Skoda Problems

The Skoda Kamiq is built in Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic.

Modern cars like the Skoda have sealed cooling systems which means they shouldn’t need regular top-ups. As the engine heats up and the coolant expands, any excess coolant is captured by an overflow tank which stores the coolant and then allows it to be sucked back into the engine’s cooling system as the car cools down. This is all perfectly normal. All of which means that if you have coolant disappearing, then there’s a leak somewhere, but don’t necessarily jump to the conclusion that the radiator is at fault.

The problem could be one of many things, including a failed radiator hose or some other piece of critical plumbing, a faulty water pump, cracked cylinder head, blown head gasket, broken overflow tank, failed radiator cap, split cylinder bore, leaking heater matrix and more. The dealership should be able to tackle this as a warranty job and will probably pressurise the cooling system and see where, if anywhere, coolant starts to appear where it shouldn’t.

The length of the cargo area from the base of the back seat to the tailgate ion the Skoda is 756mm. The width of the cargo floor varies from 1445mm (at the back seats) to 1003mm (at the tailgate opening). With the rear seat in place, the Karoq has a cargo volume of 521 litres and, with the rear seat folded down, that jumps to 1630 litres.

In most cases, engine life has far more to do with long-term service and maintenance than anything else. A new vehicle with the correct preventative maintenance and servicing can easily cover 200,000, 300,000 or even 400,000km before major work is needed. But the same car with patchy maintenance might last only a fraction of that distance before it needs major engine work. So the service record is where to look first when considering a particular vehicle.

The type of driving the vehicle has done is also important. A car that has spent all its life in stop-start, gridlocked traffic will rarely cover the same distance as a car that has been used for highway driving where it’s in a high gear and just idling along. So try to find out about the car’s ownership history, too.

The price of the car you’re looking at seems to be at the high end of things for this year and mileage, but not by a whole lot. Certainly, most sellers post a price higher than they will take to allow for some haggling room during negotiations.

Despite the Skoda badge, there’s an awful lot of Volkswagen engineering in the Fabia. In fact, as part of the broader VW family, all modern Skodas have essentially VW platforms, engines and transmissions fitted to them.

It will come as no surprise to many VW owners that the engines and transmissions of the era of your car were more problematic than they should have been. Many Golf and Polo owners have found out the hard way that the 1.4 twin-charger engine (in particular) was prone to problems and early failures of components including the timing chain.

If caught within the warranty period, these components should have been changed by Skoda as part of its warranty responsibilities, but ten years down the track, the picture is a lot blurrier. The way to proceed is to approach Skoda Australia’s customer service department and explain the situation. Perhaps the company will help with the cost of repairs on a pro-rata basis (given the low mileage your car has covered) but don’t count on it. You also have recourse to the ACCC on the basis that the car was not of an acceptable quality or fit for purpose (this would probably need to be independently verified).

Meanwhile, the short answer is that 48,000km of normal use would not be considered to be an acceptable lifespan for a component such as an engine’s timing chain. Timing chains are designed to last the entire life of the engine. But in too many cases, we’re seeing that that simply isn’t the case.

The reality in 2022 is that just about every car-maker has an SUV in its range. Many of these will have the high seating position you require and they’re often available with a choice of diesel or petrol power (some even offer hybrid drivelines) and the option of two or four-wheel-drive, so you’re not buying more car than you need.

There are plenty of options in the small and compact SUV category, so the best advice is to hit the dealerships and find the one that suits your budget, your requirements and has the level of quality look and feel you prefer.

The South Korean brands are doing some clever things in this class of car right now, and along with good value (compared with some established brands) they also offer brilliant warranties which give great peace of mind. For an even better value-for-money experience, a three or four-year-old SUV can be pretty sharp buying, too. Just make sure the service history is intact.

If you’re convinced that the problem is a manufacturing or materials fault (rather than the glove-box having been slammed or forced shut) then keep at Skoda until you get a satisfactory result. Having video of the glove-box performing its unwanted trick should help with any convincing you need to do. Don’t bother going back to the same dealer, contact Skoda Australia’s customer service department and go straight to the top.

Don’t be put off by being told that nobody’s ever heard of this problem before, either. It has been raised by other Superb owners on forums, even though we’re yet to hear of it in Australia. In the meantime, here’s something to try for yourself: The next time the glove box falls open of its own accord, instead of shutting it straight away (only for it to open again) wait a few minutes and then try to close it normally. The theory is that the pins you’re talking about that hold the lid closed can be slow to glide into their proper position where they hold the lid closed. Giving them a few minutes to resume their correct position will allow the glove box to be closed and stay closed. If that does the trick, lubricating the pins to allow them to move more freely might be worthwhile. It’s worth a try.

This might sound like an small problem to some, but having a glovebox that falls open into the passenger’s lap is actually a safety issue in the case of a crash.

First things first; make sure the Karoq is actually as big as you think it is/need it to be. The reality is that this is not a huge SUV and is really comparable with something like, say, the Mazda CX-30, while cars like the Mazda CX-5, Hyundai Tucson and Kia Sportage are all a size bigger.

Beyond that, the good news is that the car’s most problematic element, a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission has now been replaced on the 110 version with an eight-speed automatic with a conventional torque converter. And although the 1.4-litre capacity will ring alarm bells for those who remember the troublesome Twin-charger engine with the same capacity fitted to many VW and Skoda products, the unit in the new Karoq is less complex and doesn’t seem to suffer the same problems.

However, there are no blanket statements on this subject and your experience with your current Astra is proof. Given that many owners were appalled at the reliability of their Astras, you seem to have scored a good one. And the reverse can apply; sometime a car with even a great reliability record can throw up problems for a particular owner. Modern cars are incredibly complex machines and things can (and do) go wrong on a fairly random basis.

You’re right, there’s a lot of commonality between the various engines from Skoda, VW and Audi. There are many examples of engines from these brands that all use the same basic bottom-end (crankshaft and pistons) architecture. And yes, in some cases, the main differentiator is the turbo-boost pressure.

But that doesn’t mean that’s the only difference; differing boost levels require different engine management, so the electronic control of the various engines can be very different. There can also be hardware differences such as the actual turbocharger unit and fuel injectors. That’s why it’s not quite as simple as raising boost pressure to arrive at a higher output. Revising engine management to do this requires somebody who really knows what they’re doing. Even then, a moderately powered version of an engine might not have the oil-cooling or strengthened internals of what appears to be the same engine with a higher output.

The VW-Audi group is not the only manufacturer to take this approach, of course, and many other car-makers use the same strategy of producing a variety of different engine tunes from the one basic unit. It’s a great way of differentiating models within a range and, of course, saving money in terms of research and development.

While I’ll admit that an average fuel consumption figure of 12.4 litres per 100km is high for your car, there are a few things to consider here. By driving just seven kilometres each way to work and back, you’re probably running for half your driving time with an engine that is still warming up. Cold engines use a richer mixture and that means more fuel. Cold starts are a real problem for fuel consumption, and you appear to be driving on a cold engine for a high percentage of your daily run.

The other consideration is your average speed. You say that there’s no stop-start traffic conditions, but if you drive at urban speeds all the way to work, then you need to be looking at the official urban fuel consumption number which is 9.0 litres per 100km (the 7.3 litres figure you’ve quoted is for a mix of urban and highway running).

Even so, 9 litres per 100km is a lot less than 12.4 litres, so maybe there is something going on. Despite your reservations about Skoda’s politics, the best thing to do is to have the car electronically interrogated to see what, if any, fault codes appear. Only then can you really know what’s going on. Are you using the recommended 95-RON fuel? The wrong octane rating (RON) can have an effect on fuel consumption, as can a heavy right foot.