mine's a vRS Kodiaq spending 90 % of its time in town and suburbia. am hoping to eke out 400,000 km of life from the car. what issues am i likely to encounter towards higher mileages ?  any tips on extending the life of the car ?

Regular oil changes / servicing / maintenance would always be my approach. My last Skoda was purely suburban based and covered 180,000 km prior to trading in. Always serviced. Lots of short journeys. Ironically I never had a DPF challenges, the car never failed to start. Apart from a few punctures and new tyres nothing other than regular servicing was required. Appreciate there is some way to go to hit 400,000km. I am selective on who I choose to service my car, do not assume a dealer will perform a proper service or do what they say they will do. I had dealers on major service not change the oil despite saying they did, air filters not changed etc. I check these post service to make sure the work is honest and select the dealers who appear to do the work they state with care. 3 London based dealers I used were scrubbed off my list as they were dishonest and unable to perform work with adequate care. I generally end up using well reputed independent VW garages after warranty runs out. I am not looking for the cheapest servicing, always happy to pay the going rate for a good job. If you chase cheap servicing you generally get cheap and that is not always good for your vehicle maintenance. Pay monkeys get peanuts,

 

The Kodiaq is a different beast, new tech, new engine from my last car. I suspect we'll encounter the usual VW electrical gremlins. I have already needed to replace the infotainment screen and needed a new water pump due to the old "problematic" water pump being present in the car. And luck will obviously play a part, sometimes you get a super reliable car. Sometimes you get one that has more gremlins than average through no fault of your own and little you can do to prevent (water pump for example).

 

Lastly I drive with mechanical sympathy by default, meaning I do not accelerate (excessively rev) or brake hard and drive progressively. Don't crash over speed bumps or up kerbs etc. Seems common sense but I see so many drivers lack any sort of mechanical sympathy when driving their vehicles. In the old days people purchased their cars and ran them for life, which I believe made you care more. 90% of car ownership now (not my statistic) is leased / PCP etc. With this model people do not need to think about or care to look after a vehicle to the same extent as they know they will offload it is a few years. As long as it is running and the bodywork is clean it matters not.

Edited 4 July, 20205 yr by jasoncmiles