Skoda Kodiaq vRS - long-term review

Three months into our time with the Kodiaq vRS and feelings remain mostly positive. It really is a superb family car, full of clever little touches and with plenty of room for five. Although, the third row is definitely only really suited to kids up to the age of, say, 10.

And with the rearmost seats in place the boot is pretty tiny. Let’s say it’s a very occasional seven-seater, or certainly one that will age-out if you need to transport lots of growing kids regularly.

Other signs that Skoda has sweated the details on this include a very, very easy way to turn off the ADAS. Praise the Lord. In fact, my only day-to-day gripe concerns the drive modes. There are plenty – Eco, Comfort, Normal, Sport, Off road, Snow and Individual. And we all love an Individual mode, don’t we?

They can take a while to perfect, but once sorted you can essentially choose your own best version of the vRS for everyday driving. In this case, Individual allows me to have the engine and gearbox in Normal mode, but the dampers clicked up a few notches (there are 15 possible settings!) to eliminate the ferry-in-a-storm heave.

Why then, does the car always default to Normal mode? Nobody wants to be normal. We want our own bespoke settings that we’ve experimented with extensively and felt good and clever about once honed to as close to perfect as possible. Sadly, it comes down to regulation and homologated economy, emissions and noise figures. Annoying… but not the end of the world, I suppose.

Speaking of economy, the vRS is pretty impressive for such a big car. On a recent trip to Heathrow it achieved over 40mpg and even short trips average out somewhere around 30mpg. Overall, it’s a tough thing to criticise.

The idea of a sporty seven-seater SUV might be a bit silly, but the vRS manages to meld good performance and a bit of fun with mega practicality and doesn’t stray too far into the performance world with a rock hard ride or anything daft. We like.