On Saturday I put a deposit down on a 5 month old Superb estate 2.0tdi 4x4 l&k. I will be trading in my Octy 4x4.

Whilst it isn't going to change my mind I just wanted to know if there are any differences in the intended application of the two cars. I know my octy is 2nd gen Haldex compared to the newer 4th gen. But the octy has raised suspension and under body protection which the superb dosent (UK Spec) so is the superb aimed at those challenging 'road' conditions where 4x4 might be needed and the occasional manoeuvring on wet grass with a caravan. Whereas the octy 4x4 is designed more for country lanes and where more ground clearance is required? And Scouts are a bit more rugged again.

Interested to hear people's views?

As a day to day car the 4x4 Superb is fantastic. wet greasy traffic light junctions etc are dispatched with no drama compared with the useless traction that FWD gives you in these situations, sure you need more clearance if you go off road more often but the Superb has quite good clearance as standard and during the moderate snow this winter it never scraped the underside with me. I have a spare set of 18" Luna alloys with Vredestein wintrac exreme winter tyres for this part of the year and the Haldex system is virtually undetectable.

Wet grass towing should be no problem.

Great system - have the same tyres but on Luxon rims for winter - goes anywhere - it's more confident on wet and dry roads than a 2wd.

Al.

This is going to be boring. Themisto rims with Avon winters, but otherwise the same as the previous owners posts. Fantastic for towing too.

More boredom here - completely agree with the comments above - the 4WD gives what is a long car a great step up in stability when it's greasy.

Plain black steelies with Nokian WRG2s on mine. (And they're still on and it's nearly April - where's the warmer weather gone?!)

I chose a 4x4 over 2WD because the wife isn't confident with large/unfamiliar cars, and tends to kind of steer late and hard, so I thought a big long 2WD estate might just slide out on her in the greasy damp. The winter tyres have been great in the wet and cold - and were fantastic in the snow we had, got me and the kids back from Reading no problem while everyone else was struggling.

Edited 30 March, 201313 yr by Yearofthegoat

Drove an infinity in the US a couple of weeks ago that also had four wheel steering. At first I didn't realise and thought it had a weird 4wd system that was kicking in a lot more obviously than the Haldex system. Looked it up later and found it had 4w steering. It did make turn in a lot better,so give it a few years and ai suspect we will see this on a lot more cars.

Cheers

Steve

As a direct comparison, having moved from a Yeti to a Superb, both with the wonderful 170 HP engine, I'd say that the Yeti is just a little bit more competent in the snow. It was more "drivable" and steerable somehow, though the 'Berb kept plugging on in some of that nasty stuff we have had recently, where the road had been drifted upon to a depth of up to 2 feet. In those circumstances the limiting factor was the driver's confidence, so a 10-point U-ey was effected and we scuttled home sharpish deciding that milk and bread could wait another day!!

A bit off topic but I have fond memories of my first Skoda, a MkI Octy 4x4 hatch with the 1.8T 20V lump in 150ps guise, in the wet, it would beat my mates MkI vRS off the line at the lights even though he was +30ps and a lighter kerb weight, the more he tried, the more he just sat there spinning the wheels!