My new Karoq!

[Gpbuggy]

So on the 1st of March we collected our brand new Karoq 1.5 Dsg SEL with the only extras being brilliant metallic silver and a spare space saver spare.

This was our first private car after 16 years of company cars mainly VW Passat with a brief and regrettable excursion into Volvo ownership ( but that's another story). My last company car was my attempt to get some performance back and lower BIK costs ( previous cars had been 1.6 diesels need I say more). This car was a Octavia 1.4 DSG estate I did not expect to like it very much but the figures on paper seemed to give me performance to be able to start overtaking again. To my amazement I loved it loads of space great performance combined with a light and agile chassis, made my Passats look like slugs! But it all ended in December when a Russian lady rear ended us at great speed while we where stationary, car was a total loss but we where unhurt.

So I decided to go back to a private car all looked at everything SUV wise but kept coming back to the Skoda Karoq ( VW Tiguan too ugly, Audi Q3 too old fashioned, Kia Sportage just a step too far for my wife). So one could in Sunday in February ended up at Des Winks in Scarborough just to look! By the time we came out we had bought one that was on order and the guaranteed it to be ready for March 1st.

we have now had the Karoq for 3 weeks and 600 miles, and despite a lot of the bad press on the 1.5 TSI engine I have absolutely no complaints ( or my wife) it is smooth quite and rapid. The gearbox is as my Octavia and a joy to drive. When it's goes into 2 cylinder mode if it was not for the display on the centre screen I would not know. Run to the east coast this weekend gave 48 mpg, best I got in the Octavia was 60 mpg at 20000 miles on a run to Telford.

So we are very happy with our Karoq and I would recommend and look forward to many more miles.

I will try and update again at 1500 miles.

 

 

[Gpbuggy]

Just an update at 2500 miles

My wife uses the karoq during the week for trips to Tesco about a 3 mile round trip each day and so far so good. There is no way she would take back her old Honda CRV so I use that for getting to work and back. I have only used the Karoq to get to work once when the Honda had a flat tyre and here's an interesting fact! On my journey to work (total of about 16 miles) part of the journey involves travelling about 4 miles between along a 30 mph max road, this is only 1 mile after I have started my trip. As the road has loads of areas the police regularly hide to catch people speeding I have got into the habit of setting the cruise to 33mph and just accepting this. The road is nearly flat but does have some slight down and up hill sections, as soon as the cruise was set the car went straight into two cylinder mode for the whole 4 miles until I hit the next round about. Very impressed. Car managed 43mpg for the full trip ( Honda CRV 25 mpg if I am lucky). At week ends we regularly travel to the east coast and so far the karoq has been superb always managing close to 50 mpg for the 80 mile trip. Again it regularly drops into two cylinder mode and I have to say without the indicator on the dash to say this was happening I would have no idea ( car is not empty either as I have my wife two dogs and luggage in the car). If you need to overtake the response back to normal mode is instant. So still loving the car and for us personally convinced so far it was a great choice of car and looking forward to many more miles.

[silver1011]

Des Winks in Scarborough are one of the last few remaining dealers where it's off the beaten track and nearly always quiet, so you tend to get 1st class service every time you visit.

 

I bought our Kodiaq from them last year and the experience was a pleasure, especially when compared to the shambles that is DM Keith.

[Berisford]

11 minutes ago, silver1011 said:

Des Winks in Scarborough are one of the last few remaining dealers where it's off the beaten track and nearly always quiet, so you tend to get 1st class service every time you visit.

 

I bought our Kodiaq from them last year and the experience was a pleasure, especially when compared to the shambles that is DM Keith.

 

Quiet dealerships, nice, how I miss the old days.....at our nearest dealer (Rainworth Skoda) it's often impossible to park in or anywhere around the place so they must miss out on lots of business.....but given that they don't do anything about it I assume they're quite busy enough!

[silver1011]

Yep, these days of proper knowledge, proper mechanics, great service and cheap pricing are largely behind us. Skoda is too popular now...

 

[Gpbuggy]

Thanks for the replies.

Yes my experience of Des Winks was very good, when we went to only look that cold day in February they saw us on the forecourt and invited us in, we where allowed to try our dog cage in the showroom Karoq, and the salesman then took us back to Filey to try the car in our garage. The car was delivered on time and absolutely immaculate. You may say well it should be it's a new car, but every new company lease car I have had has always had either bodywork blemishes or marks on the interior. I have now washed the car at least 7 times and can't find a single mark on the bodywork anywhere. Well done Des Winks! Obviously now I am obsessive about where we park and will heart broken when it gets its first ding ( yes I know it will happen eventually).

I find the car a joy to drive and as with my previous Octavia mainly I think down to the DSG transmission, performance is fine, not quite as good as the Octavia but this was a lighter car. What is better are the paddle shifts as when the car goes into headless chicken mode ( when flooring it to overtake) this can be tamed in an instant with a quick pull on the right hand paddle. Spec level is great perhaps only lacking adaptive cruise.

Finaly although I may seem to be critical of poor old Rhonda the Honda CRV, this car has been fantastic over the last 10 years of our ownership but time and technology moves on! I see the issues some owners seem to be having with the manual 1.5 TSI,s and all I can say is have faith as this must be I think be a software fuelling issue that due to the approvals Skoda are struggling to fix without reapproving or breaking the emission reg rules again, I know VW where caught and guilty but let's face it more than likely all the manufacturers where up to it?