Updated: November 22, 2024
I like driving. Even so, I think a reasonable, practical limit is around 500 km a day. But when necessity calls, you do more, if you must. When such rare occasions strike, it's best to be seated and buckled in a nice, comfy, cosseting cruiser that will confidently take you to your destination. For my one-day trip stretching a proper 1,000 km, I had one Skoda Superb 2.0 TDI at my disposal.
You've seen this model on Dedoimedo before. I drove it in Germany and Belgium during one of my Eurotrips. But this was back in 2014, and 'twas a different generation back then. As circumstances would have it, I had a fresh opportunity to try my luck with this car. The expectations are high. After all, the Superb could be as good as Audi A6, for all practical purposes. The big difference is you don't get the top-end engines in it, otherwise, the purchase choice would be obvious. Well, let's roll. A short review, to an extent.
Big, generous and fun enough to ride a thousand kilometers? Let's find out.
A used car, with tons of merit
In most of my reviews, I would drive new or brand-new cars. Here, I had a 2019 car at my disposal. It's not the latest model, per se. But then, in general, I prefer cars built and designed before the pandemic. Let me briefly digress and explain way.
Slightly older cars tend to be more reliable - overall, car reliability has been going up nonstop, until about 2022 or so, when it peaked, and hasn't improved since, perhaps even dropped some. Furthermore, driven by greed and MBA turdonics, many car manufacturers had chosen the stupid and cheap way of touch interfaces for everything, including crucial functions, forcing drivers to frequently take their eyes off the road to operate their vehicles. This means many new models have inferior, less safe interiors, with useless consoles. Now, this is a separate topic, but well worth bringing up. Indeed, with Euro NCAP soon bringing in new tests that will favor normal, button-driven design for important functions, and car manufacturers slowly abandoning the pointless touch craze due to customer backlash, sanity may return soonish. Still.
Furthermore, I totally detest hybrids. In a bid to make their cars "green", lots of manufacturers are pushing out so-called "mild" hybrids (a phrase that makes me want to vomit), which means you get a tiny electric motor with tiny range, which is recharged from your normal petrol/diesel engine and during regenerative actions, like braking. What it does is, it "looks green" so you can sign off a paper saying "environment", but in practice, you lug around a couple of hundred extra kilograms of useless metal in the name of Planet Earth.
Next on the menu, infotainment systems. Lately, too many manufacturers treat cars like phones. This means cheap crap all over the place, badly designed interfaces, so-called apps, driver profiling, and then some. You name it. You also get over-the-air (OTA) updates, which means, much like an ordinary computer at home, you can have a perfectly functional system ruined by a random, badly tested blob of code. I wonder if this has ever happened, hm? Yes, yes, it has. I have a rather simple principle - I don't want my car "updated" while I'm driving. EVER.
Lastly, lots of new cars come with an over-abundance of "safety" aids. I'm not talking 100% autonomous tools that really help in dangerous situations, like traction control, ABS and alike. I'm talking about "addons" like lane departure warning and lane correction, which are designed to help distracted idiots, I mean drivers, stay where they should. How come, you wonder? Well, simple. First, you add unneeded, toyish features to the car - interactive screens, phone mirroring, touch interfaces all over the place, stupid notifications (like the ones I outlined in my BMW 118d review), and now, because the driver is too distracted, you pile up anti-distraction features, which wouldn't have been necessary in the first place if manufacturers didn't treat their cars like smartphones on wheels, or at best, if they didn't pander to clueless apes who never should be driving.
If you're too lazy to click on the link and read the full review, here it is. The car is telling me the front camera is obstructed. This is a failure of design and application on a million levels. One, it's a distraction. Two, it's a distraction I can't do anything about, other than stop the car on the side of the road, which can be 100x more dangerous, especially since I was driving at night, in the wet/rain, and maybe, MAYBE manually "fix" the issue like some lowly peasant.
Third, even if I could safely stop, am I supposed to understand where the camera is? Besides, do I look like a car mechanic working overtime and maintaining a shoddy system? Fourth, the camera "malfunction" happened in the rain, several times, highlighting how brittle the whole thing is. Fifth, the notification obstructed my navigation view, which I needed, as I was driving on an unfamiliar road. Sixth, the combination of an audio alert plus notification plus the content of the notification plus the fact it's a stupid touch interface and I cannot dismiss the notification blindly, by physical touch (as you would with real buttons), i.e., you must look away from the road. All of these things added to my stress, anger, they distracted me and reduced my concentration, making my overall driving much less focused and safe. Driving assistance, right. Maybe for idiots, who should never be allowed in the car.
I've also mentioned this in my Volkswagen T-Roc review. Stupid systems that reduce your sharpness. And for what? Keeping in the lane? Look, it's simple. You're a driver. You're supposed to be able to keep in the lane. That's one of the primary skills of driving a car. If you can't do it, then don't drive. Simple. The same goes for half a dozen other, similar tools, which sound cool and flashy but serve no real purpose other than allow idiots to keep using their smartphones and tablet-like interfaces, confident that electronic systems will step in when necessary. Compounded failure. Interestingly, a class-equivalent Skoda Karoq did not annoy me with pointless warnings and corrections or alike, and behaved impeccably.
All of this means, if you pick a car from the pre-pandemic era, you're more likely to have a sane car, with normal controls, normal engine, good reliability, and you will have bought it at a reasonable price, as opposed to the outrageous prices that new cars fetch nowadays.
And now, we're back with the Superb ...
The car had more than 100,000 km on its clock. Some scuff & tear is expected, but there was surprisingly little. We shall address the driving part shortly. Now, let me focus on the car's aesthetics and vast interior. To wit, some specifications and superlatives.
Inside out
Say what you will about the Superb, but you can't fault its level of equipment, or the vastness of the cabin. The car I drove had tons of goodies. Part leather, heated seats with a checkered pattern - the ones in the front sculpted as racing buckets, three-zone climate control, navigation, a touch-based infotainment system that isn't too annoying. You also have sinister, black alloys, and a gigantic luggage space. Under the hood? A trusty 2.0-liter turbodiesel, developing 148 HP and 340 Nm of torque, mated to a 7-speed DSG.
Good-looking car. Aggressive yet suave. Suave yet aggressive.
The Sport Line trims gives you a generous package.
Tons and tons of space. The front seats have been moved generously back (even more so in the DSG version, as you don't need to think about the clutch pedal reach), and yet there's some 40-50 cm legroom in the back, even with a fairly tall, long-legged driver (like me) behind the wheel.
Driving - A combination of poise and frugality
Before we begin, I must briefly add I didn't drive the entire 1,000km journey alone. I had a co-driver, and we swapped places occasionally. Overall, I chugged a solid 650 km or so in the driver's seat.
The ride was fun. Supple, sharp, elegant, precise. Is it the best ever? No. But it was quite decent. The Superb also comes with the Driving Mode Selection functionality, i.e., you can tune how your car behaves on the road, very similar to what I've shown you in my Volkswagen Polo GTI review. Change from Normal to Sport, and the car gets tighter, more snug, more fun to drive. The gearbox will usually drop a cog, the throttle is sharper, the steering wheel is a bit heaver, and the car rides with less body sway. However, the differences between the modes were not as pronounced or drastic as I've mentioned in the Audi A6 review (see early on in the article). In a way, the Superb is a bit more conservative. It's a nice executive, but it ain't a beast, nor does this particular car have a 4x4 drive. Regardless, quite all right.
The Superb did a solid job, overall. The engine wasn't too loud, and it has decent mid-range grunt. You still need to downshift if you wish to do a quick, aggressive overtake, but most of the time, the seventh gear is good enough for anything above 100 km/h, with reasonable responsiveness.
When cornering, somewhat more sharply, you can definitely tell this is a pretty big and somewhat heavy car. There's some body roll, and even the Sport mode does not fully alleviate the would-be softness. The steering wheel is okay, but the rim could be a bit thinner. There's another ergonomic problem at hand. The way the car is designed, if you're a taller person (180+ cm), you will want your seat lowered so you don't brush your head against the door sill. But then, while the steering wheel is adjustable by rake and reach, you can only push it down so much, thus ending up with your arms in a slightly "higher" position than ideal.
This isn't an issue most of the time, but if you do very long rides, like I did, your shoulders get a bit tired. It's either that, or hunching a little with the seating position raised. Ideally, the steering wheel would be able to travel another 2-3 cm down. Or maybe my vertical skeletal proportions are wrong. The front seat are electrically adjustable, and there are two memory settings (which can be paired to driving mode selection), so once you get things right, you ought to get it right every time. On the upside, in the back, you will never want for any space. There's tons and tons of room for your legs. You could be a giant and still fit comfortably into the Superb.
Black 'n' white photo, because it adds flair, or something.
After several hours, I did feel some fatigue. Inevitably, you will get tired driving any car, the question is when. With the Superb, it takes a while, but I must say my recent few trips in some BMWs were more comfortable overall. It's the combination of seats, seating position and driving dynamics. The Superb could benefit from being a bit sharper.
Fuel efficiency? Fantastic. The drive included roughly 900 km of highway and 100 km of urban driving, although the actual split timewise was 8:2, 8 hours on the open road at 130 km/h, and about 2 hours in the city, doing mostly 50 km/h, and here and there 70 km/h where permissible. I used the aircon nonstop, and did about 40% of the journey in Sport Mode. The gas pedal wasn't used lightly. And yet, the Superb averaged just 6.1 liters per 100 km. This means you can do maybe 5 liters if you drive gently, and stick to 90-100 km/h. Given the fact the car's done some solid mileage (or kilometrage if you will), this is extra cool, but then, diesels are designed to do half a million km, with regular maintenance. Again, when writing this, I introspected on the topic of running costs and ecology, as I had to do some number crunching for the recent EV future article.
From the first leg of the journey ...
If you look at the image above, I was able to do 400+ km on just one third of the fuel tank. In fact, I only had to refuel once, and that was to add 50 liters of fuel. Done. Three minutes, quick wee wee, and off we go. I've always said a good diesel tourer will take you 1,000 km without breaking into a sweat. The numbers are similar to what I've experienced with the Opel Insignia on another road trip a while back. The Superb has a fuel tank capacity of 66 liters, just a bit less than the above-mentioned Opel.
Problems
Other than the five-year-old wear and tear, there was very little to complain about. Well, some. The infotainment system is a bit laggy. In particular, the navigation system can take a long time finding the address you seek (more than a minute). The maps also haven't been updated in a while, but that's fine. I would rather update things myself than have stuff pushed to my car, outside of my control.
Conclusion
I have always liked Skodas, since around the nice, coupey 1000 MB model onwards. Not all of them were massive automotive hits, but they had certain charm, one way or another. The Superb is a splendid, refined car, with a nice, clean line, elegance and character, tons of practicality, and a vastly generous set of accessories, for which you normally pay handsome extra with many other car manufacturers. My stint in the five-year-old turbodiesel proved my assumptions and expectations true.
Skoda Superb 2.0 TDI is a great choice for a beefy family car. Its interior dimensions and luggage capacity are in a class of its own, it rides well, and it's fairly frugal, too. The engine won't tax your pocket, and you should expect decent reliability, too. All in all, it's a solid, humble, multipurpose car with a touch of everything. Some poshness if you're feeling executive, some speed if you like a bit of excitement, sensibility for everything in between, and good value for money. Should I ever have to do another one-day 1,000km trip, I will happily do it in a Superb again. Thus endeth this somewhat short review. Hopefully you got your answers. As to the final score, I would say 9/10, maybe even 9.5/10. And we're done. Vroom away.
Cheers.