Rory

Perhaps we're at cross-purposes a little - I'm wondering if (for a given size) they'll make one tyre, but mark it with the various speed and load ratings so it satisfies the demand for those. Some tyre sizes, such as the last one in your list, 215/40R17, are only available in XL with a load index of 87 . Some online sellers don't note all the tyres they list in that size as XL, even though they are.

I wonder if, in practice, XL and non-XL are any different these days? I recall seeing 4 ply and 6 ply belts years ago but haven't seen any reference to that for years. I read somewhere that Michelin, for example, use the same carcass across many tyres and XL tyres aren't re-inforced as such. In others words the diferent rating are more marketing than anything else. Tyre companies surely can't make multiple speed and load rates tyres in each size? Be interesting to compare the weight of an otherwise equal XL and non-XL tyre. We had CrossClimates on a Golf when they first came out and were only available as XL - the car rode far better on those than it did on the standard load Bridgestone Turanza's it came with from new. I noted earlier the standard load 92W Michelin Primacy 3's on our Karoq say max pressure 51psi and that's around the same as others have suggested for XL tyres.

They're not running pressures though. The 215/50R18 92W Michelin Primacy's on our Karoq say max pressure 51psi , and max weight 630kg. But the 630kg rating is at 2.5 bar (36psi). XL 96 load index versions go to 710kg at 2.9 bar (42psi).

I can't say I've ever seen that - can you link to an example? All XL means is the tyre can be inflated to higher pressures and, at higher pressure, will suport more load. At "normal" pressures they're actually very slightly worse than standard load tyres. In theory if you run XL tyres you should up the pressures slightly - but the difference is marginal.

I don't think you can get 92 XL (in the 215/50R18 size). 96 is the XL load index in that size. FWIW our Karoq has 215/50/R18 92W's - Michelin Primacy 3's. They need a lot of care when pulling out of damp junctions to not have them scrabbling for grip. Wife (who normally takes no interest in cars whatsoever) has been mithering to have winter tyres fitted. I should also add that I've dropped tyres back down to the pressure stated on the fuel flap label - 2.1 bar (30.5psi). It seemed bonkers low - our Tiguan was 36 and daughter's Kamiq is same, so quite why Karoq is so low, I don't know. But the cold front grip does seem better (as you'd expect). I'm nervous about making the wheels more susceptible to pot-hole damage though.

I'd have thought under-inflated tyres would be noisier. Standing at the side of the coarsly surfaced 40MPH road out of our village, it's quite surprising how much road noise comes off cars - any kind of SUV is pretty deafening. Karoq does have oddly low tyre pressures - so maybe higher would help. Although I found raising ours made the front tyres more skittish on starting off from wet junctions. I wouldn't have said ours - on Michelin Primacy 3's - was noteably noisy. Seems pretty similar to Tiguan we had before, although it does feel like a cheaper car - I suppose because it is.

Some people say once they've had adaptive cruise control they wouldn't be without it. I've only ever tried it on a courtesy VW and I found that as well as watching the traffic I was also watching the car to make sure it reacted - so I found it increased my "workload" rather than making life easier. Maybe with time I'd get used to it. Anyway lane guidance was a peripheral issue - the dashboard would probably have been a show stopper even in the unlikely event the dealer would have held the deal we discussed at the time (changing for £6K). I do think they realised they messed up as used prices have fallen so they took the tack that they presumed I didn't want to go ahead.

Hmmm...seems it was deleted a while ago due to chip shortage. No mention of it on the configurator now. Odd that Kamiq still has it. I quizzed daughter about her saying it's a problem around town and turns out there's a particular intersection that has lines all over the place where it bothers her and she probably is doing 40ish through there. She's figured out how to turn it off and does that every journey now.

If you're looking to buy new from stock, you can select towbar as a filter option from the available cars on the Skoda website - although there's only one showing at the moment, and it's quite an odd spec - 1.5TSi SE L manual with towbar, leather and winter pack plus. Not sure how complete the Skoda site is in terms of available cars - when we got our Tiguan the dealer was able to look up cars that had been built and found us one in the exact spec and colour we wanted. It arrived at the dealer in 8 days, although they did warn us it could be 4-6 weeks.

I'm not sure what the floor itself is like - we got the Skoda protection pack which included a rubber boot mat but it's pretty rubbish in terms of its fit and it has very little lip - I should have checked first, I was exepcting it to the same as the one our Tiguan had which was softish foam thing with an inch or so of lip and fitted tightly. Got one off Amazon for £25 for daughter's Kamiq and that's way better than the Skoda mat although it's fairly rigid plastic. No experience of the type with the protection flap, but well worth getting if you're in and out of the boot all the time.

The Tiguan has gone - changed it for the 22 reg Karoq a few months ago.

I believe it defaults to on now. I wonder whether they've reduced the speed too? The manual for our car (which doesn't have it) says 60kph (37.5mph). I've driven a courtesy Polo with it, and that did it when turning out of a junction and immediately going into the right lane - I'd have been doing maybe 15MPH. I'd never experienced it before and thought I'd hit something!

No. Didn't pay deposit either. They were supposed to put the details in writing but never did. I expect it would have been full of caveats anyway - at that point (Aug 23) the market was starting to look very iffy. I always take the PCP then immediately Withdraw, so the car we've got is fully paid for. The sales guy did say they're having a bit of a nightmare as the usual drill with PCP customers is to put them ito a new a car at 2 to 2.5yrs for a similar monthly payment but that isn't working now as resididual values have fallen so much most deals owe too mcuh money.

Background – I got into a bit of a panic in Aug when I suddenly realised our diesel 4Motion DSG Tiguan was about to hit 8yrs old. It’s always been covered by VW warranty, last couple of years on All iN. All In can’t be renewed due to the car's age and the stand alone warranty looked expensive. Car had only done 45K miles and very little had gone wrong – still had original brakes and even tyres, thanks to having a winter set. Felt I'd be tempting fate to hang on the car for longer. I assumed we’d get a new Tiguan but wife was adamant that it was too big. 🙄 So looked at Karoq and she was happy with that. New was on 45 wks lead time so took one that is just pre-22 facelift at a horribly high price, but the dealer ordered an identical (SE-L 1.5TSi DSG in Petrol Blue) new one to grab the PCP contribution at the time and suggested that cost to change would be around £6K. I didn’t believe that, was thinking it would likely be more like £9K. I started getting emails from Skoda saying the new one is almost here, and this week the dealer called to say it’s on its way. So about half the lead-time they suggested. Cost to change now – around £13K. 🤯 Told him I’m cancelling and will keep the car we’ve got. To be fair, even at £6K I don’t think it would make financial sense and I’m put off by the 8” digital dash – had a courtesy car with it and thought it was awful. I can’t believe the bigger virtual dash isn’t standard – our daughter’s Kamiq has it as standard. I also don’t fancy having lane guidance – a neighbour returned his Karoq and bought an older one as he hated it so much and daughter said it was fine at first but now does her head driving around town as it moves the wheel quite forcefully often unexpectedly. I guess at some point it will be unavoidable though.

Hmmmm...legally you're right but you don't go into rejection expecting to have to go legal. In every day use people are purchasing the car - especially with PCP. A very experienced VW (and previously Mercedes) salesman told us we were the owners of the car - he looked genuinely gobsmacked when I pointed to the bit in the PCP contract that said VWFS owned it. Arguably with PCH it's much clearer that you're renting it. There's plenty of stories on car forums of people rejecting cars and they usually only get the finance company involved once the dealer agrees rejection or if the dealer refuses to play ball. Even if you could just "terminate the finance agreement" you could be left considerably out of pocket as a broken car has little value to the finance company and any deposit / p/x would have been with the dealer.

That point was apparently addressed in court by the Judge saying the dealer couldn't prove the car hadn't been driven properly. If this works, here's a link to the post with the outcome: https://www.atecaforums.co.uk/threads/failed-clutch-on-my-ateca.1916/post-31485 Worth bearing in mind that small claims court case results can be pretty random.

There's someone on an Ateca forum who paid and then took the supplying dealer to small claims court and got an AA approved expert to say a clutch should last 70-140K miles if properly driven. The Court accepted that and awarded him the repair cost. Think there was a bit of an issue on some Atecas with autohold being slow to release, so the clutch was working to overcome that.

......the guide to the process on the website linked to says if the tyres came on the car from new, then you have to go back to the supplying dealer.

7mm seems to be more typical now, and some are less than 6mm. So your tyres might have longer than you think.

Gosh, that really isn't may miles in 4 years. Supposedly tyres can crack due to lack of use as the rubber isn't being "worked". On the warranty, I guess it may hinge of the definition of "lifetime" - they could say they've had their life. I imagine the warranty is only against defects anyway.

How low is the mileage and what are the tread depths? Turanza's are horrible tyres - rock hard, yet don't last long. Had them on our Ateca and even with rotating them they only lasted 18K miles (car mainly used for a steady 30 mile commute). Replaced them with Micheln Cross Climate - more comfortable, obviously better in slippery conditions, and just changed them again after another 40K miles (so they lasted twice as long), and probably could have got away with only doing the fronts, the rears still had 4mm. Having said all that, if you're otherwise happy with the tyres then those cracks don't look serious - if they were dangerous the car would have failed.

Thanks, that sounds better than the one we have, I think the one we have in the Kamiq is 'adequate' but I might get the softer one for our Karoq - the dealer put a Skoda one in but it's flat as it's double sided with Velcro type stuff on the other side - meant to take the load holder things, that I can't see us ever using - and it isn't even a snug fit.

Would you say it's more foam-like, than plastic? We had one in our Tiguan - came with it new as part of a VW "protection pack" - and that was quite a pliable foam. It did cut a bit if something heavy and sharp impacted it, but it didn't really deteriorate i the 8yrs we had it. I think a dog would tear it up though. For the Kamiq I got this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B084T99KYK/ref=pe_27063361_487055811_TE_3p_dp_1 It's fairly stiff (not hard though) plastic, but it does have a good deep lip which was the main thing I was bother about in case something spilled and fits perfectly (car has a space saver spare but not sure what that means in terms of the boot floor).

Daughter just renewed All In on her SEAT Ateca and that had service expiry date of 2025 - I assumed it was done like that to cover people who only had services every twp years. Everything else expired Nov 23 (something like the 6th) and I was anxious it got renewed without a gap to keep the Roadside and Warranty active. The website was not allowing renewal and dealer (who have proved to be completely useless in every inter-action) said they could renew it in advance but didn't. On the 6th it suddenly became available to renew online. I notice the renewal has slightly different expiry days in 2025 for all the elements. The service part expires in 2027.

Interesting - hadn't noticed that. Monte Carlo seems to get climate too - it was the lack of that that put us off, would have loved the glass roof.