Mum’s the word: Skoda Kodiaq 2.0 TDI car review

Just the thing for the urban jungle.

On-roader: the Kodiaq is a seven-seat school-run special.

The people of Kodiak – an Alaskan fishing port full of rugged types in checked shirts and jeans – will not be pleased that the name of their town has been stuck on the back of a Skoda people carrier. Actually, to avoid any legal unpleasantness, Skoda has changed the final “k” to a “q”, but the message is clear: this is a car for the great outdoors. It’s for the sort of people who know what to do when confronted by a bear. Not like you and me, who’d stand there thinking, “I know I should run if it’s a grizzly, and stand my ground if it isn’t… or is it the other way round? And what sort of bear is that anyway? And how does this gun work?”

Of course, a name on its own is not enough. You can call your son Astroflash Butch, but it’s going to be no good if he grows up to have a concave chest and arms like pipe cleaners. This is a problem for Skoda, because we all know that behind the butch name this car is just a stretched Volkswagen Golf on stilts. We know it’s a seven-seat school-run special. We know it’s as suburban as pampas grass and prosecco. It’s a Volvo XC90 for a woman whose second-hand clothes business is not going quite as well as she’d hoped.

In a further attempt to fool people, Skoda has fitted a little button on the centre console that says “Off road”. This makes your passengers think you were once in the special forces, or at least that you know how to gut a rabbit. You have a Kodiaq. And that little button says it can go over the Andes.

First of all, though, you have to pull away from the lights, and that’s not easy in the diesel version I was driving because to make sure the engine doesn’t kill any sea otters, and that it sits well inside the post-Dieselgate parameters of what is acceptable, the computer has been given a set of algorithms, and power is only ever a last resort.

Sensors take note of the tyres’ air pressure, the incline of the road, the temperature, the selected gear and the throttle position – and then the computer decides that, no, continuing to sit there is by far the best option for the planet. So you mash your foot into the floor, which causes the sensors to think, “OK, he really wants to move, so I’ll select seventh gear, which means it’s all done nice and slowly and with minimal damage to Mother Nature.”

Happily, the European Union has decided that diesels are the work of Satan, which means taxes for such cars will rocket. Which means in turn that if Europeans choose to buy a Kodiaq, they’ll get one with a petrol engine. Good idea. At least it’ll move occasionally.

Unless your foot slips off the throttle. I’m not quite sure how, or why, this has been achieved, but you drive a Kodiaq while sitting in the same position you’d adopt at a piano. And unless you have very long feet, your toes won’t quite reach the throttle.

Apart from that, all is well on the inside. Well, nearly all is well. My test car had been fitted with an optional glass sunroof, which would be ideal for someone who wanted to waste a thousand quid. I thought sunroofs had been consigned to the history books, and this one serves as a reminder of why that should be so. Because when you open it, you get no air, and no sense of being outside; just a lot of extra noise.

The Volkswagen infotainment/satnav control module worked brilliantly, though, and the comfort around town was nice. This is not a car that’s fazed by speed bumps.

At higher speed? I’m not sure, because every time I put my foot down the computer did some maths and reckoned acceleration wasn’t climatically wise. What I can tell you is that if your foot doesn’t fall off the pedal and you accelerate very gently, it’ll reach 110km/h on the motorway, where all is extremely quiet.

Handling? It’s no good, but that’s OK. If you wanted a car that went round corners well, you’d buy a Golf, not a Golf on stilts. No, the reason you buy a Kodiaq is because tucked away into the floor of the boot are two seats that can be used to carry very small people over very short distances. But not, at the same time, a dog.

At the weekend I went to my farm in the test car, as I had a number of manly jobs to do, such as padlocking the gates to stop local ruffians riding around the fields on motorcycles. The weather was extremely fine, the ground was rock hard and in no way resembled the permanently wet and often icy conditions of Alaska. But after just a few metres the Skoda was stuck. And that’s OK too, because if you want a farm vehicle, buy a quad bike.

I like the idea of Skoda. It’s a way of buying a new Volkswagen for less. And there is no question the company makes some good cars. The Yeti is fabulous, and the Kodiaq’s not bad either. It’s pretending to be something it isn’t, of course, with its “Off road” button and its diamond prospector name, but when you look at it as a sensible, seven-seat school-run car, it makes a deal of sense. Just don’t buy the stupid diesel version.

We all know that behind the butch name this car is just a stretched Volkswagen Golf on stilts.

FAST FACTS SKODA KODIAQ 2.0 TDI

ENGINE: 2.0-litre turbodiesel (140kW/400Nm)

AVERAGE FUEL: 4.7 litres per 100km

TRANSMISSION: Seven-speed automatic, all-wheel drive

PRICE: From $46,290; available in Australia in June

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars