Our Skoda Kodiaq Is A Minibus, Part-Time Campervan And YouTube Enabler

After six months and 6,500 miles, our time with a Skoda Kodiaq SE L has come to an end. This is actually the second Kodiaq I’ve run for a longer period, but despite this model being a fair bit older now than it was when I ‘owned’ the first, it’s impressed me just as much.

The Kodiaq in question has the seven-seat arrangement (like most do), which I’ve used on a few occasions – not having to take a second car in those instances was a real boon. The average fuel economy from the 2.0-litre TDI diesel engine has shot up too, from 43 to 49.1mpg.

Its toughest test of all came when filming the follow-up to our ‘NC£500’ road trip from last year. This involved creating our own ‘South Coast 500’ route for the three ‘shitboxes’ from the first lot of videos - a Citroen Saxo, a VW Golf estate with the worst matte paint job ever and my magnificent Ford Focus Millennium Edition. Oh, and we added some mods this time, which went…pretty much as you’d expect.

The Kodiaq was our main crew car for the shoot. It racked up a good chunk of our total mileage on that one outing - around 750 miles. It had no trouble swallowing all our gear thanks to its giant boot, which also came in handy for CT deputy editor Edwin, who slept in it one night. Although Skoda doesn’t bill it as such, it turns out the Kodiaq is a pretty good makeshift campervan when it needs to be.

CT social media specialist and camera operator for the trip Ben was particularly impressed with the Skoda. He said:

“Its tall roof and big windows made it super easy to move around and film from. The boot doesn’t cause an annoying beeping sound like many modern cars when it’s open, and the boot lid itself doesn’t fall as you drive like we’ve found with some vehicles we used for the job. We probably tracked 10 times more on the SC500 trip than we did on the NC500, as the Kodiaq made it so convenient.”

“There’s loads of storage all over the car so being able to have everything we need within an arm’s reach was a massive help. The size of the Kodiaq meant we had plenty of space for three decent-size boys, multiple camera boxes, a load of cameras and some luggage. Nobody once complained about lack of space or comfort.”

I’m even more besotted with the Kodiaq than Ben. It’s been fantastic over the past six months - it’s comfortable, smooth and doesn’t really cause any annoyances. I think I need to try the vRS at some point to see how it stacks up, but for now, I have half a year with another car which is, as you might expect, another Skoda. This time it’s a Karoq, a model I’ve also tested before, this time in Sportline trim. I can never quite decide which is my favourite between the Karoq and the bigger Kodiaq, but perhaps by the end of the year, I can settle it once and for all.

Read more: How ‘My’ Skoda Kodiaq Rescued Our Terrible G-Wiz EV