As some of you will have realised, I have been a little disappointed by my 'upgrade' from a Mk3 to Mk4 Superb. In many ways, the older car was just easier to live with. But this week was a revelation.

Due to roadworks on the A1M with a 45-60 minute delay, the sat-nav automatically re-routed me to the B6278 across the County Durham moorland. Now, that's really not an obvious route, but it proved to be only a few minutes longer than the original A1M journey would have been without the delays. So, a bonus point to the car for intelligent dynamic re-routeing.

And the alternative road across the moors? I can highly recommend it for an entertaining drive. Here's a typical section (courtesy of google):

The Superb handled it - superbly! I drove briskly within the speed limits and was rewarded with a fast journey along a great road. For a big heavy car, the Superb took the corners smoothly and swiftly with no twitchy moments at all. When pressed into overtaking the only two other cars I saw along the whole route, it was a completely trouble-free experience. Let's award a handful of extra points to the car for an exhilarating and safe drive.

I have always held up the Superb as a sublime long-distance motorway cruiser. Now I can add that it is also a fun cross-country sports car. It's only in dense traffic in town, and especially slow speed manoeuvring, that it's not quite perfect. That's a compromise that I am starting to come to terms with.

May I ask what dynamic mode setup you chose for this part of your journey?

We tackled the A68 from Corbridge into the Scottish Borders last night on our return home. We popped the suspension into sport mode. It made for a predictable and pleasant enough drive over the wilderness of North Northumberland and the Borders but not exhilarating. In sport mode the suspension still provided a reasonably decent level of cabin comfort despite our 19" rims and the variable road surfaces.

In all truth, it's just nice not having to hustle an SUV along such roads and we didn't expect the Superb to provide driving exhilaration or amazing feedback. She has surprised me though for what she is!

So did you just choose Sport, did youselect the sport DSG option or did you choose an individual setup? Any tips would be appreciated.

Best wishes.

Edited Sunday at 23:231 day by Arianne

I don’t NEED a sports car, but i’m so glad I have my 1979 MG Midget, the antidote to modern all-singing all-dancing cars…

😎

On 01/11/2026 at 22:24, Arianne said:

May I ask what dynamic mode setup you chose for this part of your journey?

I normally run on 'individual' driving mode, which is basically a combination of comfort suspension and normal drive. That actually dealt surprisingly well with most of the journey and noticeably helped to smooth out the rougher surfaces in some areas.

For the particularly twisty parts, I flipped to full sport mode - having the physical dial to switch mode is really useful sometimes. That was more for the improved pick up out of the corners than for the reduced body roll. I didn't bother with the paddles; the auto drive was fine.

The other change from my usual set up was that I switched to speed limiter mode instead of my default ACC/Travel Assist. I always do that on bendy country roads where I know I will be continually blending between brake and accelerator. It makes sure I don't accidentally get caught out and breach speed limits, which is easy to do with all the power under your right boot.

The only downside was that I had a little brake pad glazing after the 45 minute hard workout. The brakes squealed for a few stops after the end of the trip. But they were soon re-conditioned and back to normal with just standard stop-start driving; no need for any hard braking routines to burn off the glazing.

On 02/11/2026 at 12:39, Baxlin said:

I don’t NEED a sports car, but i’m so glad I have my 1979 MG Midget, the antidote to modern all-singing all-dancing cars…

A bit off topic but Proper car. No frills or tech plus bet it puts a smile on your face every time you drive it. There is one in Inverness and the guy driving it always looks happy. Daughters got a classic mini with the 1275 engine plus a mint Peugeot 205gti. Both are brilliant to drive and if you ever need cheering up I would reccomend it.

Alasdair