Arianne

That's very reassuring, so that's a 'thank you' from me and the wife then! We're really looking forward to the collection. From the paperwork in the glove compartment, we saw that Rosie was born at 6:20pm (CET) on 28 January 2026. The Certificate of Conformity also confirmed that she is compatible with the 17" Cystal, light alloy metallic rims and snowchains. Result! After our PDI inspection we grabbed a coffee from the machine, lingered in the seating area and absorbed the atmosphere and culture within the dealership. I was an HR & Organisation Development guy before retiring and you can learn a lot from soaking up the vibe within a workplace as an observer. It was calm, friendly and folk seemed to be going about their business with a sense of purpose. No 'airheads', no pointless 'host or hostess' welcome service. Decent, real-world people going about their jobs with a sense of purpose. The coffee wasn't so good but, to be fair, when my Service Advisor at our local Land Rover dealer invited me to take a seat and help myself to a coffee in their showroom during my last visit......the coffee machine had broken down! Says it all really 😅. Honestly, our lad had an Audi TT and that was not dissimilar to the Land Rover showroom experience. All glass, marble and palacial showrooms that are quite overwhelming. One morning, while checking in the TT for my son, before heading into Edinburgh City centre, the lady explained in a long-winded script that the technicians undertake a free, complimentary health check which covers over 200 items - including even the bolts that hold the rear numberplate on. On an Audi TT, the rear numberplate is glued on with double sided adhesive. I just nodded helpfully as I needed to get to work on the tram! At the LR dealership, my Service Advisor told me that the technician had replaced the OSF. She didn't know what an OSF was but said it had been replaced as part of the service. I nodded and surrendered by Barclaycard 😥. I already knew the track rod end had been replaced. Anyway, I am turning the page and moving on to the next chapter - whatever that may bring. Best wishes.

Somewhere from the back of the dealer compound there was a sound, something like "thank you @Novichok "

Is the Canton brand not present on the speakers mounted on the A pillars? They are there on our car.

Personal PDI completed Enjoyed last Thursday very much. Our Sales Executive contacted me on Wednesday to confirm that our Superb had just arrived on-site and invited us to drop by to take a look at the car prior to the dealer beginning their own PDI. All credit to VAG & Skoda because the paintwork, cabin, rims, shut lines and engine bay were all perfect. We found just one small issue where the sound insulation panel under the glove compartment in the passenger footwell needs adjusting to fit snugly. We are impressed with the quality of the interior which is better than we had anticipated. I think the faux wood veneer trim, perforated seat leather and the way the doors shut with a reassuring thud are excellent. The interior space was more than I had imagined. When SWMBO had her passenger seat in the preferred position, I climbed in the back and there was more leg room than I think I have ever experienced in any car. We chose the Family Pack as an option and the window blinds are neat (I thought they might be a bit gimmicky) and the sleeping headrests are wonderful. I also love the way the central armrest slides forward. Best of all? No pop-out door handles. Our Velar had these and they are a complete pain. On the morning that we had viewings for the private sale it was -6°c and the door handles wouldn't retract! An answer to a question nobody has ever asked and is the elevator pitch reply to the question, 'should I buy a Velar'. The dealership has so far been good and we have agreed collection for 16 March. Obviously, we haven't driven her yet but she sounded great ticking over. What am I looking forward to most? No drama. Being a JLR owner comes with a lot of drama. Beautiful cars but huge cognitive load. I am hoping our Superb just does the job quietly and without any great fuss. Oh, and she has a name: Rosie. Chosen by the wife. We name all our cars. Until 16 March then. Once again, thank you to everyone for your advice and guidance thus far. A super forum. Best wishes.

We collect our TSI 265PS on 16 March. I have asked the dealer to switch the car's on board reminder to the fixed schedule. Thank you for the details about the servicing and maintenance items etc.

It looks like our Superb is stuck at the port. Sad but true. We have the VIN, a registration number reserved but yet to be assigned but no car quite yet. So, being an audiophile, I have been researching how I can get the best from the Canton system through a USB C thumb drive with my lossless flac music files that I have ripped from my early 1980s CDs - the ones with fabulous dynamic range and sound engineering, like Dire Straits and the Eagles. ChatGPT and Gemini have been helpful in providing detail and guidance about the Canton system. They also directed me to this article which focuses solely on the Canton system in the Mk4 Superb Combi. I thought I would share it with others if anyone is interested...

@Busa-Boy .....that's good to read: there's hope for us humans and our brains then, even in a world of increasing automation and AI 😅. Thanks for the update. Our collection date has tentatively been agreed for Wednesday, 4 March. We have a week planned in the Lake District from the following weekend so this would be excellent timing - a couple of days to become familiar with the controls, interface and settings before heading off. The dealer has agreed to my request to pop along next week for my own PDI in advance of whatever they do themselves. I will wait for a dry day, there may be a remote possibility of one coming up here in Scotland, and then head off to the dealer. As ever, if anyone has any advice or tips please let me know. Best wishes.

Thanks, helpful. I would have got caught on the app settings so your tip is much appreciated. The remote parking could be useful in some situations. When I asked ChatGPT if the parallel self parking would be better than my own it suggested that the margin of safety necessarily inbuilt into the software probably means that it won't be better than me, with the wife standing outside as we squeeze the car into a tight spot in Como City, Italy - we have a driveway at the house in Scotland but the garage underneath our apartment in Como is too small. So it's street parking 😬

The 19" rims. That's good to hear. I also have opted for the same rims but have always had a niggling doubt about the wisdom of this because of the impact on ride comfort and tyre roar intrusion into the cabin. The reviews on YouTube and in the magazines are a bit mixed on this. Most suggest that, while the 18" are naturally better, the DCC+ dampers and noise insulation are sufficient to counter the impact for the larger 19" rims. So your real feedback is reassuring, thanks again. Thank you again.

Beautiful. Love your choice of rims and do I spot the panoramic sunroof too? Looks like you had a good day for the collection with relatively good weather for February. Enjoy! If you discover anything worth sharing....please do!

Ahh, story of my life - just pipped at the post 😅 Most importantly, enjoy Friday and, if you feel so inclined, maybe share a photo? Best wishes.

So we're getting close! My dealer has been in touch and explained that our car is now in the UK at the port. It should be with them in the next couple of weeks so collection in early March is looking good - we've agreed Friday, 6 March as the provisional date for pickup. The dealer has agreed to give me a message when the car arrives because I requested that they let me inspect it before they complete their PDI. I do this with all of our new cars because the dealer will hopefully include anything we have spotted for rectification prior to the big day. Hope being the operative word! Is there anything else that you good people think I should be doing, checking or fretting about? Thank you in advance!

I wouldn't think changing the rim sizes would make much difference to the speedometer? The overall diameter of the rim and tyre is pretty much the same. As the rim size reduces doesn't the tyre wall profile increase? I may have got this wrong and, if I have, please say. Any difference must be right at the margins. TBH, while the 17" winter rims won't be much for the look of the car, they will compensate with a smoother and quieter ride because tyre sidewall forgiveness makes a real difference.

@Badelhas , may I ask what quality of music files you are feeding the system and whether you are doing this through a wired connection or Bluetooth? Quality matters, especially for the better in-car music systems which can be very picky. Maybe choose a test track. A reference track would be something lossless, say in flac format, where the digital music file is at least as good as CD quality (16-bit / 44.1 kHz). Remember that the flac format is just a container, albeit an honest, lossless container that will faithfully deliver whatever is within it, unlike compressed MP3 type files. It's what you fill it with that helps make the difference. Next, choose the source track carefully. Not all CDs or digital downloads are created equally. Very often, anything recorded after 2000 suffers from brickwalling during the Loudness Wars period. This means that the sound engineer has maxed out the input volume to the point of saturation. Great for cheap car audio, earpods and Bluetooth speakers but terrible for any quality HiFi equipment which will faithfully attempt to replicate what it is fed. The dynamic range (the difference in volume between the quiet instruments / vocals and the loudest) is very little on these brickwalled recordings and it creates a messy sound that hurts the brain because this is not what our brains naturally hear in real life. Good for the first 60secs wow factor on a tiktok stream but painful thereafter (60secs being what most folk consume now on cheap speakers, so the recording studios demand this approach from their sound engineers because it sells on streaming). Taylor Swift resists this and her material is consistently well recorded with a high DR (dynamic range). Fleetwood Mac, George Michael, Michael Jackson, later The Jacksons' albums and the Lighthouse Family (yes, I was surprised by that last one too!). Avoid remastered recordings post-2000 from digital downloads stores such as Qobuz or 7Digital. Yes, these promise HQ digital downloads but the remastered versions are often not great. It seems counterintuitive but these are also more likely to have been brickwalled. The originals during the 1980/90s will usually be better. Don't use Bluetooth wireless. It makes no sense to pay extra for the Canton upgrade and then feed it Bluetooth. Bluetooth will compress the file data meaning that, by the time the Canton system receives it, most of the detail has been stripped out due to file compression. Same issue with Android Auto. If you store your music on your phone and use an app such as PowerAmp to send the music through Android Auto, AA will almost certainly be downsampling any high quality data it receives. Same issues with online streaming services. Even those that promise HQ sound through their premium subscriptions will only deliver the best available data stream based upon the bandwidth available on the network, wherever you are. You may be paying for HQ sound but not getting it, just the 'best available'. If possible, send the music file straight to the car's music systems, do not use AA or ACP, use a wired connection, CD quality lossless files and a high quality source which has been properly recorded by the sound engineer. Rubbish in = Rubbish out. Hope this helps. PS. I think the subwoofer on the PHEV is located on the nearside (UK) cubbyhole in the boot. ICE cars have them positioned in the spare wheel well. I suspect the positioning of the subwoofer on the PHEV is slightly suboptimal but I guess the PHEV batteries need somewhere to go!

@Carlston , thank you again for your detailed reply. I will take a closer look at this because your point about kerbing risk is well made. The car will travel on Le Shuttle cross-Channel. My heart sinks when the guy directs us onto the upper deck because it is so narrow. That alone makes a little further research worthwhile. I will also check the different suppliers and I agree that, providing the winter tyres are in stock, buying them during the summer makes sense too. Thank you again.

@Gabbo , thank you. I think I am almost there. A fairly ordinary set of Crystal 17" rims will hopefully do the trick. We live in Scotland and the sheer volume of road salt scattered during Winter is harsh on the rims. A simple silver painted design is more resistant to corrosion than anything lacquered or fancy. It's not the most flattering look for the car but Winter isn't the season for photoshoots anyway, the tyres will be cheaper, same with the chains and the slightly narrower profile will help penetrate the snow for grip. I will get a set of chains. They're not too expensive for the Superb and don't take up much room in their little box. This is one of the happy outcomes compared to our current RR Velar - the tyres and Spider Spikes are eye-wateringly expensive and those Spider Spikes come in a massive holdall. This is one of the things I will be grateful to leave behind when we sell our Velar - the complexity, the weight and the expense. Oh, and the underwhelming customer service experience despite the palatial glass, marble and leather laden showrooms. One final practical point. The Czech online store displays prices, these being actually very good value. The UK equivalent does not. It simply allows me to add items to my wishlist, rather than a shopping basket. It then advises me to share the wishlist with a dealer who will provide prices. I have a hunch that this isn't going to be such good value as the Czech online store 🫣. The car should be delivered in March so I have plenty of time, although the supply of Winter tyres is seasonal, understandably. Thanks again everyone.

@Carlston , what can I say? Thank you so much. I have been an active member of several forums since 2003 - Ford Galaxy, Volvo XC90 & XC60, Jaguar F-Pace and RR Velar - but your knowledge of Skoda is quite incredible, especially the ET41 rim waiting to trap the unwary! I will check this all out and ensure we have the right 17" rims with winter rubber wrapped around them in good time for next Winter's Alpine adventure. Best wishes and thanks again. David

Thanks Evolution 13. I was about to send a PM to him with the link to this thread, requesting some help. Unfortunately, I haven't yet reached the required minimum of 20 posts to allow PMs, although this one makes it 19 😉. I will wait for a few days. The car doesn't come until March and I have all Summer before I need to finalise this. I just read your thread and thought it might be good to ask. Appreciate your reply. Thanks again.

I was going to start anew discussion thread but maybe I can piggyback on this one? I plan to buy a set of winter rims and tyres for our new Superb 2.0 TSI 4x4 265PS Estate that we have coming in March. When I asked the dealer about a winter tyre and rim set, they said that they couldn't source this at present. We travel every winter to Austria and it is mandatory to have snowchains on board, even though I have never needed to use chains on any AWD / 4x4 car we have owned. I have read that the restricted space for the running gear means that the maximum rim size is 17" because this results in a narrower tyre with more space behind the tyre for the chain links. I don't need to source the rims and tyres together. Normally I source the tyres myself using online suppliers. How have you guys sourced your rims. Any advice? I appreciate this is rarely needed by most UK owners but, since this would be a common requirement in many of Skoda's European markets, it seems a bit odd that my dealer is perplexed by this? Thanks, in advance.

Hmm. I think the invisibility of the car will probably be fine on the twisting country roads here in the Scottosh Borders. I'm less sure I will enjoy being tailgated on the A1(M) heading south for the cross-Channel ferry / tunnel, or on the German autobahnen. However, we shall just need to see how it goes. I rarely gun it even in our Velar or SLC these days, preferring a more serene journey. But when I do choose to pull out into the overtaking lane, adjusting my speed to the flow so as not to be a nuisance to others, it does annoy me when someone plants themselves right on your rear bumper. This is almost never the case with the Velar and rarely the case with the SLC. But, this being the habitat ruled by the ape-man, he is unlikely to notice my little 4x4 badge and make the connection to the engine derivative. TBH, twin exhaust outlets don't cut it anymore either because almost every wannabe model these days has real or fake integrated exhaust finishers. A badge on the tailgate would have been the best option but, in its absence, I will need to find a way of processing others' road manners in my head. Any suggestions from other Superb drivers will be appreciated. Have a good day folks.

This is something that I have tried to manage down in my expectations. The Meridian 800w system in our Velar is exceptional when fed lossless, high quality flac music files via a cable (compressed files or music sent via Bluetooth isn't great though). Our AI assistant offered an evaluation of both the Meridian and Canton systems. It concluded that, based upon the components, processors and decoders etc. the Canton system is good but not audiophile reference quality. For my music listening enjoyment there is a minimum threshold that must be reached otherwise I can't be bothered. From what I have read, the Canton upgraded system should exceed my minimum expectations. Most of these systems need to be given good quality music files through a cable to really shine. Good to read that you are happy with it and I hope to follow in your footsteps. Regarding the car itself, I am quietly confident that you are right. The reason I say this is because it seems to me that all of the ingredients exist to make this a most enjoyable car. The engine, a decent gearbox, configurable dynamic suspension, lots of space and comfort, a much lower centre of gravity compared to the SUVs I've owned since 2006 and an understated elegance. Excitement is often fleeting whereas contentment has staying power, and contented with our choice is how I feel. Plus, it's a lot less likely to get stolen than our Velar! Thanks again for the tips.

Thanks @Novichok . I recall reading your experience and slight tweak to the pressures. Tyre wall profile makes such a difference, as does pressure. We had a Volvo XC60 which we mistakenly ordered with 20" rims in R-design trim with its stiffened suspension. Awful. I picked it up from TMS Volvo in Coventry (they were a super supplying dealership) and drove it back to Scotland. Within a few miles of joining the M6 I realised what a clot I had been. Over the three years of ownership, it being my one and only car ever acquired on PCP, I learned the technique of changing lanes without clipping the cats' eyes! That was how bad it was. The other issue with that car and my poorly judged configuration was the addition of the subwoofer which, unbeknown to me at the time of ordering. Volvo chose to locate beneath the rear bench. My son, who at the time was the sole rear seat occupant, politely requested that we turn the subwoofer bass down on the equaliser as it was so uncomfortable for him. Just to be clear, we don't actually use a great amount of bass at this low frequency either. This has been an interesting experience with the Superb though. I explained to Mrs A that, whilst I wouldn't say I am excited by the decision, I do feel content. It feels like the right car for us, a purchase made with both my head and heart - whereas previous car purchases have been 90% heart, including the Alfa Romeo from yesteryear! Best wishes.

Okay, so that's the order placed today. Superb Estate L&K 2.0 TSI 265PS 4x4 DSG Graphite Grey metallic 19" Veritate Silver wheels 5yr / 100k extended warranty Pano roof Family Package Rubber mats Stainless steel door sill covers Front & rear hard-wired dashcams I will separately order 17" rims for my winter tyres and a pair of snow chains for the Alpine skiing holidays, ski holder bag and rubber boot floor mat to contain the meltwater from the boots and skis which otherwise stink out the cabin from the carpet getting saturated. I don't use the HUD because it makes me feel sick. Scheduled for collection in March 2026 for the new registration. We chose the black interior because, after seeing the cognac, it wasn't quite our thing. The sunroof and cream / white headliner on the L&K model brightens up the cabin. We thought the cabin was very nice and we couldn't believe the space. We test drove a TSI Sportline 265 4x4 as a proxy to gauge the engine and gearbox. It was good but, as a few others have mentioned, the 19" rims do create more tyre noise which seeps into the cabin. However, we have the 17" dowdy rims for the winter months which at least will offer a more supple ride and quieter cabin even if they look grim on the car - but then winter in Scotland means mud and salt splattered on the grey paintwork anyway. Very happy thus far and we will update the forum as and when we have news. Thank you to everyone on here so far for your advice and guidance. David

Thanks Cedwing. I have realised that, if I widen the search out to include the newer Sportline trim, there are several additional cars listed. The engine and gearboxes on these are the same and, although the ride height has been lowered a bit and the interior cabin materials are different from the L+K, they’re close enough. This is encouraging. There are sufficient scattered either side of the A1, M1 and M6 from SE England through to Scotland that I am now confident of being able to secure a test drive in something representative. I’m very much looking forward to it TBH. Let’s hope it works out. Best wishes.

Thanks for explaining why it’s proving so difficult.