silver1011

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/skoda-axes-karoq-scout-kodiaq-scout-and-kamiq-diesels

I suspect the price of ACC has increased as it's the higher spec version working at speeds of up to 210kph instead of the current versions limit of 160kph.

I did make the caveat clear i.e. those who cover big mileage. Very few people do considerably more than 10,000 miles per year, and a large chunk of those that did, including me, won't be after COVID. I do (or did) 25,000 to 30,000 miles a year. My diesel saloon would do 500 miles to a tank, an equivalent petrol more like 400 miles. That's another 12 fuel station visits a year, one more per month. I think I can live with that, it's not what I'd call an inconvenience, or one that would be enough to sway my choice of engine one way or the other.

Covered here too...

Horse for courses, some say the 1.4 / 1.5 150PS TSI isn't suitable for a car the size of the Kodiaq. Yet the same engine pulls the car, me, my family, the contents of the boot, a full roof box and a 1.5 ton caravan with absolute ease.

Some people get hung up on spending £85 a month on petrol versus £70 a month on diesel fuel for their 8,000 mile annual mileage, completely ignoring the big elephant in the room that is the £350 per month they're either throwing at a lease or paying for depreciation.

So to clarify, if your Kodiaq has Front Assist then you already have the correct radar behind the grill for ACC? You've upgraded the steering column stalk using the part numbers above, but critically you've found someone who has been able to remote access your vehicle and alter the coding to enable ACC? Do I have that right?

I've never understood some peoples fascination, obsession almost, on fuel economy. Unless you're covering intergalactic mileage then the £0.02 pence per mile difference between petrol and diesel when factored in with the other costs involved in buying and running a modern car almost pales into complete insignificance. I've even known people change their car so that they can reduce their VED from £200 to £30. Great, you've saved £170 a year but just slashed £5,000 up the wall on depreciation. I've been foolish enough to drive diesel saloons for most of my driving career, blindly following the inaccurate assumption that an annual mileage over 15,000 miles means it has to be diesel. It certainly doesn't today and I'm not convinced it has been for a long time. Times have changed and with a huge swath of the globes commuting mileage slashed it is likely diesel is already dead. Personally I like diesel, it has it's place, I love the smooth effortless torque of the bigger 6-cylinder engines. You don't have to use all of the torque all of the time to be able to appreciate it. But, I don't like DPF's, EGR's and the complexity of the emission controls on modern diesels. Petrol's aren't far behind but it still has the edge, and then there is refinement, nothing can touch a well engineered petrol engine for smoothness and silence.

This is relatively new, but accurate. The Haldex service interval used to consider both time and distance, now it's just time. Make of that what you will but I think we're all sensible enough to know that more frequent lubrication and filter changes prolong component life. Your biggest concern should be that Skoda main dealers (at least in the UK) are not instructed or required to clean the filter gauze on the current generation of Haldex. The oil can be as fresh and as clean as you like, but if the filter is clogged the pump runs dry and it's game over. On earlier versions of Haldex that had a removable / replaceable oil filter, Skoda UK denied it's existence and refused to include it's replacement in their Haldex service regime. Some of the photos online of the condition of the Gen3/4 Haldex filters and the Gen5 (Kodiaq) gauze after only a few years / several thousand miles is alarming. My advice, and I'll be doing this on our 4x4 Kodiaq will be to have the Haldex service done at a trusted and knowledgeable VAG independent specialist who is well versed on the benefits of cleaning the gauze on the pump.

Skoda's tactics are working, ignore minor and major, it means nothing. Skoda UK only offer two services, number 1 and number 2 from my earlier post. Number one is an oil and filter change, number two is a number one plus the extra filters. Ignore 'inspection' too, all vehicles are put through the same visual inspections irrespective of which service you're in for. Your six year service order above is the same as mine, all you've done is replace No.1 with the term minor and No.2 with major?

You have to be careful here. What @robdav's dealer is saying has been repeated by numerous members over the years. Skoda's two year service plan was exactly that, two years. If you hadn't used your two services within those two years then tough. This is why the vehicles that are sold with service plans are supposed to be set to fixed service intervals during the PDI. Unsurprisingly a lot of dealers don't, the car leaves them set to variable and the customer potentially misses out on their second free service. However, at some point Skoda changed the wording of the letter they send out to customers detailing their service plan, changing it from '2 years servicing' to 'two services'. Understandably some dealers aren't aware of this and still follow the two year model. It seems some members have successfully managed two variable services out of their service plans, so as with a lot of these things it appears to vary by dealer. Unsurprisingly Skoda UK have done nothing to add clarity to the situation, only further confusion. They are indeed hopeless.

The fitting of the tow bar to a non-homologated vehicle is legal. Using it to tow is not. Most insurance companies require their customers to notify them of modifications over and above the standard specifications of the vehicles they insure, including a tow bar. As long as you're transparent with your insurer and tell them your vehicle is fitted with a tow bar, the bike rack is fitted in accordance with the manufacturers requirements and you're adhering to the law in terms of not putting other road users in danger then you shouldn't have any issues. If however you're towing a caravan or trailer and have cause to make a claim then expect to be in trouble.

It's typical arse covering, it is easier for them to not fit a tow bar to a non-homolgated vehicle than it is to allow the fitment but then add a load of caveats for its proper use, hence their blanket ban. You can imagine the furore if they allowed a customer to fit a tow bar, but then told them they weren't able to tow with it. Or the potential litigation arising from a different future owner not realising and using it to tow. It isn't the fitting of the tow bar that's the issue, it's using it to tow. Skoda can't control this once it leaves them so they won't allow for the fitting of a factory tow bar. A bike rack isn't a trailer so fitting a tow bar to a non-homolgated vehicle and mounting a bike rack to it is perfectly legal, at least here in the UK.

Good to see you're still active on the forum Phil, are you still flitting between York and Germany or have you made the move overseas permanently now? Seems a long time ago since you coded my HID kit on the Superb!

You can still legally fit a tow bar to a non-homologated car, you just can't use it to tow. You can however use it to mount a bike rack. Skoda won't fit one in the factory for you, but there is a man not very far away from you in Leeds that will fit the factory tow bar for you for less than £800.

You could try copying and pasting here too, the dealer is more likely to see it... https://www.briskoda.net/forums/forum/369-skoda-dealers-england/

In February this year I was happily racking up the mileage on my 2016 E-Class, a 120 mile round trip five days a week, three hours a day in the car. Then COVID-19 came along and whack, my annual mileage has gone from 25,000 miles to 0 miles overnight, and if I'm lucky enough to keep my job it'll be this way forever. My employer has already told me to plan to be working from home for at least the rest of this year, probably indefinitely. Pro's and con's, I'm saving a good chunk of diesel fuel costs a month and I now have three hours of my day back Monday through Friday which means I get to spend more time with my wife and kids, the downside is that I like driving and quite enjoyed the commute, my Mercedes really excelled at comfy and sedate cruising. Now a tough decision, what to do with the car. It literally sits on the drive doing nothing. I'm lucky enough to have access to a second vehicle, the wife's family bus (Skoda Kodiaq) so my car is surplus to requirements. It may as well go, seems a shame to have it sat there depreciating and collecting leaves. So, it's up for sale. I appreciate not many Skoda owners are looking for used Mercs right now but if you know anyone in the market for a really clean W212 E-Class then it is being advertised on this forum in the classifieds section. My exposure to Mercedes has been cut short unexpectedly, I do still need a car for the occasional business mileage and weekend work so will be looking to replace it, but what with is to be decided!? Having driven diesel saloons for most of my life I'm tempted to buy something I want rather than need. I took my last 8 year old Superb to almost 200,000 miles and the plan was to do the same with this one. I wonder how many more people will find themselves in a similar situation? Keep smiling guys and girls!

That isn't the factory towbar, it's aftermarket. Not that it excuses the dealer, but it does at least rule out the car leaving the factory with it fitted. EDIT: actually looking closer I think it is, there looks to be a 13 pin to 7 pin adapter left in the electrical socket which made it look non-genuine.

Customer preferences are changing, diesel is becoming less desirable, this the biggest influence on residuals.

I've seen larger bodied drivers, or those with mobility issues put their whole weight on the window switches whilst exiting their vehicle. I'm not suggesting that's the case here by the way! Just that some times it isn't always the manufacturers fault.

Thanks, I've spoken to the dealer and booked it in (almost a month away), I also made it clear that I aren't driving all the way to them for them to do the same diagnostics and provide the same 'no fault found' response. After sending them the video they've promised to order up some parts after speaking with Skoda Technical, I'll mention the window switch panel before I go.

Following with interest, my front door handles whilst not loose creak horribly when pulled or pushed to open or close the door. Seems it doesn't affect all Kodiaq's though so perhaps the design was improved at some point. Your photo illustrates perfectly Skoda's schoolboy error, the handle is formed by two clam shells, it's hard brittle plastic. If I was tasked with providing a solution for making something to move, flex and therefore squeak as much as possible then I'd imagine I'd end up with an identical design.

I've posted about this issue before, but it is now getting slowly worse to the point it's becoming irritating. I reported it to the dealer at the last service and they claimed the usual 'no faults found' and that the module that powers the windows is simply taking time to boot up. It is now at the point I'm not happy with it and want it rectifying. Simply out of curiosity does anyone else suffer or has suffered with the same issue? It isn't easy to film the window and switch at the same time, but essentially despite pressing and holding the button the window will only partially drop, often in centimetre increments. It is only after first starting the engine, and after a few minutes things will return to normal. I have found that pressing the rear window lock-off button will (sometimes) instantly cure the issue. Thanks.

Perfectly, a big thumbs up for Chris Farthing, well recommended 👍 I handed him the keys at 08:30 and was on my way home by 10.00. I couldn't tell where in the car he'd been, despite a large amount of internal strip-down being required it wasn't remotely evident. No rattles or squeaks introduced either. I guess when you do the job so often you know exactly where all the clips and screws are and know exactly where to pull and how hard, this sort of experience and expertise is invaluable in my opinion. I actually towed with it just today, but in the excitement of realising how easy it now makes hooking up I forgot to take any photos, screaming at the wife out the window is now a thing of the past! The birds-eye view (with the tow bar released) is simply brilliant, the yellow line turns with the steering wheel so it literally guides you right to the towing hitch on the caravan, no exaggerating it's centimetre accurate. The tow bar is stowed in this picture but with it out it is easily visible on the screen... When the steering wheel is turned the yellow line bends with the wheels. Resolution good too, I like the way you can turn it on in slow moving traffic to see what's going on behind. A nice surprise was the fact it also has the built-in washer nozzle, I wasn't expecting this, I just assumed that the retrofit version did without... Apologies, the car is filthy at the moment! So all-in-all I'm very pleased, the best £280 I've spent and for anyone umming or arring then don't, drop Chris a message and get booked in!

For anyone curious to see what the inside of either the Pirelli or Hankook self sealing tyres fitted to the Kodiaq looks like... Self Seal Tyre.mp4