, replacement car a week ago. The rims are now in our garage having had two coats of Poorboys Wheel Sealant today and they will receive a final third coat tomorrow, having allowed the current layers to harden overnight. It's easier to apply them now before the rims are mounted and this will see them through for three months of so of winter weather from end-November. After that I will only be able to top up the sealant on the face of the rims, although they will be cleaned and treated again when they are removed in early-April next year. I have ordered a set of four Goodyear Ultragrip 3 winter tyres. What a refreshing change - £521 delivered from MyTyres.com compared to around £1300 for our previous RR Velar. This is a recurring theme and it's a lovely experience - our insurance with Allianz Gold, including 180 days comprehensive cover in the EU......£242. Today was enjoyable because I managed to work out how to fit the luggage area netting, set up Mrs A with her personal account, unique settings, key and iPhone link as well as the rims. One pain is that we have already picked up a stone chip on the bonnet - just 330 miles into our ownership! Official Skoda touch up paint already ordered and cocktail sticks at the read for application. Sad! Best wishes.

Thank you. I think you are right in that the Sport mode primes and monitors the traction more proactively, although I will need to take a look at it because I am unsure if I would want the Sport Electronic Stability Control (ESC) if that comes with it by default? It may be possible in the Individual Mode to select Sport for the 4x4 proactivity but toggle the ESC to Normal rather the Sport? I think the Haldex system is better than ever in the current generation Superb. Earlier Haldex was most definitely reactive. We had it with our older XC90 and you could see this very clearly from outside the car and sense it when attempting to pull away in soft, deeper snow or attempting to push through a snow bank helpfully left for us in the morning by the overnight / dawn snowplough! But Skoda's own page suggests that, even in Normal Mode, the latest Haldex system is primed and proactive, although likely not as proactive as in Sport Mode. I shall have a deeper dive into the configurable menu choices and I wouldn't have given this much thought TBH unless you had mentioned it - thank you. Better to check this now than on a freezing cold morning in the Alps with my ski gloves on! Much appreciated. Best wishes.

Well folks, this is the last post on my experience of our new Superb. Hopefully, it's been of some use for those considering acquiring a Superb and maybe helpful for a few owners who, like me, have been surprised by the sheer volume of personal configuration that's possible. Pitlochry, Scotland. It's been almost a week now and here is a summary of my remaining thoughts: not so keen on the brakes which feel a bit squidgy compared to our other cars. I'll get used to it but that's not been a hit from the get go; the steering in its normal setting is incredibly light, too light for me. But the sport setting weights it up quite nicely and so that's what I have been using; the engine is sweet, albeit that I haven't opened her up yet as I want to pop 1000 miles on her first. But it is a quiet engine, both inside and outside the cabin. Low key but responsive. Just what we had hoped for; The seat massage functions will take some time for me to determine whether I like them or not. I guess it will be on a long journey that they will prove themselves one way or the other; The cabin comfort for everyone, front and back, is wonderful. You look at an SUV and think that they must be spacious but they flatter to deceive. The Superb is incredible; The boot space is equally incredible and I love the hammock for coats with the two hooks for bags on it. This works particularly well because the load space cover fold back automatically, otherwise access to the hammock would be a faff; It's thoughtful that the rear tailgate pauses while you step away before clouting you on the head when closing. The easy access foot opening sensor works every time, unlike our Velar; I have deactivated the auto approach unlock & lock system, preferring instead either to use my key fob buttons or just the door handles. It's an option that reads well in the brochure but which I find annoying as I walk near the car on our driveway - constantly locking and unlocking; This is the first car with which we have been provided with three remote keys, matching the three seat and mirror settings. And I like the ability to set up unique accounts for the car so that Mrs A and her key can have her preferred settings etc; I am overjoyed that it has proper door handles and not those stupid, point of failure pop-out handles. I will never willingly buy a car with pop-out handles if I can avoid it. They are useless, troublesome and look awful when jammed in ice; I also appreciate the straightforward simple finish on the alloy rime. My local rim refurbisher, with whom we are on first name terms, explained to me some time ago that lacquered rims are his pension fund - folk keep coming back as they suffer whiteworm from the effect of road salt. These simple rims are usually pretty rubust but are cheaper and easier to fix when scuffed; The windscreen wiper seem a bit suspect, as has been mentioned elsewhere on this forum. I wonder whether the glass has any contamination from the detailers. I will clean the windscreen properly with my G-technique fluid and, if the wipers remain a bit poor, I will just order some proper Bosch ones; The Nextbase 522GW front and rear dashcams are inconspicuous and the dealer has done a good job fitting them. This is one of those items which you never hope to need, a bit like car insurance; I think that's about it. When I began this thread, back in April 2025, I asked folk whether I would regret moving from a Range Rover Velar to a Skoda Superb 265PS L&K 4x4 Estate. Was this asking too much of the Superb and Skoda? Maybe I would need to spend more on the A6, the E-Class or the 5-Series. But you guys told me what you thought and......you have been proved right. The only question I am asking myself now is.....why has it taken me so long to work this out? And perhaps more painfully, how much money could I have saved if I had made the switch earlier - perhaps Gen 3 😭. Oh well, better late than never! Thank you to everyone that has contributed to this thread. As and when I have something interesting to report I will be back. If I spot any request for help that I can answer then I will do so. Best wishes. PS. New Faraday Box on order for delivery next week!

Continuing on with my initial review of our new Superb: ADAS. It works but I can now understand why folk may get alarmed by it. On the M90 heading north to Pitlochry I thought I would see how the lane centring worked. I thought having autonomous cruise (ACC) activated was correct but I was wrong. As a result the car thought I was checking-out of Planet Earth and threw up its hazards while simultaneously slowing down in the outside lane. I eventually realised what was happening and that a proper tug on the steering wheel is needed to persuade the car that I am still very much alive and kicking! Simply having a hand on the wheel isn't sufficient, not at this late stage anyway. I should have been using the Travel Assist function. Oops! Well, we know it works should I ever check-out for real. Passengers can rest easy. The other event was reversing into a parking bay with some overgrown bushes behind us, these having encroached onto the air space above the parking bay but low enough to catch the tailgate. The car applied its brakes, and then some. That works too then! And I am grateful because it stopped me catching the undergrowth. Having said this, the car happily allows me to reverse onto our driveway very tightly positioned alongside our beech hedge with only the sonic beeping. So that's good. I agree that the definition of the camera is pretty basic. It is acceptable but a bit cheap. Shame that. Minor gripe. On the open road the Travel Assist is excellent, including stop-start traffic heading south across the Queenferry Bridge, over the Firth of Forth during rush hour. The only thing is that I find the autohold a bit eager and grabby. So, I have disabled that and the car now behaves like a traditional automatic in that you lift your foot from the brake and it moves forward. The car still holds on hills to stop you rolling backwards which is where we really want it. I have added the quick icon for autohold to the swipe down menu from the infotainment screen - it means that I can activate it by the touch of a virtual button if circumstances and my foot feel the need. I am not yet sure if I will stick with the assisted braking before roundabouts and bends in the road. It seems fine but I will see how it goes. The autonomous cruise is excellent - by watching the gap closing on the driver's display and indicating to move out before our car attempts to slow to match the speed of the car in front, cruise will maintain the preferred speed or, if you move out a little too late, pick up the speed in a natural way. Same as it passes through different speed limits. By and large the reading of the road signs seem good but it did think that the 50mph restriction across the Queensferry Bridge continued when in fact the 70mph limit was shown on the overhead gantry. There is a lot to learn here but it is promising and I will persevere because eventually it will become second nature, the sweet spot. But I can now understand why some folk on here have lost patience with the workings of the ADAS. It is really useful but there is a need to take time to understand it, make the correct settings and be patient. I was worried after reading all the horror stories on the forum but so far there is a lot to like. As an aside, I do love the infotainment screen and how you can customise the swipe down icons, the bottom row and the on-screen tiles. Honestly though, without ChatGPT helping me through all of this it would have taken ages and some features I might never have discovered. For example, the ambient configurable cabin lighting was set to maximum brightness and it was only because ChatGPT told me that this was adjustable from the on-screen slider from the swipe down top of the screen, that I found it! I have also turned off the band of light across the front dashboard because that just annoys me when night driving. We have kept the doors, the door bin illumination, the footwells and the compartment for the phone charger lit. I thought the colours would follow the spectrum shown in the slide bar but in reality the changes are not gradual but sudden and the colours are not as deep and rich as I had hoped. In the end though I have learned that the joy of a car is derived from how it drives and not the ambient cabin lighting, the latter being a novelty that wanes after a few weeks. I hope some of this information may prove helpful for others because there sure are many settings and variations one can make to the car. I find my joy increases when the car is configured to my preferences and the process also helps me learn how to navigate through it all, or most of it. By the way, accessing Android Auto was easy from my Samsung S25+ and we have linked the car to our home WiFi network so she is hooked up while parked on our driveway. Music playback through Android Auto, sourced from the excellent Poweramp app, is good. I cannot detect any loss of quality between a wireless connection and the USB cable option. ChatGPT is suggesting that, for music playback, the car is using wireless rather than Bluetooth but, whatever it sounds the same to me. That said, the playback quality from the USB thumbdrive library, with it's CD ripped lossless flac files, is on another level. The same tracks, listened side by side on an A:B test, are much more engaging from the USB drive. That's today's update then. Hope you are having a good Thursday. Best wishes.

Evening folks. Suspension, ride and handling tonight. I think this is an interesting discovery. DCC+ is amazing! Even on the 19" rims which, with the larger rim and consequently thinner tyre sidewall, the dynamic suspension does a great job. It's standard with L&K trim, optional with SE-L, and not an option with SE Technology. Unsure whether it is standard or optional with Sport trim. Whatever, make sure you choose it because it is excellent. Here's the thing, our Velar had air suspension but sat on 21" rims. Plus she was heavier and had a much higher centre of gravity, being an SUV. In comfort mode the Velar could waft along, just. She did suffer from some slightly weird lateral wobble, something other Velar owners have mentioned. And, because of her weight and SUV bodystyle, Land Rover had to stiffen the suspension to stop it wallowing in bends. The Superb can waft and, in many ways, wafts better than our Velar despite not having air suspension. This shouldn't be possible but it is. With DCC+ set to the extreme softest setting. Around town or on roads where there is absolutely no requirement to press on, this setting is a proper substitute for air suspension but without all the complexity of a compressor and inflatable rubber on each corner. There's just one issue, and it is a big one. I have found that the Superb displays a tendency to understeer if you enter a bend too fast. In this 'waft setting' the understeer is much more pronounced. American Cadillacs from the 1970s spring to mind! In town it's a real boon. Road imperfections are ironed out well. It's a really nice setting. And there is no discernible noise from those rear shocks. Not yet anyway. Maybe Skoda has resolved the issue with the early cars? Meanwhile, we have the other extreme. And this surprised me too. Driving south from Edinburgh along the twisty but rewarding A7, the preconfigured Sport mode was decent, sure footed but not exactly engaging. It made the car competent on what is a pretty challenging road. Ride comfort is still more than acceptable even in this mode. But tonight I selected the most stiff of DCC+ settings and, although I didn't have much opportunity to test it, I think we may have something here! Yes, the ride is is more raw, you sense surface imperfections, coarse road dressing, plus anything that is not tied down begins vibrating - but honestly, that's not much unlike the Mercedes SLC200 we own. It's always a trade off between ride comfort and handling. In this setting the car is much more responsive to steering input, the understeer seems tamed and....I fear I may be speaking too soon....the car is entertaining and engaging to drive. If you can accept the raw ride you get to enjoy the handling. Who would have thought it possible to enjoy such a setting on a Skoda Superb Estate! I said to Mrs A this evening that the car is really very impressive but, looking at it as a passing motorist, you would never guess. A wolf in sheep's clothing? More generally, the ride comfort on the optional 19" Veritate rims is fine, but then it depends what you've been driving recently - our SLC200 is not the last word in ride comfort on broken surfaces. Some folk have spoken about cabin noise when I have watched YouTube reviews of the Superb. It's road surface tyre noise, not wind buffeting etc. The acoustic glass does a good job at creating a hushed cabin but, on those coarse road surfaces the increased tyre noise is noticeable. Not an issue, but noticeable. This is where Audi. Mercedes and BMW earn their corn. More sound deadening felt insulation and thicker carpets. This is one of the areas where the premium brands try and create the gap. I just think that Skoda hasn't stuffed so much sound insulation around the cabin and, to my eyes, the carpet looks a bit thin and the pile (if you can call it that) seems short and cheap. We have mats on mats (rubber atop carpet mats) which helps a little. On a smooth road surface the tyre noise is almost non-existent and the acoustic glass keeps the wind noise hushed. She has a good drag coefficient so she's no slab of an SUV trying to force its way through the air. All good. But the M20 between Maidstone and Folkestone? The southern section of the M25? Those concrete motorways will be noisy! Smooth, Swiss tarmac? Perfect! Part of the issue here is our choice of the 19" optional rims. The DCC+ can mitigate the issues with ride comfort but it cannot silence the road roar, slight exaggeration there! It will be interesting to sense the difference when the car shifts to her 17" winter rims, these being ordered yesterday from the Czech Republic and now being shipped across Europe by FedEx. The UK importer shows them in the brochure as an accessory but they don't sell them here! I will review skodaparts.com when everything eventually is delivered. In conclusion then, I am really happy with the ride comfort delivered by DCC+ and would highly recommend it. The understeer that comes with the Superb having the engine positioned so far forward isn't great but it is at the margins since we, and I am guessing most other Superb owners, are not wanting to drive like an F1 driver? And those extreme settings at the end of the DCC+ spectrum creates a wonderfully smooth ride, or alternatively an engaging one (just!). So far then, the car is excellent. Best wishes.

Evening All. Goodness, there's a lot to learn within the settings of these cars! Since I adore cars, love driving and enjoy sharing my experiences on all the car forums I have joined over the years, I am going to use this thread to post my initial experience of ownership before wrapping it up. I'll try and do this thematically and. since it's a bit late tonight, I will start with the Canton audio system. I know, it's a weird topic to kick off with but I can keep this reasonably focused! It's really very good. Surprisingly good. I am an audiophile and I was not holding out much hope for the Canton 14+1 system but it has impressed me and tonight, dare I say it, on a 60min round trip along the Scottish Borders pitch black roads to try some night driving, I actually really enjoyed the music. And that's the thing: it is a music system rather than an 'in-car entertainment system'. The music is played back the way it was recorded in an authentic way. Some Chinese cars link the ambient cabin lighting up to the sound system to create a disco experience - folks, that's me checked out of the Jaecoo or BYD! Most folk head to the settings and pump it all up: the surround sound, the sub, the low bass and higher treble frequencies - the classic smile shape on the graphic equaliser. Don't do it people! If you do this, the first ten minutes will be bangin' but then your head will become fatigued. Re-tune the brain to enjoy music with the Eq set at zero, or pretty close to zero across the range and choose stereo rather than surround sound. Initially it doesn't sound so big but, give your brain at least 30mins to adjust and the music is clear, layered, separated across the sound stage before you. Our brains are wonderful things but they need to hear music like they hear sound in the real world, not a rave party in an abandoned warehouse. The bass is there, as are the mid-range and the treble. Set to zero on the Eq simply means we are taking the sound clean as Canton intended - frequencies are neither boosted nor reduced by the Eq. Same with the LR balance and FR fader- set to default centre so the Digital Sound Processing (DSP) is again as Canton intended within the cabin. Finally, we chose the focus setting for just the two front seats so the DSP would be adjusted for our positions in the cabin. That's how these systems work DSP adjusted to where you tell it you are sitting. We play our music from a USB thumb drive, 256GB, exFAT format. The music on this drive is ripped directly from specific CDs that have been properly sound engineered and not ruined by the brickwalling of the Loudness Era (mid-1990s onwards with a few exceptions by artists who objected to their music being ruined by the record labels). Flac format, lossless. Rubbish in equals rubbish out. Start with a high quality source and don't use Bluetooth for this type of playback. Tonight it was Fleetwood Mac. Quite how the five members managed to write and produce such beautifully crafted music when they did nothing other than argue amongst themselves and snort cocaine is one of life's great mysteries. But they did and the Canton system shone with Gypsy, Little Lies, Tusk, Everywhere and The Chain. Hugely enjoyable. Open, clear, warm and thoroughly engaging. Would I use compressed music files such as MP3 or AAC? Would I ever use Bluetooth for the connection? Yes, for convenience when I just want some music, nothing special. But if that's the limit of my expectation then I am leaving a huge amount of the Canton's potential on the table. And since we have paid for the superior music system, it's nice to hear it occasionally really shine. This truly has been as unexpected bonus. Canton? I thought it would be okay. Not annoying, that was my bottom line. I can only assume that those folk that have slammed the system maybe didn't get the settings right, or were playing poor source material (trust me, there are some dreadful CDs out there with dynamic ranges (DR) down at just DR8). Or maybe they were streaming, using Bluetooth and compressing the music data as a result. Whatever, I am impressed. It'll be another theme tomorrow so, if the Canton music system and details about setup haven't been your thing.....maybe tomorrow will be more your bag. Well done for getting this far! Best wishes to all.

Folks, the car is great. I'm shattered but just hate it when folk collect their cars and then immediately go missing from forums. Here's a pic. I will post a final message tomorrow to wrap things up on the thread. Thanks again. David.

Well folks, today's the day! I began this thread back in April or May 2025 by asking forum members for their assistance. Thank you to all who have contributed. At the time I didn't think it would take almost 18 months before we would eventually collect our new car. Partly of my own making and partly due to the decision to reject the car that arrived in February for a March collection. However, here we are. This feels somewhat different from most of the previous cars we have acquired before. This one has been bought first with my head, then my heart. Normally, it's been the other way around. I've turned my back on the aspirational premium brands of Mercedes, BMW and Audi, the big three. And obviously Range Rover. Why? Too many times they have sold me a mirage. The promise of something special in return for what would have been another £20k+, but the reality has been anything but. Not this time. I am not expecting our Superb to be as quiet or refined as those more expensive cars - sound insulation etc. But the law of diminishing returns applies here and another £20k, or settling for a stripped back 5 series, isn't justified to me. And if the follow-through customer service from Skoda is so-so, and I am hoping for more but not expecting such, it will be less painful than the dire service from Audi Edinburgh, Lloyd Land Rover Kelso etc. because the bill doesn't include £170 per hour labour charges and eye-watering cost of parts (although I am under no illusions that the DCC+ suspension is simple although, by comparison to the Velar's air suspension with bags and compressor, there are clearly more complex systems out there). We catch the train from the Central Scottish Borders into Edinburgh this morning and, all going well, collect the car before a day trip to Pitlochry and a visit to Queen's View.....to pop 150 miles on her across an easy selection of roads - motorway, faster A roads etc. I have my PNY USB thumbdrive loaded with a few test, lossless music files. That's it. If you've been following this thread then thanks again. I will post a few pics tomorrow, provide a final report to the community and then I sense we can retire the thread gracefully. Best wishes. David.

Honestly, I chose Graphite Grey because I thought it looks elegant on the Superb. It's L&K, a Combi / Estate so I didn't think anything bold would work for me. Those colours are better for the Sportline trim IMHO. Black is hard work to keep clean and we live in the Scottish Borders where mud, sheep and winter salt abound. Right now is potato harvest time so there seem like hundreds of tractors pulling trailers full of spuds! And each tractor spreads a portion of each field along the country roads. Black? No way! So grey it is. I am rather hoping to be semi-invisible, a bit like a Klingon cloaking device in Star Trek. Hardly noticed, not stolen to order. A refreshingly different ownership experience to our Velar with its retrofitted Ghost 2 immobiliser after a neighbour lost her Range Rover from her driveway. Every time we started the Velar up we had to enter the special code on the flappy paddles before engaging Drive. Forget and the engine would cut out, followed by what seemed like an elaborate reset process. The number of times we would forget to enter the code after filling up, or waiting in the queue for the cross-Channel ferry. Or we would receive a call from the franchise dealership asking for the code which we had forgotten to share with them. Mental load. Sometimes you don't realise how you gradually stack one layer on top of the next. Best wishes.

And the final three. It's been a long wait! Best wishes to everyone on the forum and thank you for all of your advice and support.

Well, we have had an opportunity to do our own personal PDI on Rosie 2. And I am pleased to say that everything looks to be excellent. We had a thoroughly pleasant time at the dealership and collection is scheduled for Monday, 14 September. We are really looking forward to it. I don't want to speak too soon but, so far, I cannot fault the dealership. They have kept in touch, been professional yet personal too, and seem to have done an excellent job preparing our new car. They have treated the paintwork with the Autoglym Cerafuse protection, plus the cabin as a no cost gesture of goodwill - which is more than I expected. Preparation is key to this finish working properly and, insofar as I could tell, the paintwork was smooth to the touch of my fingers. Honestly, fingers and the sense of touch are more telling than eyes. Anyway, so far so good. My insurance with Allianz is just £247 compared to £450 for the Velar. The dealer has ordered the reversible folding boot floor, some door bins and snow chains. They have popped a second umbrella in the passenger door at no cost and they have done an excellent job fitting the Nextbase 522GW camera and rear camera. The cables are out of sight and all the roof lining is perfect, as is the A-pillar. I will need to order my winter 17" rims from Skoda Parts online because the UK importer has stopped selling them. Same for the ski sack. I have a contact there and will speak to him next week because they are EU based. They are UK VAT registered and use FedEx for delivery but they need to take the VAT at the UK rate which means a telephone call because the online portal is set up for a different foreign VAT rate. This also means that they should clear customs properly with no further duty needing to be paid. Ah, Brexit. Here are some pics. I will provide an update next week after collection. Honestly, if only I had received this service with the Range Rover dealership. I spent considerably more, even back in 2017, and subsequently.....and yet a little Skoda dealership beats them hands down! Here's hoping.

Thanks again @Coral-C . I am looking forward to that feature for the pan-euro trips. It takes me time to learn the features of a car and for it to become part of my unconscious competence. It's at this point when I tend to enjoy the car most. The new car, excitement stage is great but frustrating at one and the same time. Unbelievably, I am still finding features in our Mercedes SLC200 which we have owned since 2017. AI helps tease these hidden features out from the car! Best wishes.

Thank you @Coral-C , much appreciated. That's very clear and seems to represent the sensible middle ground of technology serving the driver, rather than the other way around. One additional question, if I may: are you able to retain the lane centre function so that you don't need to constantly microcorrect the car as the motorway curves slightly etc? Or do you switch this off? I am kind of hoping this is a useful aid as it's not one I have had before on the Velar.

Isn't all of this terribly bad news for autonomous cruise etc? If so, it rather defeats the ability to set & forget? Or does it not work this way? PS. I am asking because we don't collect our car until next month.

Enjoy your new Honda when it comes 🙂

@Rifleman . I have had almost a year of waiting for delivery of our Superb (she is called Rosie) and almost another year of research. As a result, my AI Assistant is well versed in all matters 'Skoda Superb' and has been trained, through memory updates, to be objective, thorough, evidence based, disagree, challenge and always tell me what I need to know, not what I want to hear. It sometimes slips up but has been getting progressively better over time. Here is the answer to your questions about the Superb's sound system which I shared with it earlier. I hope it helps. As an aside, I suspect Skoda UK Customer Services are little different from any of the other manufacturers and I also doubt the dealership wouldhave any deep knowledge unless you stumbled across an atypical employee. Yes — and the answer is considerably less restrictive than the older Škoda systems made us fear. For Rosie’s current-generation infotainment, I would set the PNY up as follows: USB filesystem: exFAT. That is the safest choice. Škoda itself specifies exFAT for modern USB media used with its current infotainment systems, including 64 GB+ media. � updateportal.skoda-auto.com Partitioning: one normal partition. There is no advantage in dividing the stick into several partitions. Audio format: FLAC is natively supported by this generation of VW Group infotainment; there is no need to convert your lossless library to MP3. Current-generation VW infotainment documentation also lists FLAC among the supported audio types. � My Car User Manual Folder structure: nothing exotic is required. I would use the very conventional Artist → Album → 01 Track.flac → 02 Track.flac etc. The infotainment can browse the actual USB folder structure as well as building its own artist/album/track database from the embedded metadata. � Volkswagen Ireland +1 Stick capacity: your 256 GB PNY is absolutely fine. Importantly, actual Mk4 Superb owners have successfully used 256 GB and 1 TB drives, with one owner specifically reporting both a 1 TB and 256 GB drive being read without difficulty. � Briskoda Library size: I cannot find a Škoda-published hard maximum for the Mk4 Superb such as “x folders/xx,xxx tracks”, so I would not quote an invented limit on Briskoda. The empirical evidence that 1 TB devices work is far more useful. Very large libraries can simply take longer to index initially; that has been reported on contemporary VW Group systems with 10,000+ tracks. � Briskoda There is one important distinction here. The 256 GB size of the stick and the size of an individual FLAC file are not problems when using exFAT. FAT32 has the old 4 GB-per-file restriction; exFAT removes that. No normal music FLAC would approach 4 GB anyway. What I would actually do with ours I would format the PNY exFAT, probably with Windows' default allocation-unit setting, give it a sensible volume name such as ROSIE MUSIC, and copy the library across in this form: ROSIE MUSIC │ ├── ABBA │ ├── Arrival │ │ ├── 01 When I Kissed The Teacher.flac │ │ ├── 02 Dancing Queen.flac │ │ └── ... │ └── The Visitors │ ├── Beethoven │ ├── Symphony No. 5 │ └── Symphony No. 9 │ ├── Fleetwood Mac │ └── Rumours │ └── ... More important than the folder names is having good FLAC tags — Artist, Album, Track Number, Title, Disc Number and preferably embedded album artwork. The infotainment's media database will then give you a much more civilised Artist/Album browsing experience rather than making you work through folders. And this confirms something from our old discussion: the PNY 256 GB stick was a sound purchase. In fact, it is rather nicely judged — enough capacity for a very substantial lossless collection without going to the rather absurd 1 TB extreme that the system apparently will nevertheless tolerate. � Briskoda If you show me the exact wording of the owner's question in the attachment, I can also tell you whether there is any wrinkle in it that I haven't covered above Best wishes, David.

Your observations are ones I can identify with @Coral-C . The use of an official dealership is sensible at least until the manufacturer's warranty expires, possibly a bit after that too, because a decent dealer will argue on your behalf for warranty claims and goodwill on any issues arising up to and slightly beyond the end of the warranty period. I know you can use an independent providing they use approved parts and consumables but it's hassle none of us need. These cars, almost all modern cars, are becoming 'computers on wheels'. The dealerships are struggling to keep up and the issue extends across almost all brands. While the car industry is going through huge changes due to electrification, technology and Chinese challenger brands, I would rather run a mainstream European manufactured car right now because the proven support network exists. Perfect? No, but if my Superb develops a fault in Austria in January 2027 at sub-zero temperatures, there's an experienced Skoda dealership nearby. Tyroleans love Skoda as they are practical, alpine people. If it has pop out door handles, they don't buy it! Meanwhile, the Xpeng is left abandoned in the snow below the Schatzberg cable car! I wish you well with your search for your new dealership for servicing. West End also have sites in Stirling and Dunfermline although I cannot vouch for them. Best wishes, David. PS. The 19" Veritate rims are for the summer only. I am a sucker for aesthetics on a car and these rims make the Superb look a little more elegant even if they are a pain to clean and unsettle the ride slightly, DCC+ mitigation excepted. As it is, our cars are totally pampered on our driveway using the two-bucket method, wheel cleaning tools and a trusty microfibre cloth. The inner barrels are cleaned together with the unseen inside facing spokes at every wash. I hate doing it but the results are worth it. In winter, we will run 17" dowdy rims because they will take a hammering with road salt, only the 17" rims can accommodate chains without fouling the running gear and it's the law in alpine Austria and Como, Italy. I've never used chains on any of our 4x4 vehicles, including the much more basic Haldex system of our 2006 Volvo XC90, since premium brand winter tyres with more than 4mm tread depth are just fine. If they cannot do the business then it's not because of traction issues but rather deep snow, a lack of clearance and the snow plough effect. Then it's game over anyway. So Rosie will look dowdy for six months of the year but then the mud, salt and spray of life in Scotland and the Alps across the winter means almost all cars look dowdy. And in the Austrian Tyrol, a stunning car on large rims just looks weird in winter and slightly uncool. In Italy, your car is uncool anyway unless it has knocks and scrapes across at least three corners - they don't have fully comprehensive insurance as we do here in the UK so, when it's damaged they just move on! South of Naples they don't bother with car insurance at all. Unbelievable but true!

@Coral-C - I feel for you, having endured the misery of Lloyd Group for the past few years. Excellent at the beginning but then lost all.of their good employees and became so bad it was best described as 'dark comedy'. To be fair, they recruited a new Service Manager and he has tried to turn Lloyd Kelso around with a degree of success. The dealership even issued a public newsletter by email to their customers apologising for what went before. Thing is, at approx. £170 per hour labour and the usual 'premium badge tax' associated with Land Rover, it hurts even more than similar poor service from a mainstream franchise garage. My Skoda dealership is West End Skoda in Edinburgh. They are a privately owned group of just three Skoda dealerships which are all based in Scotland. They have been very fair, respectful and gracious as we worked through the rejection of Rosie 1 back in March. My Senior Sales Executive is also excellent and he has messaged me every month on or around the 1st with an order update. It feels personal. The Sales Manager is also a good guy and both have worked at the dealership for many years. Continuity and consistency are severely underrated these days. They're not perfect but who is, especially in the world of car sales, and so patience is needed in the relationship. The caveat is that I have no experience yet of the aftersales service since we haven't collected Rosie 2 yet. That's crucial because the folk in the service team are the ones that really matter for the long-term ownership experience. When we visit for our own personal PDI, I hope to spend a few minutes chatting with the Service Manager and perhaps a member of his/her team. What I can say is that this dealership doesn't have a 'hostess welcome' person (Edinburgh Audi) whose sole job purpose is to greet you on entry and simply show you to a seat - this lady must have had a substantial clothing allowance included in her remuneration package because she always looked stunning! Neither do they have a receptionist which initially feels odd until you realise that our experience of dealership receptionists is simply to try and transfer your call before telling you that the line is busy and they will ask someone to call you back, which has a less than 50% hit rate. At Lloyd Kelso, I was on first name terms with the receptionist who was a very kind lady and who eventually couldn't apologise sincerely enough for her colleagues after many weeks of no returned calls. We made it a game in the end and laughed together at the utter stupidity of the whole process. At West End, you choose the department you need on your keypad and get straight through - no call centre,no receptionist and no hostess service. And no £170 per hour labour charges! That's refreshing. No palacial glass and marble showroom which attempts to shrink you in the way a global bank's HQ attempts to do (here's looking at you, RBS Gogarburn before you crashed the economy in 2008 with your subprime loan book and over extended debt). Smoke and mirrors. West End is a decent, real world kind of place which feels normal.....and the toilets are spotless, always a good sign! But we shall see how collection goes and the follow through thereafter. Honestly, I'm not asking for much: an unspectacular but straightforward customer journey will be just fine. No ribbons, no dustsheet reveal, no fanfare. Just a Sales Exec who is happy to help me set up my user account with Rosie and a bunch of experienced, salt of the earth technicians who understand what the strainer is on the Haldex 4x4 system. Substance matters, gloss is superfluous. I will let the Briskoda Community know how it all goes, including the follow through with the all important team in the service department. Hope this has been helpful! David.

Well folks, it's time to resurrect this thread for our second attempt at taking delivery of our car which, this time, we are calling Rosie 2. My dealer has been in touch, sent across the VIN and a photo of our car sitting in the compound, pre-PDI. All being well, we hope to collect her in early-September. Since we sold our Range Rover Velar back in February, in anticipation of collecting Rosie 1, we have made do with our two seater MB SLC200. Cozy! However, we had to take an Avis Hire car last weekend because there were five of us commuting to Novara from Como, Italy - about an hour each way mainly on 130kph autostrada. Avis gave us the keys to a BYD Seal 6 PHEV saloon. You can get these in Estate body too. Hence, we wondered what the Seal would be like in comparison to the Skoda Superb. For about 30mins following pickup of the hire car our hearts sank. The Seal 6 has a cabin almost as big as the Superb, a load area that in Estate form is just a few litres shy of the ICE Superbs, despite being a PHEV and it was so quiet running out of Como towards the autostrada choosing itself when to deploy the battery or 1.5 engine (are all Chinese cars running a 1.5 engine 😅). We spoke to each other and asked how the Chinese can deliver such a car for the money - between about £32k to £38k approx in the UK). Needless to say, we are paying considerably more for our Superb. But then reality began to emerge. If it's too good to be true it probably is. And it was. Although many of the cabin plastics look okay they are really cheap to the touch. Worst offenders are the internal door release handles, an object you touch frequently, and the centre console between the two front occupants, grey plastic that reminded me of my 2001 Vectra or the central dashboard of a Ford Focus during the 1990s, minus the buttons. Really cheap. The auto climate control has a mind of its own. It is so noisy that you need to raise your voices above it. The booster fan is not the culprit. It seems like the air ducting is poorly designed because the noise is from the airflow, even though the flow is nothing exceptional. We ended up having to set the fan speed ourselves to reduce the airflow because of the noise. The two front centre vents are set below the iPad screen, low down and weird. I guess it doubles as cooling for the wireless charge pad for mobiles, except wireless charging is only available on the next trim up. The suspension is unsophisticated and unsettled, especially at motorway speeds. The autostrada from Como to Milan is extremely smooth but somehow the Seal managed to feel fidgety and we could sense vibration through the floor of the cabin into the soles of our feet. Speaking of feet, they get tired in the Seal. The reason why, for a PHEV, the boot is so large compared to the Superb PHEV is because the battery seems to extend under the cabin floor. The floor is therefore raised but the seats are set too low to the floor. You sit with your knees pointing upward at an angle with a lack of support under your thighs. Much of your weight remains on your feet which is why they feel fatigued after a while. The two outermost rear passengers complained that the ISOfix covers were digging into them after a while. However, the middle seat passenger was happy because the floor back there is completely flat. Every cloud has a silver lining. I won't even mention the intrusive driver safety systems, other than the fact that they are time consuming to switch off (where allowed) and just looking at the screen generates a driver attention warning. A yawn triggers a driver fatigue warning. You get the picture. To be fair, the money has been spent by BYD on the PHEV system which is impressive at this price point, very impressive. And the kind of toys and cabin elements that initially impress in the showroom or on a short test drive. It is an 'almost but not quite' kind of car. Not the car you look forward to jumping into for a lengthy journey. I have nothing against using a metal stalk to prop up the bonnet - it's reliable and lighter than hydraulic struts - but in 2026 this alone tells you where BYD placed the emphasis on the budget for this car. The more expensive R&D for the suspension is not where the money has gone. The Seal impresses initially but the Superb is a better long-term companion, for sure. There is a depth and sophistication to the Superb which is absent from the BYD. While I would welcome the extra money saved remaining in my building society account, I would need to cling to this thought throughout my ownership of the Seal. Quite reassuring really. An MHEV petrol or entry level diesel Superb in SE Technology or SE-L trim is around the same price point. Of course, they are not PHEVs and the Seal boasts that tech. But my money is with the Superb and I sincerely hope Rosie 2 works out over the upcoming months. I will keep you posted. Best wishes.

Thanks for the extra feedback. Well, if our second attempt fails to come off then that's another one on the list for consideration. Enjoy!