Skoda Karoq review: Mums will love the £20,000 family SUV for its helpful features and built-in tech
The Skoda Karoq comes with practical features that parents will love. It's like a Swiss Army Knife on wheels and offers better value than its cousins.
SOME of the tech on new cars is getting silly.
There’s hands-free parking, for instance, where the car steers itself into a space. You’ll do it once to impress the kids and never use it again. It’s too much of a faff.
Hands-free tailgate. Waggle your foot under the rear bumper and . . . voila, er, nothing bleedin’ happens half the time.
Or the boot only opens half way up. And then you drop your heavy box on the floor because you aren’t 14 any more and can’t balance on one foot and juggle.
Hand-gesture controls. Rather than reach a whole extra centimetre to press a button on the touchscreen, here you have to exaggerate swiping your hand left or right in front of the screen to pick a song or whatever.
Again, it never works first time.
Driver fatigue sensor. No. No. No and no again.
I just swerved to avoid a shredded tyre in the middle of the road, you idiot computer. I’m not tired. Shut up.
I could go on.
Of course, all of these gimmicks are available on the new Skoda Karoq that you see here today.
But here’s the thing. The Karoq is different — I’ll go further, better — than other SUVs because it also comes with a huge dollop of common sense and practicality.
It has all the stuff mums and dads might actually want and need. As well as being a cut-price VW.
Take the 40/20/40 rear seats. They slide forward and back and can be removed completely to turn the Karoq into a van for tip runs.
Or you can take out the middle seat and slide the two outer seats inwards 8cm for more elbow room. This is Skoda’s USP.
No other family SUV has removable second-row seats.
Then there’s the reversible boot mat — one side carpet, one side easy-clean plastic for mucky dogs, wellies and pushchairs.
Key facts
SKODA KAROQ
Price: £20,875
Engine: 1-litre petrol turbo (115hp)
Economy: 53mpg
0-62mph: 10.3 secs
Top speed: 116mph
CO2: 119g/km
There’s an umbrella under the passenger seat, an ice scraper stored in the fuel cap, the boot light doubles as a pop-out magnetic torch, the kids have fold-out tables and USBs and all four doors take 1.5-litre bottles.
All simple things — but handy.
Other observations. The Karoq replaces the Yeti, sits below the Kodiaq and shares many key parts with the VW Tiguan and Seat Ateca.
But as well as being more practical and better value than its cousins, it uses the best bits from elsewhere within VW Group.
Like the brilliant 12.3in digital driver’s display, first seen in the Audi TT, and the 1.5-litre petrol turbo from the Golf, which shuts down two cylinders when coasting to save fuel and cut emissions.
Add on top other useful tech — yes, really — like adaptive cruise control, wireless phone charger, signal booster, Apple CarPlay, 4WD and you’d be silly to ignore the Karoq.
Out January from £20,875 for the 1-litre petrol. The eco 1.5 is £22,225. Monthly finance from £239.
VERDICT: Your Swiss Army Knife on wheels.
