Skoda Kodiaq RS 4x4 review: flick the switch from highway hell to heaven

The RS badge turns Skoda’s quirky Kodiaq into something you don’t see every day: an oversized hot hatch with seating for seven.

On the road: the Skoda Kodiaq RS 4X4

My favourite bumper sticker ever is: “The lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math”, and it reminds me that there are some calculations you should strenuously avoid.

Unfortunately, due to a surfeit of stifling boredom, I have worked out, while sitting on it, that I’ve spent several entire weeks of my life driving my least favourite road in the world, the Ho Hume Highway between Sydney and Canberra. I’ve been trawling this dull drudge for more than 30 years, with inexcusable and frankly inexplicable regularity, and as each return trip is six hours, it takes just four of them to wipe out an entire day of my life.

Despite the fact that large parts of this road are wider, straighter and better kept than your average German autobahn, where I could legally sit on 180km/h and knock an hour off the trip, and despite increases in safety technologies, the speed limit remains as dangerously boring as the road itself. Even Dante’s Inferno has bends in it.

From the rear

The ultimate test for any vehicle, then, is to improve my mood on this highway from a dangerous mumble of murderous rage against all the drivers sitting in the right-hand lane doing 105km/h to something even approaching happiness. I must admit, I didn’t like the chances of the Skoda Kodiaq, at first, as I was less than enamoured with its bulky shape, a front end that looks like it’s wearing braces and wheels that appear to have been designed by Moulinex (I like to picture a puffing chef running alongside me, throwing carrots into the spinning hub caps).

Fortunately, the RS 4x4 version I’d borrowed was far more pleasant and entertaining inside, starting with its enormous, racy seats, which baffled even my 10-year-old daughter, who thought I’d stolen them from another car to mess with her mind. I must admit they look a bit like Jason Recliners parked at a restaurant dining table.

The driver’s display

The RS badge turns the capacious, practical and quirky Kodiaq SUV into something you don’t see every day, an oversized hot hatch with seating for seven. Powered by a 2.0-litre turbo making 180kW and 370Nm, this Skoda is all huffing noise and puffy shoulders; it snorts and bites at the road in front of it, at least in Sport mode. What made me love it, however, was how completely its personality changed once I’d flicked the touchscreen switch to Comfort mode.

The silence and stillness fell upon the interior instantly, and the ride quality went from rude to

polite just as quickly. Rather than wanting to shift gears every few nanoseconds, the gearbox calmed down and used the torque to make my life easy; I even had time to notice how pleasant the steering wheel feels in your hands, and the general sense of space around the cabin. Most vitally, I could just sit back in my enormous, wide and soft seat and enjoy a few hours of a podcast series about the end of democracy and the western world in general. Sigh. Good times.

That was, until the Skoda’s touchscreen decided to shut me out in some strange temper tantrum, so much so that I couldn’t answer the phone, find a less alarming podcast or switch back to Sport mode when I approached the only three corners on the whole damn drive, just outside Goulburn.

That kind of technological knockout can cast a pall over a car for me, but I can happily report that it only happened once and I was still feeling so beatifically calm in the Skoda’s cabin – and then so amused by its sporty pretensions when I finally reached the more interesting roads out the back side of Canberra – that I forgave it all.

The smart umbrella holder

I must admit I was also much amused, as always, by the unusual Skoda-specific features, such as the lovely comfort blanket in a nice little pouch attached to the rear seats, and the umbrella hidden in the driver’s door (you can even jam it in there wet and the water cleverly drains outside the vehicle). Why no one else has thought to copy one of Rolls-Royce’s clever ideas before is beyond me.

On the downside, I’m not sure I got too close to Skoda’s claimed 7.5 litres per 100km fuel-economy figure for the Kodiaq; as ridiculously expensive as it is to fill up a car these days, I was more moved to ponder the price of this seven-seater. On the one hand, the base model (which I also drove briefly, and which didn’t make me very happy at all) seems a bargain at $52,990 driveway, but the RS 4x4 is a wallet-stretch at $74,990.

For that much, I could buy quite a few return flights to Canberra, and some of my life back.

Skoda Kodiaq RS 4x4

ENGINE: 2.0-litre turbo (180kW/ 370Nm). Average fuel 7.5 litres per 100km (claimed)

TRANSMISSION: 7-speed dual-clutch automatic, all-wheel drive

PRICE: $74,990

RATING; 3.5 out of 5