‘My’ Skoda Karoq Sportline Bossed An 800-Mile Road Trip

The honeymoon period with the Skoda Karoq Sportline I’ve been running for CT is over, but we’re still very much in love. Its brilliance as a crew vehicle to load up with camera equipment and camera people (who’ll often film out of the thing too) was without question, but now the car has delivered the goods when I’m off work also.

Not so long ago it was called into action for our annual family visit to Luxembourg - the Karoq’s first proper road trip, four-up with our two kids in the back. A real test of any family car’s mettle, but thankfully the Skoda passed this stringent test with flying colours. Good job too, or the trip could have been pretty miserable.

It got off to a good start with the easy-to-access Isofix car mounting points making reinstalling the kids’ seats (they usually have to come out when the car is on ‘work duty’) easy-peasy. And then, the boot swallowed all our luggage without a problem.

Setting off, because the Karoq is so comfortable, quiet and easy to drive, the miles were racked up with ease, with nary a complaint from those sitting in the back. An iPad to keep the eldest entertained did help, mind.

I was a little worried the Skoda might be a bit of a squeeze in the car section of the Eurotunnel Le Shuttle (it’s always worth taking bigger, fancier motors in the bigger carriages for coaches and caravans), but we made it on without any wheels contacting those surprisingly nasty kerbs in there.

Once in continental Europe, the sat-nav provided an alert for each border crossing, letting us know that country’s speed limits. That’s handy, as there’s more variation than you might expect.

In all, the trip covered 800 miles, but it didn’t feel like a chore. In fact, the trusty Karoq made those miles enjoyable, and also safe and stable during the torrential downpours we experienced for much of the trip. As a nice bonus, I was also able to take a photo of the car with a 90-year-old Voigtlander Brilliant medium format camera. The 6x6cm, 120 film exposure it took - which you can see below - came out remarkably clear.

The bad points from the trip, weather aside? Well, not a whole lot. The slow-to-react cruise control remains an annoyance, as does the automatic speed limit adjustment’s habit of deactivating itself. But these are minor things, and I still maintain that one day, after a little more depreciation, I’m going to buy a Karoq.