Skoda Kodiaq iV SE L - long-term review

This month our Kodiaq has been to Guernsey, and to a Skoda dealer, with the visit to the latter due to it going wrong on the former.

So, the good stuff first – which wasn’t the weather on Guernsey. But which was the Kodiaq’s big battery, which took us from home in the New Forest, to the ferry in Poole, and then all around Guernsey on a long weekend without running out of charge. It was only when disembarking back in Blighty that the engine fired up.

In fact, bar when the little 1.5-litre occasionally bursts into life to keep itself ticking over, I’ve barely used the engine. Well, apart from the long trip to London Gatwick for our recent Speed Week extravaganza in Spain. That 258-mile return journey meant this month’s fuel economy is only a quite good 126.9mpg, rather than something more stellar.

But even I don’t need Top Gear’s resident boffin Paul Horrell to explain that when 200-ish of the 849 miles covered this month are doing about 40mpg on the motorway (as the Kodiaq drags along an empty battery) it’s going to bring your average down. Still, even factoring in £41.89 for fuel, cheap overnight charges equate to 7.4p per mile overall. But, sorry, my smugness has seen us digress.

Anyway, there I was, all pleased with myself, driving around with zero emissions on that dinky little island in the English Channel when a warning flashed up as the Side Assist went kaput. Then the Light Assist went down, and by the end of a 15-second tantrum I’d also lost Lane Assist, Front Assist and the dynamic cornering lights. And no amount of turning the Kodiaq off and on again would make them go away.

I thus went old-school for the next 48 hours, taking full responsibility myself to not drive over white lines, speed, or crash into slowing vehicles in front of me. Remember those simpler times?

I was secretly thrilled, too. Something had gone wrong, when everyone says nothing goes wrong on modern cars. The copy would literally write itself this month! So, a couple of days later I found myself going incognito at Meadens Skoda in Brockenhurst. Or as incognito as you can go when you have a ‘Skoda Press Office’ rear numberplate surround.

Still, I think it worked, as the car didn’t suddenly get whisked back to the Czech Republic to be torn down. Instead Meadens called to ask if they could keep the Kodiaq an extra night, as given it’s so new and had an issue they’d not yet seen before, they needed to get a report back from the tech team in Skoda’s Milton Keynes HQ.

The prognosis was it needed a software update. Which wasn’t ready yet. Perhaps not quite the thriller I had hoped for. But Meadens cleared the faults, sent me on my way, and I’ve had no trouble from the safety stuff since. But what I have had is a few other new warnings, which briefly flash and disappear, with the messages as varied as a brake servo issue through to the key not being detected. Does anyone know where the Ctrl, Alt and Delete buttons are?