PULLING POWER
It’s big, powerful and practical, so the Kodiaq is bound to be popular with the UK’S caravanning community. We hitch one up to try it for size
WHILE our road tests have demonstrated that the Skoda Kodiaq has a wide spread of talents, there’s one thing that’s crucial to some owners that we haven’t been able to test until now: towing.
Caravanning is a hugely popular hobby in Britain, and the Skoda is a perfect companion on paper. There’s space for seven – or five with lots of luggage – and a maximum towing capacity of 2,000kg for the 188bhp 2.0 TDI diesel model.
But how does it fare in the real world? We headed to the Longleat Caravan Club site at Warminster, Wiltshire with freelance writer Lee Davey, an expert on both caravans and towing, to find out. Lee recently towed a caravan all the way from Millbrook proving ground in Bedfordshire to the Arctic Circle – so is well placed to know if the Skoda lives up to expectations.
Lee brought along a Bailey Pursuit 560-5 caravan to hitch up to the Kodiaq. “It’s a pretty typical family holiday caravan,” he explained. “And it matches the Skoda well with its 1,441kg weight, as it’s well below the maximum towing capacity for the car.”
The Skoda’s electric tow bar is an £850 option. It flips out by pressing a button in the boot, and before long we’d hooked everything up to head out for a test drive.
It was a dry morning, but Davey told us: “if the grass was wet at the site, a front-wheel-drive car would struggle for grip,” so the Skoda’s 4x4 system is useful in that regard. “Most of the time it won’t make much difference, though,” he added. Presumably if you’re planning a trip to the North Pole like Lee, opting for a 4x4 Kodiaq would be a good choice, then.
As we headed out of the Caravan Club site, the first thing Lee pointed out is that while the door mirrors look good from the outside, they’re shaped in a slightly inconvenient way if you’re planning to tow a big caravan. The cut-outs on the bottom mean it could be easier to see where all six wheels are placed on the road. It’s something we didn’t notice on our own test drive, and would only really be a problem on tight roads when there’s another set of wheels to keep an eye on.
Still, we headed out of the site easily enough – and while the bumpy road felt noticeably choppier with all that extra weight out back, the Skoda did remain acceptably comfortable. “It rides very well,” Davey agreed. “You can feel the bumps, but it’s pretty reasonable.”
Getting up to speed on a main road, Davey added that it was also quiet and stable at speed. The aerodynamic shape of the Kodiaq did cause some wind noise at the back, though, as the air gets caught between the car and the caravan behind. However, Davey told us: “It’s better than some much more expensive cars I have driven.”
One comparison that came up during our chat was with the Volkswagen Passat, which has a similar DSG dual-clutch gearbox to our Kodiaq. Davey pointed out on the whole the DSG is a very good choice, and better than many automatics, which don’t feel up to the task of towing. But he felt the DSG in the Passat has a slight advantage. “It is a bit smoother when changing down on inclines to give you more torque,” he stressed.
In the Kodiaq it felt easy to use at all times, the only exception being when it felt a little hesitant to change down on one short hill coming out of the campsite.
Of course, as our expert pointed out what really matters in a tow car is how well it works on the days when you’re not towing. And by that measure, the Kodiaq is excellent. “It’s the sort of car you could use all year, then hitch up a caravan and go on holiday in it without a problem.”
You can use the Kodiaq all year, then hitch up and go away no problem LEE DAVEY Caravan Club