Karoq rear seats

[David61]

I wonder if anyone can help. I'm thinking of buying a Karoq and my wife and I had a test drive recently. We both like the car but my wife is convinced the middle seat (it was an SE L) is not wide enough. She insists Skoda is lying by calling it a 5 seater. Sure, the middle sest is smaller than on our current car (Renault Scenic)  but the outer ones are a bit wider and I don't really see it as a problem. It's not that we expect to carry 5 people that often, but she's fixated on this idea of the "lie" that it's a 5 seater. Can Karoq owners give me the benefit of their experience of living with the car's middle seat? Thanks. 

[pragmatix]

Ive had 3 adults in the back, a bit tight but ok. No worse than other cars I've had including a Mondeo , I don't think any car is a true 3 in the back.

[Seymansey]

From a legal perspective, it will have been type approved to carry 5 people, hence it has the middle seat belt. Skoda aren’t lying. 
 

From a realistic perspective, it’s 5 people in a pinch. It’s a 4 adult seater in reality. Skoda even emphasise that with the varioflex seats that allow you to remove the middle to make it comfortable for 4 adults in the back. 
 

Ultimately, the decision is down to you. I wouldn’t want to carry 3 of me in the back for any length of time!

[skoda_disconnect]

Many French manufacturers offer minivans or similar size versions of their cars, which have more space on the middle seat and usually even a pair of isofix points and a 7 seater version. E.g. Peugot 5008, Citroen C4 SpaceTourer. 
 

The only German cars with enough room for isofix points in the middle seat are of the rang of Audi Q7 or minivans like VW Sharan or Touran / Seat Alhambra.

 

I think Renault Grand Scenic has a 7 seater version, so you can assume it is just designed to be a more spacious car and the middle seat is bigger. 

Skoda does not offer minivan-like models and the closes you can get to a large 7 seater is the Kodiaq, but even that model has no isofix pair in the middle seat, which makes it inferior to a proper minivan.

 

I’ve fitted 2 kids and a mother in-law for 3 hours long trip on the back seats and there were no complaints. If you have large adults that will seat there for many hours and often, than the space might feel cramped 🤷‍♂️

[Ricky19]

If you have the Varioflex seats, the middle seat is very much smaller than the outer ones.

[FlyingGecko]

On 29/08/2021 at 19:07, David61 said:

I wonder if anyone can help. I'm thinking of buying a Karoq and my wife and I had a test drive recently. We both like the car but my wife is convinced the middle seat (it was an SE L) is not wide enough. 

  Wide enough for what? 

Overall the three seats will take three adults.  The central "transmission tunnel" is a bigger problem, but that's also true of countless frontwheel drive cars.  Yes, I know it's needed for the four wheel drive versions.

[Mark-Surrey]

On a car like the Karoq, I’ve often wondered why they can’t eliminate the transmission tunnel hump for rear passengers for the 2WD versions, and then just weld on an extra sheet metal hump part for the relatively small percentage of people who actually buy the 4WD version. It would make the car much more attractive for the vast majority of people who only need 2WD. Surely it can’t be that difficult….

[David61]

Thank you for all the replies to my query. You've given me some useful ideas for my campaign to persuade my beloved that a Karoq is the one for us. We've had Renault Scenics for over 20 years, which made sense when we had three kids, as those cars have three reasonable sized seats in the back. They are no longer kids (now aged 27 to 19) and so we're not going to be taking all three of them on holiday with us and we therefore don't necessarily need three full seats in the back. The Skoda Varioflex seats are similar in design to those in the Scenic but the Skoda middle one is much thinner, although the outer two are wider. It might be reasonable to regard the Karoq with these seats as, in effect a 4 + 1, able to carry four in comfort and a fifth when necessary. I might take another test drive, taking two of the "kids" with us (the third is not even in the country) and ask them to judge the comfort of the rear seats, comparing the middle and outer ones between the Scenic and Karoq.

 

I noted the transmission tunnel on the one we test drove, and wondered why it was necessary on an FWD car, but Mark-Surrey has pointed out that there is a 4WD version. I understand that this version is about to be, or has been, discontinued due to poor sales. Perhaps Skoda are considering taking advantage of this situation by removing the tunnel for the next version of the model?

[CJJE]

I suspect the 'transmission tunnel' is required to give additional strength to the floor pan, and also serves to streamline the exhaust pipe etc underneath the car. While the diesel engines are being discontinued due to poor sales, I have not heard any rumours about the 4x4 transmission being discontinued, and I doubt Skoda would risk losing sales across Europe if they did that.

 

Chris

[Seymansey]

And don’t forget the tunnel is there as part of the VW MQB chassis platform, probably more costly to remove it. 

[David61]

Here is a link for a news report from 2020 about the proposed discontinuation of the Karoq and Kodiak 4x4 versions. From comments above, it appears that the transmission tunnel will still be in place.  https://www.am-online.com/news/new-car-news/car-model-news/2020/06/01/rugged-skoda-kodiaq-and-karoq-scout-suvs-face-axe-amid-model-updates

[Routemaster1461]

19 minutes ago, David61 said:

Here is a link for a news report from 2020 about the proposed discontinuation of the Karoq and Kodiak 4x4 versions. From comments above, it appears that the transmission tunnel will still be in place.  https://www.am-online.com/news/new-car-news/car-model-news/2020/06/01/rugged-skoda-kodiaq-and-karoq-scout-suvs-face-axe-amid-model-updates

 

It's a pity that the person who wrote this article has made things as clear as mud. The headline refers to Karoq and Kodiak Scout models, perhaps implying that the 4 wheel drive versions are to be ditched, then this.

 

'Skoda’s rugged Karoq and Kodiaq SUVs are set to be axed from its UK new car line-up due to limited customer demand.'

 

This implies that all Karoq and Kodiak versions are to be discontinued. As the article was dated June last year, this obviously didn't happen!

[CJJE]

1 hour ago, David61 said:

Here is a link for a news report from 2020 about the proposed discontinuation of the Karoq and Kodiak 4x4 versions. From comments above, it appears that the transmission tunnel will still be in place.  https://www.am-online.com/news/new-car-news/car-model-news/2020/06/01/rugged-skoda-kodiaq-and-karoq-scout-suvs-face-axe-amid-model-updates

As Routemaster says, that poorly written article was picking up Skoda's press release warning that the Scout trims for the Karoq and Kodiaq were being discontinued. The 4x4 transmission on other trim levels was not affected, and indeed in the UK accounts for 17% of the total sales.