Skoda Superb Estate - long-term review

GSR-II regulations state that all new cars in this jurisdiction must get a suite of driver-assistance systems across the board. Stuff like collision mitigation braking, lane-keep, speed limit warnings, all that good stuff that doesn’t quite work as advertised outside of the lab. Which means the ease with which you can switch them off is fast becoming a metric to decide whether or not you actually like a car; too much menu-diving at the start of every journey and you start to resent the vehicle itself.

Luckily, the Superb has a clickwheel on the right hand side of the steering wheel that does what you need it to - one press of the favourites button top left, click, roll, click and the speed-limit and lane-keep (the two most egregious bits of misaligned-tech) can be switched off. Plus, I can now do it without looking. Another small win for the Skoda.

As for the rest of the tech, it's been pretty solid. I like the three central rotary dials that can be pressed to alter function, so the air-con/temperature control can be pressed to change to heated seats, pressed again for cooling, the same the other side and the middle control offering drive mode, stereo volume and fan speed. The adaptive cruise control is largely inoffensive, although gets a bit sceptical when it reads random roadsigns, and the adaptive LED headlights are some of the best in the business. I could cope without the bouji bits, but they’re nice to have, and the tech seems useful and well thought out on the whole, without the usual VW Group gremlins.

Other than that, it’s been business as usual for the big estate. Several Uni trips with the spawn are bread-and-butter for this thing, and you don’t even need to use the back seats or flop them for van-spec, the boot is so big. More motorway miles and the usual airport hub commutes have seen the average mpg crest 52 for the first time, the 2.0-litre diesel seemingly loosened with the addition of a few thousand miles. And yes, when you remember the massaging function on the L&K spec front seats, you actively look forward to a decent journey.

To be honest, we’re left nit-picking about what’s wrong, because there’s genuinely not much in terms of meeting the brief. It’s not particularly dynamic, but that’s not what it’s for. It produces what feels like slightly excessive amounts of brake dust and the wheels are hard to clean properly - they have a weird in-set gutter behind the spokes which seems a pointless filth-trap - and it seems to be associated with my local undercover police force. How can I tell? Because people always pull over or slow down on the A1 when I’m cruising.

It’s also keen on over-the-air software updates. To the point where it sticks up a warning that it needs a software update, but when you authorise said upgrade, it says that no updates are available. So my up-to-dateness makes it invalid. Overthinking much?