Post by Big Blue on Dec 29, 2022 21:16:03 GMT
It’s holiday season so let’s hire a car with a a Cavernous interior to carry all our luggage. A Škoda Superb Estate should fit the bill. To make it more interesting let’s have one with a huge number of gadgets in a decent trim including proper rubber mats. Not the usual hire car ones that look and feel like they cost a fiver down the market but the actual OEM fitted ones.
So, a nice car that arrived from Slovakia to Vienna International because our flight was late, meaning I’d miss the pick up for the original hire so we called a hire company we’ve used before and they drove it to us. Great service from Slovaks is rare but done properly when it comes.
As a car to drive, these are not in any way sporting but it didn’t pretend to be. It cruises very quietly on the motorway and is nice and quiet when milling around to the extent W2.1 asked if it was a diseasal. It was. Heaven knows what engine but for all its sedateness it made itself known when under load. It did make 53.37mpg over 600kms. It also showed me it could do about 1400kms between fills which is frankly insane. With this kind of fuelling experience electric cars for Europeans with family across states that were once one country (think former Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia etc.) have no chance of being taken up.
The stop start is horribly intrusive - particularly slow witted at the lights making decisive manoeuvres in traffic best left to drivers of other cars. It also stops the engine when pulling up and selecting reverse to park which causes some kind of transmission shunt - frankly it was annoying. I guess you can turn it off but you shouldn’t need to.
Despite the stop-start shunting, the gear box was fine. Auto box with 7 speeds and never felt in the wrong gear. I guess the drive train elements are basic VW group items and all the better for it. After that you can feel that the suspension and set up are cost-conscious. It’s not that they’re bad, just average - so suitable for people that want a nice, spacious, comfortable car. As I said, it doesn’t pretend to be sporting so why would they throw money at the handling and body control? That would be pointless.
So as a place to sit, it felt good enough to be in the gap between ordinary cars and premium sector cars, wherever that gap is. Our nephew said the interior was identikit to the VW Arteon his dad has (for the next 8 months remaining of the lease before he chooses between a Q7, Touareg or X5). It did have cloth seats with leather bolsters which is a pet like of mine, but they were nowhere in terms of comfort compared to Eva (which admittedly does have Comfort seats but no cloth option.)
You can see the cost savings in the cabin but they don’t detract from a reasonably premium feel. The tech bits were all there: CarPlay, nav, radar cruise, powered, heated seats, heated wheel etc. The GUI is a bit clumsy and I missed the tactile comfort of an iDrive controller. The Dashboard Screen options are better than older VAG cars I’ve had and there are more than Eva has. I also noted the Apple Car Play integrated to dash which is a hooray as the address input on the built in nav was, as I said, a bit clumsy. Which is a polite way of saying “shit”.
As a load lugger and people carrying prospect aside from not having three separate rear seats and the option of a third row these are unbeatable. It swallowed all our luggage and I could shut the luggage cover - a consequence of there not being a level load deck with underfloor storage. This is something I really like as buying an estate car means you want space in the boot, not a nice loading experience. It also doesn’t have a boot full of batteries like Eva.
Overall I enjoyed the car as a family mover. If I’m to be honest, if we had a 911 and one of these as the family fleet I wouldn’t complain. If I could upgrade the seats.
So, a nice car that arrived from Slovakia to Vienna International because our flight was late, meaning I’d miss the pick up for the original hire so we called a hire company we’ve used before and they drove it to us. Great service from Slovaks is rare but done properly when it comes.
As a car to drive, these are not in any way sporting but it didn’t pretend to be. It cruises very quietly on the motorway and is nice and quiet when milling around to the extent W2.1 asked if it was a diseasal. It was. Heaven knows what engine but for all its sedateness it made itself known when under load. It did make 53.37mpg over 600kms. It also showed me it could do about 1400kms between fills which is frankly insane. With this kind of fuelling experience electric cars for Europeans with family across states that were once one country (think former Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia etc.) have no chance of being taken up.
The stop start is horribly intrusive - particularly slow witted at the lights making decisive manoeuvres in traffic best left to drivers of other cars. It also stops the engine when pulling up and selecting reverse to park which causes some kind of transmission shunt - frankly it was annoying. I guess you can turn it off but you shouldn’t need to.
Despite the stop-start shunting, the gear box was fine. Auto box with 7 speeds and never felt in the wrong gear. I guess the drive train elements are basic VW group items and all the better for it. After that you can feel that the suspension and set up are cost-conscious. It’s not that they’re bad, just average - so suitable for people that want a nice, spacious, comfortable car. As I said, it doesn’t pretend to be sporting so why would they throw money at the handling and body control? That would be pointless.
So as a place to sit, it felt good enough to be in the gap between ordinary cars and premium sector cars, wherever that gap is. Our nephew said the interior was identikit to the VW Arteon his dad has (for the next 8 months remaining of the lease before he chooses between a Q7, Touareg or X5). It did have cloth seats with leather bolsters which is a pet like of mine, but they were nowhere in terms of comfort compared to Eva (which admittedly does have Comfort seats but no cloth option.)
You can see the cost savings in the cabin but they don’t detract from a reasonably premium feel. The tech bits were all there: CarPlay, nav, radar cruise, powered, heated seats, heated wheel etc. The GUI is a bit clumsy and I missed the tactile comfort of an iDrive controller. The Dashboard Screen options are better than older VAG cars I’ve had and there are more than Eva has. I also noted the Apple Car Play integrated to dash which is a hooray as the address input on the built in nav was, as I said, a bit clumsy. Which is a polite way of saying “shit”.
As a load lugger and people carrying prospect aside from not having three separate rear seats and the option of a third row these are unbeatable. It swallowed all our luggage and I could shut the luggage cover - a consequence of there not being a level load deck with underfloor storage. This is something I really like as buying an estate car means you want space in the boot, not a nice loading experience. It also doesn’t have a boot full of batteries like Eva.
Overall I enjoyed the car as a family mover. If I’m to be honest, if we had a 911 and one of these as the family fleet I wouldn’t complain. If I could upgrade the seats.
