Rory

Sounds like the only upgrade of note is the virtual cockpit - did she option that anyway? I'm surprised at the wait - we ordered a new SE-L in Aug when we got our used 22 model. Dealer called in Dec to say it was on its way. I cancelled as the price to change was bonkers - they'd suggested £6000 when we ordered which was mad enough, but asked for £13,000 when they called in Dec.

I don't think they changed anything last year but they seemed to do two updates in 22 - early Apr was a slight faceift (with the step in the headlamps) and then in mid July 22 they announced the model year 23 changes.

I would imagine a tiny number of owners ever remove them - I'm sure we won't, I'd probably hurt myself get the seats out. Wonder if that means it gets a solid boot cover?

No torch in our 22 SE-L.

The 4Motion on our Tiguan was "nice to have". I guess you get independent rear suspension too. Mind you, it was £1500 extra (before discount). The whole car (150 TDI DSG Match 4Motion) was 'only' £24K new. Be interesting to see what discounts become available on new Karoq. Will there be any more colours? Last time I looked even Petrol Blue had gone.

Hurrah - particularly on the SE-L, I can't believe they stuck with the 8" digital display for the last couple of years.

They'll be back to circa 20% off again soon enough. The only annoying thing will be the cars that breach the £40K list price will be stuck with higher tax - I guess very few people will buy those, unless they somehow don't realise.

Ours seems more than iively enough in "normal" - I can't say it's never given me any concerns in such circumstances. I used to have a Merc that had Comfort and Standard settings - it was close to undriveable around town in Comfort, especially as it started in 2nd gear.

I've only driven VW courtesy cars with lane keeping assist and it didn't bother me - I thought it was amusing more than anything else. Daughter says it's close to terrifying in her Kamiq - unless she's massively exaggerating it sounds much more forceful than I remember - or perhaps I just never did anything to make it intervene more strongly.

Wow, I thought that must be wrong, to be honest, but sure enough the spec says Halogen headlights. LED running lights.

"Our" Karoq is really my wife's but I do drive it quite a bit. This is unscientific, but to my mind you've got the mode the wrong way around. In normal, everyday use, use "normal". I took the Karoq for one long trip motorway trip and was a bit disappointed that the MPG seemed stuck at low 40's. It then occurred to me to switch to Eco and slowly crept up to low 50's MPG. Other than trying it for the heck of it, I can't think why I'd use Sport.

Is the digital dash the narrower one - basically I think it just has one "dial" in the middle? I didn't like that at all when given an SE courtesy car. The old twin dial non-digital dash in ours is lovely and clear. the Karoq spec is a bit weird in this respect - even the facelift SE-L only gets the 8" display. Yet the bigger one was standard on daughter's SEL Kamiq. Does the newer one have lane keeping assist? Drives some people bonkers - my neighbour hated it so much he sold his car back to the local Skoda dealer and bought an older one. It can be turned off with a couple of button presses, but has to be done every trip. I assume the older car doesn't have it but check that - our 22 reg SEL doesn't but the specs did change a bit during Covid.

We just sold an 8yr old Tiguan without keyless and I'd never changed the battery in its fobs. I just realised the OP didn't say the car was keyless - I assumed it was. With the early keyless fobs they were transmitting all the time - hence people putting them in Faraday cases etc. The newer ones (think it changed 2019/20) are motion sensitive and they partially shut down, so should last a little better.

Some people squeeze the 2032 in - I considered it for daughter's Ateca, which went through a spell of eating keyless fob batteries, but I was worried the fob would burst open if she dropped it (she's forever dropping her keys). Trouble with 2025's is they seem very marginal in terms of power / voltage for these keys, and these button call batteries get faked a lot. People often report having to try several batteries before one works, and then it not lasting long. I read Energiser work well so got some from what apeared to be a reliable supplier (but you never really know). The first one lasted 12mths and just changed it - she was never getting 12mths out of the batteries before.

No, of course not. It obviously isn't durable enough.

I had this on our 1 litre SEAT Ateca - dealer was adamant that on fixed interval servicing they use VW504 and if I wanted VW508 I'd have to pay extra for it as that was "longlife" oil. He even showed me the service print-off that the technicians work from and that said VW504. When I showed him an email I had from SEAT stating VW508 should be used regardless he scuttled off and came back and said that the technician had used VW508. Yeah right. In practice it's an emissions thing more than anything else - they use super-thin oil so the emissions are lower. I'm still old school, and the Ateca does a lot of miles, so in my head I feel using thicker 5W30 can't be a bad thing. I always top it up with 5W30 anyway. For VW Group though, bearing in mind the emissions tribulations they've had. it's pretty bad if their dealers are breaking the emissions spec by using the wrong oil.

Some people just live their lives based on monthly payments. We know young people get everything on monthly payments - iPhone, gym etc etc, but as I close in on retirement I've been somewhat surprised to find a lot of retired people do it too - I suppose it makes sense if you've got a final salary and state pension coming in, you know exactly where you are and that nothing is going to change. It could well be possible to Personal Contract Hire (PCH) the Karoq in that example for about the same monthly payment but without any deposit, so overall that could well be cheaper. But leasing doesn't have the same flexibility as PCP and everyone hopes their car on PCP will be worth more than the GFV (optional final payment) so they think they'll get something back (or be able to buy the car at a bargain price).

My experience was some years ago but DtD were rude - they called me but wouldn't take the discussion any further unless I agreed to order based on the factory lead time, and we needed the car quickly as the other car needed to go to a family member whose car had reached end-of-life. CarWow worked brilliantly - apparently the dealers know where you are and it was noticeable that the dealers furthest away quoted lower. I got the best offer from a dealer in S Wales, but that's a long and messy journey. Our next nearest but one VW dealer (14 miles away) wasn't far out, so went to see them and there was some further movement on price so in the end they were pretty close on cost. Still a few hundred more than DtD's price though. What's daft is they have to pay something in the region of £400 to CarWow, yet I'd walked out of a sister branch on the one we bought from as they'd refused to negotiate.

When we got our Karoq last Aug we really wanted a new one but there were just none around - yet Skoda had a summer offer of £2500 deposit contribution even though lead-time was 9mths. Kamiq had £3500 on it, and leadtime on that was even longer. Dealer told us Skoda had got in a bit of a panic as the number of people renewing PCPs had dropped right off. Maybe the same is happening now? Back in Aug the dealer put an order on for us to have a new one, so we could grab the PCP contribution. It was always going to be a lot to change, but they indicated around £6K. The car turned up in Dec (so very early) and the dealer was talking about £13K to change, so I cancelled it. A thing dealers do with PCP customers is try to get them into a new car before their current PCP expires - the salesman told me that's become very difficult as px values have dropped so much that there's no equity in the customers current vehicles. Don't know if it still works, but do people use CarWow or DriveTheDeal these days? We got a great price on our last Tiguan using CarWow, and the car came from a nearby dealer who got us the exact spec and colour we wanted from pipeline stock - it arrived 8 days after we ordered it, although they had said it could be 4-6 weeks. We also have access to Affinity through the Blue Light scheme and Griifin through Boundless (ex-CSMA). Griffen had very low pricing on Karoq last year but you had to wait full leadtime and pick the car up from Aldershot - I've bought ars from a distance before and it's never been straightforward and Aldershot is a long way for us.

Both our daughters have the 1 litre 3 cyl 110PS engines in their cars. One is a 2018 Ateca - I've driven it a bit and "adequate" is the word I'd use too. I mean, it is what is, if you know what I mean - you're not going to be doing fast A road overtakes in it, and it's so highly geared in 6th that a slope on the motorway can require dropping down a gear, but it drives perfectly well in everyday use. She does 20K miles a year in hers and has done many long trips with her family. Other daughter has 2023 Kamiq, but I haven't driven that. She's away this weekend with her family on a cross-country trip and the car will be fully loaded. Both cars are manual - we'd have had auto for the Kamiq but daughter wasn't bothered either way and we needed the car quickly and autos were less available. I'm probably being somewhat old-fashioned, but for my own purposes I don't think I'd be happy with the 1 litre. The 1.5 in wife's Karoq DSG OK, but I'm more used to the grunt of higher torque diesel autos. Having said that, I could live with the 1 litre if I had to.

Drifting somewhat from the original question, but the diesels (EA288) use belt in oil to drive the oil pump.

No - specifically if you Withdraw from the finance you are still required to pay for the car. Withdrawal is a specific term in the CCA: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/39/section/66A No - Settling (the Act calls it" Right to complete payments ahead of time" requires 28 days notice to be given. So you simply can't "Settle" in 14 days - well, in theory you could, but you get charged for the 28 days anyway, plus 30 days interest early settlement penalty. I've done this multiple times for myself and family members and I'm completely confident I understand how it works, so I'll leave it there.

I'm sorry, but that's mostly the same as I wrote, except that you're wrong about Settling. If people Settled with 14 days they'd have hundreds of pounds of interest to pay, not the few pounds usually charged on Withdrawing.

Well, to be a bit more pedantic - it's really nothing to do with VWFS, it's the law, largely the Consumer Credit Act 1974. This allows you to Withdraw completely within 14 days, and like I said earlier, it's supposed to be like the finance never existed. Because of this, the situation with incentives is a bit of a grey area, some manufacturer finance arms have it in their T's & C's that they can be taken away, but in practice I've seen in discussed in forums populated by car sales people and they say it never happens, and we know VWFS doesn't do it (and they surely would if they could). After 14 days you're Settling. You have to give 28 days notice to the finance company and they are entitled (and always do) charge another 30 days interest as a penalty. On a typical new car deal this is going to cost a few hundred pounds in interest. However the situation with incentives is clearer cut - they can't be withdrawn.

Did it on a Kamiq a couple of months ago. The VWFS lady even waived the interest charge - it's the third time I've done it, and that's never happened before. I've always been slightly puzzled by the interest charge, because Withdrawing is supposed to be like there was never any finance in place, so I don't know on what basis they can charge interest. However when it was waived, it made me slighly nervous that, if the finance had really never existed, they could try to reclaim the deposit contribution. In practice that hasn't happened.