Having had my Yeti for a few weeks now, I thought I’d jot down my thoughts on the whole ‘Yeti’ experience so far.

Just to put this in context, I have been lucky enough to have had all sorts of German machinery in the past, and so I always judge cars against the BMW 3/5- series benchmark. Also, the car is used really only at weekends for mostly 1-2 hr motorway trips. The car is a 1.2 DSG Elegance

The engine

I’ve been really surprised by the 1.2, especially as I did not have the opportunity to test drive it before order. The engine is immensely quiet and refined, and it feels like a much bigger engine in practise. As yet it has never felt under powered, though as it’s running in, I haven’t really done much overtaking in kickdown- we will see then. In terms of motorway cruising, it seems quite happy at 70-80mph. I have a big trip through France coming up and have no qualms about 5 hrs at 130kmh on the Autoroute. The imminent release of a 1.4 petrol did make me consider ‘should I have waited for the 1.4’, but I concluded that for the type of use the car gets put too, it would have not been worth it.

In regards to the economy, at the moment with three tanks of fuel under the belt it is averaging 35 mpg, though of course it is new and there has been a lot of town and fast motorway work in the mix, which has been abnormal for me. That’s compares to an average of 44mpg for my former 1.9 TDI Golf. If it could settle at around 38- 40mpg, that would be fine for me as I’m not a high mileage driver and will only keep the car for the 3 years of the warranty, so the lesser economy would be more than made up by the fact that the 1.2 is £1300 cheaper than the equivalent diesel (DSG notwithstanding). By my rough calculations I would have to keep the car over 8 years to make me better off having gone for the diesel.

I also feel a bit more ‘responsible’ driving a petrol rather than a diesel and living in a city. Given the the respective particulate and NoX emissions in the lower atmosphere of the different engines, as a cycle commuter, this is something I feel strongly about.

I was intrigued by the prospect of downsizing with a 1.2 in a biggish car like the Yeti, and it seems to work. I predict we will see a lot of manufacturers going this way.

Gearbox

I think DSG’s great, and in the Yeti it’s no exception. It is very smooth and the shifts are imperceptible. It does get caught out sometimes (e.g. you slow down for a roundabout say, the box predicts you will be slowing even more, so it pre-selects a lower gear, but you then speed up, thereby catching the ‘box out) but then it is an automated manual, not a true automatic, so that’s what you get. The upside more than balances this small downside to me.

The only slightly annoying thing is that the box does sometimes hunt between gears on the motorway, and it does go into 6th or 7th at quite low speeds- 7th at 45mph for example. Not really a problem though, and I suppose this is something that will be noticeable coming out of a torquey diesel as I have.

Radio

I’ve been impressed by the sound from the Bolero. The radio itself functions well, apart from the perennial issue of the lack of MDI, and the need to use SD cards. As I have posted before, the SD card function is laughably poor, and it needed a hack to make it work properly. Once you figure this out though, it’s great, but it’s a shame that you need to go to these lengths to make it work properly.

Options

I specified a few options on my car, but the one I have been most impressed by is ‘Park Assist’. As I do a lot of a parallel parking living in London, its great having something that takes the stress out of it, and it works very well and will hopefully help minimize the threat of the dreaded ‘kerbed alloys’. Makes me smile every time I use it, as it is very clever.

I wish I had not bothered with the silver roof rails as I think my Steel Grey would have looked better with the standard black anyway.

Accessories

I have purchased the internal bike carrier, the rear and boot window blinds and the boot liner. They all seem well made and work well, but they are expensive for what they are. They do seem to be more ‘Audi’ prices which I didn’t expect.

Dealers

The dealers I have used have all been friendly enough, but have all seemed a bit sleepy and unprofessional- a good Audi or BMW dealer would run rings round the lot I have come into contact with. Not a problem really as I know what I’m doing, but it’s just interesting to see how the reality stacks up against all the plaudits for the Skoda network.

The badge

No one has been too sniffy about ‘it’s a Skoda’ yet. Indeed, the nearest I got to it, was from myself! I went for a job interview for a senior position at a dealership group of a certain German marquee. I parked the Yeti amongst all sorts of exotica and they asked me if I wanted my car cleaned. I did feel a bit sheepish in this context, saying “it’s the Skoda, over there”!

Interior quality

Having come from the world of VW, Audi and BMW, I think the interior quality is up there with the best of them and feels well made and solid. Having said that however, the popper that fastens the retaining strap that is used to guide the seatbelt over one of the rear seats has broken. I’ll get this fixed under warranty.

Boot space

It is a good size, and despite the dimensions, in practical terms it is well shaped and has so far been as accomodating as we need. No problems here.

The competition

The raft of new competition since I deciced on my Yeti hasn't altered my view that i made the right decsion. Hyundai ix35 looks hideous, and the interrior is completely outclassed by the Yeti. MINI Countryman just looks odd, is smaller than the Yeti and will be expensive once you factor in the neccesary options. BMW X1 is simply terrible in every area and the Pug 3008 looks ghastly as well. I'm happy I made the choice I did.

So all in all, I'd give the Yeti an 8.5 out of 10 and I'm a happy customer!

Nice review, glad you are enjoying it.

Thanks for the review, good reading

Thanks for the review, awesome write up!

Makes me even more eager to get the callback from my dealer to set the pickup date for my muscovado 1.2 DSG.

Totally agree with your write up re DSG, after 2500 miles my fuel consumption is still 34mpg or thereabouts but not complaining. What is the hack you mentioned for the Bolero? As for interior quality I like the plastic fittings at the bottom rear of the front seats, on my last 2 cars the seatbacks were flapping at the bottom after a few weeks, also no rattles whatsoever even at close to an indicated 3 figure speed (on private roads of course).

Good review. I'm sure existing owners will agree with you, and expectant owners be reassured!

i was lucky enough to be lent a Yeti 1.2 TSI DSG for a couple of days. My own car is a 1.8 tsi DSG so I was able to compare the two engines both with DSG. I agree the 1.2 is impressively refined, becoming just a little raucous only at higher revs.

Like you I never felt the 1.2 was lacking as it had all the power you'd ever be likely to need in practice, at just the point you need it. In fact it sometimes felt rather quick!

Just occasionally it would drop down from 7th to 6th on an incline at speed when the 1.8 wouldn't, but most of the time there wasn't much difference. i doubt therefore if anyone would see an appreciable difference with a 1.4 tsi. (In any case there seems no strong evidence of its imminent availability in the UK yet: it's not in the new brochure, though the tangerine colour is!).

This engine is perfect for the town yet strong enough for the motorway.

The car was also very nimble, more so i suspect than many SUV style vehicles

Just completed 1,000 miles in our 1.2 DSG, and we've averaged 39.2mpg according to the display. Hoping to get 40 mpg over the next 1,000 miles. It's certainly the best automatic gearbox I've ever driven, and I've driven a lot of them over the years (Mitsubishi, Volvo, Renault, Subaru, Mercedes, Citroen, Peugeot, Toyota, Honda).

Funny though, I've not yet felt the urge to use the manual gearchange, whereas in previous automatics I often used the manual change to overcome the deficiencies of the 4-speed gearbox logic. The 7-speed DSG always seems to get the right gear.

Enjoyed reading your reveiw

Many thanks for your reviews I have found them very reassuring having ordered a 1.2TSi (manual) and now waiting patiently until it arrives, complete with sunroof, in September (my dealer tells me the build week is 32).

I did get to test drive a 1.2 TSi on two occasions. I started very much with the opinion that a 1.2 would just be too small. However, having driven the monster I couldn’t find fault. if anything, it was very nippy and pulled away better than my 1.6 16V Citroen C4. I didn’t however test its acceleration on an incline.

Inevitably with the 1.4 TSi now on the horizon, I have been thought the ‘should I cancel the order and start gain with a 1.4?’ But if i do that, I will probably loose the sunroof.

Having read the posts on this thread and done a little homework on the 1.2 TSi engine, I’m happy with the order and now eagerly await the SM arrival.

1.2 TSi SE, Storm blue, sunroof, silver roof rails, roof bars, mats, flaps and rubber boot liner. Fingers very much crossed for September.