Only request to prospective buyers, get the L&K please. DCC is worth paying extra for.
BHPian nerd1200 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
Spent a day with the “fun” Kodiaq!
TL;DR: Skoda gave me a Kodiaq to drive for a day.
Prelude:
Ever since I sold the Yeti, it has been making its absence felt. The sensible size with a potent 2.0 TDI oil burner mated to a slick 6 speed manual and power transmitted to all four wheels is the DREAM. Therefore, when a social media campaign was directed my way to see if I were interested to take the new Kodiaq out for a spin – that too for a day, I quickly signed up without giving it much thought. Couple weeks later, at a point where I had completely forgotten about it, I get a call from TAFE Access, Bangalore, confirming the schedule of this drive. Taking a moment to gather my thoughts, I enquired if 23rd (Thanksgiving Day) was feasible to which they replied in affirmative. I heard – “It’s a Date!”
Busy few weeks pass again without any banter about it, almost making me presume that it must’ve been a hoax or something. Too good to be true. The good folks at TAFE might’ve realized it and called me on the 21st to remind me of our “date”.
Okay, not a hoax.
The Drive:
Being a holiday in the States, I had an open-ish calendar, and it seemed fair to utilize the opportunity to be thankful for something. Although there was no limitation on the distance driven, I had to ensure I’m handing the car back to it’s rightful owners by sundown. I still had some commitments until noon, therefore leaving me with limited options to venture out to.
My wife and I have been meaning to drive towards Anantapur, AP for a while to have some authentic Korean food at a highly rated joint near the KIA plant. I happened to hear about a good driving road in the vicinity and thought of heading that way. Afterall, what’s Thanksgiving without some delectable food?!
Mr. Manjunath from TAFE coordinated the schedule with me in the morning and their driver, Mr. Gopal, was at my residence on time.
I got into the car, a familiar steering wheel, albeit a missing spoke. Everything where it’s supposed to be and falling into place. Simply clever touches like the retractable door guards, split headrests for the rear passengers, clever stowage slots and a few more features were appreciated. We started off towards the newly opened section of STRR connecting Hoskote to Devanahalli and that’s where I got the first opportunity to stretch her legs and boy was I impressed. Coming from the last generation of VW turbo petrols (the 1.8 EA888-2) this drivetrain felt different. Very linear and may I say, docile, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Don’t get me wrong, the power is there, in oodles. It’s just that the way the horses sprint would not scare your family.
More than the power, I was eager to test out the DCC or Dynamic Chassis Control, which brings electronically adaptive dampers onboard and let me TLDR-it to say that it did not disappoint. The difference is not just evident but is quite glaring – especially if you’re switching from Sport to Comfort or vice-versa. Sport mode is where you’d want to be on twisties or when generally driving fast. You feel the car stick to the road like it’s on rails, every apprehensible contour and imperfection of the tarmac is perceived inside the cabin, again not in a bad way. But effectively making your mind trick you into thinking that you’re driving a lowered sedan. To complement this experience, the gearbox is transferred to “S”, throttle response is sharper, and steering is made heavier. From there you switch to Comfort and suddenly you’re in a different car, so to speak. The stiffness has given way to a surprisingly flat and buttery smooth ride as if the road surface has suddenly become as smooth as a runway. The larger bumps and undulations are still felt, but even those are rounded off well and has no clunkiness to it. In Comfort however, the throttle response and gear shifts are dulled down, and you’re expected to drive in a leisurely manner. I could not appreciate it for more than a few minutes and slotted the transmission into Sports mode which helped quite a bit. The next time we stopped, I quickly started fiddling with the DCC settings and personalized the Individual setting. DCC in Comfort, Steering in Normal and Drive in Sports. That ought to do it! I drove in that setting for the most part, however I think DCC was switching to Normal whenever the car was restarted. Coming to that, Normal strikes a nice balance between the two modes and would be used and appreciated by most owners.
Clean lines, typical of a German car but with some Czech flair.
The front end is not intimidating by a long shot, but is sleek and smart.
Hyderabad highway was a boon to drive on except for higher than usual traffic and a few morons racing towards you in the wrong direction.
We left the highway after a while and navigated through some narrow and crowded lanes to find our way, even reversed the car in a bustling marketplace at some point, all without breaking a sweat, thanks to the 360 degrees of surveillance coverage – both visual and audio based, a welcome addition indeed.
Some helpful locals provided me the right directions, and I found just the place I was looking for – Twisties!! A lovely set of them. At that point switching to Sports was muscle memory. The next 10 minutes up the hill was, to summarize, exhilarating and blissful at the same time. The first negative point about the car came to light, it desperately needs better tyres. Once at the top, we scouted for some spots to photograph the Kodiaq at and spent some time behind the lens.
Continue reading BHPian nerd1200’s review for more insights and information.
Keyword: A Scorpio-N & Yeti owner samples the 2023 Skoda Kodiaq: His experience