2021 Skoda Karoq review It's like a VW T-Roc, but better.
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TechTranscript
00:00G'day, I'm Paul. So I reckon Skodas are completely underrated and this one here
00:04It's a it's a sort of new one. It sits underneath the Kodiaq. It's called the Kurok
00:09They're all weird names. There's a Kamiq as well. Anyway, this one here is a mid-sized
00:14SUV and this is the top spec variant. It's called the Kurok 140 TSI
00:19It's priced at just under
00:21$40,000 and it competes with things like the CX-30, the T-Roc, another strange sounding one, and the Seltos as well. Today
00:28We're going to do a detailed review of the Skoda Kurok. If you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review
00:33You can use the time codes up on the screen there
00:35Or if you're on YouTube just scroll down and use the chapters below and if you haven't done so already
00:39I'd love it
00:40If you could hit subscribe and press the bell icon because that's going to tell you every single time we drive a very very red
00:45car
00:46So let's talk exterior. You've got seven exterior colors to choose from and all but gray is
00:53$770 with this red being $1,100. I'm liking this design
00:57I think it just, I don't know, it looks nice and sporty and I think the buyers in this segment
01:02Especially those that are competing with things like CX-30, T-Roc, you've got a sporty looking SUV
01:07That still has room inside and I love the fact that they've gone to town with these black highlights
01:10Which really nicely offset that red color. The red really makes this pop beautifully and then down the bottom there
01:16You've got little protectors that stick out on the side. Okay over here
01:19You have full LED headlights with LED daytime running lights. You've got a fog light down there as well. Around the side
01:26We have 19 inch alloy wheels. I quite like this design as well
01:30It follows the trend that we've seen in a lot of new cars these days
01:33Which is chromey look on the outside and then a darker look on the inside and then you have these nice and sporty looking
01:40Low-profile tires as well. Skodas tend to ride really nicely here in Australia
01:44So I'll be keen to see whether this follows the same trend. This just has standard suspension, but you can get adaptive dampers
01:50So we'll see if that makes any difference to the ride. Sportline here because this is the 140 TSI Sportline
01:55That's what has all those little bits and pieces added onto it
01:58You have a black wing mirror there with indicator built-in, privacy glass, roof rails and come around to the rear
02:04You've got these LED taillights built into here. These look really cool at night time
02:09They make the car stand out nicely. A 4x4 badge because the 140 TSI model is
02:13All-wheel drive and more black Skoda badging along the back there with Kurok as well
02:18So I think it is a pretty neat looking SUV
02:21Just sits in nicely on the road and doesn't look too big or gargantuan. Okay, so we are inside the Skoda
02:27Let's start with the key. Here it is here. You've got lock, unlock, boot and
02:32Although it is a flip out key. This is a proximity sensing key
02:37So you just leave that in your pocket grab the door handle and then there's a push button start attached to the steering wheel
02:43Now what about styling? Look, I think it's fairly simple. It is just a little bit bland in terms of all the darkness
02:49It's all just black, black, piano black and then this little Sportline badge here
02:54But I think for the most part it could have done with a little bit of color just to jazz it up a bit
02:59So maybe Skoda will do something about that in the future. But in terms of the materials themselves, this feels really nice
03:04It's a big step up from the T-Roc which feels very plasticky inside and even down to the touch points here
03:09They're all nice and soft as well. How soft are they? Well, we've got our durometer
03:14We've tested the main surfaces in this car
03:16So if you want to see how it compares to other cars that we've tested before just use the link in the description below
03:20Now, what about build quality? Yeah, that feels really really solid and it's fantastic
03:26Moving on to infotainment now
03:29This is a little bit confusing because this car has the optional tech package, which is $4,200
03:34So if you are buying it just check to see which car you're looking at because some of the things I'm about to talk about may
03:39Not be standard. So 9.2 inch infotainment screen
03:43We've already done a detailed review of this if you want to watch that click up here
03:46So today I'll just give you a brief overview of the functions and features. Now it has a proximity feature
03:52So as you bring your finger to it, you can see extra context menus come up, has satellite navigation built into it
03:59You also have AM, FM, DAB plus digital radio and in terms of smartphone mirroring
04:04You have both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. I'll show you what Android Auto looks like to start with. Massive full-screen integration
04:11It is really nice and sharp and fast as well
04:14So very impressive and let's have a look at Apple CarPlay. Now the full-screen integration that is extremely sharp
04:22Yeah, I like that. That is very very good
04:24The infotainment system itself is actually super easy to use, quite intuitive and then you can follow it up with voice recognition
04:31Which forwards commands through to your phone as well
04:33Helps processing when it's done through the cloud when you have smartphone mirroring set up
04:37Now there's also a screen ahead of the driver
04:40I quite like this because it's super high resolution, nice and sharp
04:43And then you've got a stack of different views that you can choose from as well. I mean, you just don't expect this on
04:50kind of a
04:51I'm not gonna say entry-level small SUV
04:54But this isn't a high-end sports car or something and you're already getting all of this really cool technology here
04:59So very impressive and I love the fact that this is
05:03Available on the Skoda. Moving on you get a 10 speaker
05:06Canton branded sound system with this particular specification. Then on top of that in terms of connectivity
05:12You have one USB port down here, which is for your smartphone mirroring, a 12-volt outlet and a wireless phone charger as well
05:18Okay, what about safety? You have autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian detection, works in reverse as well
05:24You also have radar cruise control
05:26But the curious thing is blind spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert and a lane keeping assistant are all part of an additional package
05:33That'll cost you another $2,700. I would have thought blind spot monitoring would be
05:37Standard on a car at this level. Now in terms of parking you have rear parking sensors and a reverse view camera
05:43Let's have a look at that. Quality of that's not too bad. You've got the guidelines there as well
05:47Now the interesting thing is because this has the package that I mentioned earlier
05:51You also get front parking sensors and also a semi-automatic parking feature
05:56Now keep in mind if you don't know how any of this stuff works
05:58We've actually filmed a video on parking technology and a bit of a deep dive on how this technology works
06:04You can watch that by clicking up here. Okay moving on to practicality and we'll start with storage. We'll get rid of that now coffee cups
06:11This car fortunately has a stack of storage options
06:14So you're going to have plenty of room for your coffee cups and also your bottles
06:19So you can easily fit those in there and then inside the door
06:21You've got room for a big bottle plus smaller bottle and there's a little bin in there as well, which is super cute
06:27But I love these clever features
06:29So you can basically get rid of this entirely if you want to transform the space
06:33You can have an elevated platform as well if you turn it around the other way
06:37So there are some really clever features in here. I'll pop that back. It's actually a bit like a tetris puzzle
06:44That goes back there. That means you have a decent size center console there
06:48This slides forwards and backwards and then you can also set it to certain positions, which is cool
06:53You've got a storage slot down here for your phone for that wireless phone charging
06:57You have a decent size glove box. That's where you'll find a cd player sd card reader a sim card slot
07:03It's also air conditioned too and easily fits your water bottle plus other bits and pieces
07:08You have sunglasses holder up the top here
07:10And finally you have a little cubby hole down next to your foot for things like garage remotes keys and so on
07:15Now moving on to comfort you have dual zone automatic climate control you've got heated seats for the first row
07:22In terms of the seats themselves, they are cloth, but I love the design
07:26It's got this checkered pattern and actually diamond finish pattern and they hug you in nicely and they look super sporty as well
07:33And in terms of comfort, they feel really nice, too
07:36The seating position is actually a little bit elevated like it's not super high suv, but it's elevated enough
07:41The seats are fully manually adjustable for the driver and front passenger steering wheel is really nice flat bottom sits nicely in the hand
07:48So you've got pedal shifters there and all this stuff is really easy to reach
07:52Righto, we're in the back seat of the caroc. There's actually a really surprising amount of room back here
07:57So i've got heaps of knee room with this seat fairly far back
08:01loads and loads of toe room and headroom is excellent as well the proportions of this mean that
08:07You have accommodation here for adults for days, which is good that pattern on the seats continues here
08:13Isofix on the two outboard seats and then over here you have a center armrest with three cupholders
08:19I'll show you how those work pretty straightforward and then you've also got cup holders
08:23Inside the doors. The other interesting thing is behind this center armrest is a ski port to the rear
08:29So you can get easy access if you need to also got mat pockets in the back of these seats air vents
08:35A 12 volt outlet and then with that option package I mentioned earlier you get headed seats for the two outboard seats as well
08:40But yeah overall a really nice space in the back here. Okay. What about cargo space? Let's open this up
08:47So power tailgate
08:50You have just over 500 litres available here i'll run you through some of the nifty features
08:55But first let's have a look under the floor
08:56This is just a carpet that sits on top under here
08:59you have a space saver spare tire a jack and then a couple of
09:03Sections around the side there for storing things
09:06Look at this
09:07Lots of netting around here to keep things nice and secure and you can adjust that as you go as well if you need to
09:12Move the space around off to the side. You have a little torch which is pretty cool and that charges
09:18You've got a 12 volt outlet. I love these they're hooks that sit on the side, but you can easily move them
09:24To the exact position you want them in so a lot of clever features like that and then storage off to the sides as well
09:30Along with this clever storage up the top
09:32So a little over 500 litres means you can easily fit your bags and luggage in here without any dramas
09:39and then
09:41Pull these back out
09:42I'll show you how this works so you can get rid of this fairly easily
09:48You just unclip at both ends
09:50Once you've done that this space here increases to
09:55just over
09:571600 litres
09:59with a fairly flat load floor
10:03Okay, so the Skoda Kurok what is powering this little beast so it is a two litre turbocharged
10:09four-cylinder petrol engine it makes 140 kilowatts of power and
10:13320 newton meters of torque and those observant of you will notice that is why they call it the 140
10:18Tsi because it is how much power it makes
10:21That's all made into a seven speed dual clutch gearbox
10:24And if you watch a lot of my reviews, you'll notice that this is the point where I start telling you how bad dual clutch
10:30Gearboxes are surprisingly the one in this is actually pretty impressive
10:34I think volkswagen has been doing dual clutch gearboxes for such a long time now that
10:38They've kind of finally got the formula right and the gearbox in this car really suits it
10:42So it's nice and sporty when it needs to be but then it's also not fussy at low speeds
10:47Which tends to affect a lot of dual clutch gearboxes now in terms of the drive it's on demand four-wheel drive system
10:52So it means predominantly it's going to be a front-wheel drive car
10:55But when the front axle loses traction it sends torque to the rear as well
10:59Now let's talk about the engine. So we're just in the standard drive mode here. Give it a little punch
11:05The gearbox isn't too crazy. It won't dive back through three or four gears
11:09It simply leans on the torque band and from around 2000 rpm. It's actually quite a confident torque band
11:14Just a nice little push in the back and it feels like it has enough get up and go
11:19Let's talk fuel economy. So 6.9 liters per 100 kilometers is the official combined figure
11:25And if you have a look at the screen there 9.5
11:27So we're a fair way off that and even if you cycle through the long-term average
11:32Which is over a much longer duration of driving. It's at 10.3
11:36So still a long way off the official claim for the fuel economy. Let's talk drive mode
11:41So you push this button down here and it lets you pick the different drive modes and you've got stacks of them eco comfort
11:47Normal sport individual snow and then you have an off-road mode as well
11:50So normal is just normal you get soft steering and all that kind of stuff sport on the other hand
11:54I literally instantly felt the steering get heavy there. It puts the gearbox into sport mode
12:00Makes the throttle really sharp as well
12:03A little bark from the exhaust
12:04We're actually getting some fake noise by the sounds of it coming into the cabin because it's definitely not making that noise on the outside
12:11Dipping into this corner
12:13It's actually really impressive. Tell you what though. I will say about the noise that it makes
12:19It is actually pretty cool when you think about the target demographic of this car
12:23It actually makes it sound a whole lot quicker than it is
12:26and the engine's actually really punching like in sport mode the two litre just
12:30Gives you that extra little bit of confidence above the smaller engines in this segment and it just feels really sporty behind the wheel
12:38We're still in sport mode skoda claims a 0 to 100 times 7.3 seconds. Let's see how it goes
12:54Okay
12:55Let's talk road noise. Um
12:57I don't know. It's interesting because it it's not that good. There's a fair bit of tire noise coming in
13:02You don't get a whole lot of wind noise, but you hear the tires communicating everything through the cabin
13:06So it means when you're on a course chip country road like this and you're doing highway speeds
13:11But it can get a little bit noisy and droney inside the cabin
13:14And really this continues what I often talk about in terms of the test drive
13:18Make sure you do a 24 hour test drive and drive on roads that you would expect to drive on if you never drive
13:23On highways, it's not the end of the world
13:24But if you're on highways each day or do long commutes it is worth always checking to see whether
13:30There is too much road noise for your liking
13:32Now let's talk about right earlier on I mentioned that you can get adaptive dampers, but this car doesn't have that option
13:39To be honest, it really doesn't need them. The ride is is very impressive. It's not firm. It's not sporty
13:46It's not too comfortable. It's just on that sort of edge of
13:50Sporty comfortable and I think that's just where you need to be with a car like this. It looks sporty
13:55So make it feel sporty behind the wheel. I don't think they've lost any of that
13:58You have 164 millimeters of ground clearance
14:01So you're not going to be doing any off-road driving
14:02But you do have an off-road mode and this mode allows the car to vary the stability control and allow it to brake better
14:09In off-road situations. In fact, we did demonstrate this when we reviewed the Volkswagen Amarok
14:14So if you want to see how that works, you can click up here, but for the most part
14:17It's not an off-road vehicle, but you probably could drive down a gravel road to a campsite or something like that
14:22Okay, let's talk visibility
14:24It's really nothing to talk about visibility is excellent
14:27So I can see clearly out the front window there
14:29I can kind of see where the bonnet comes down which means visibility to the front of the car is good
14:33Visibility out the rear is okay. It's quite a narrow envelope
14:36So it's a little tricky to see out of but you get pretty decent size wing mirrors
14:40It is just disappointing that you don't get blind spot monitoring. You need to spend extra money for that
14:45Okay, so Skoda Karoq. I mentioned in the intro that these are highly underrated and I absolutely stand by that
14:51You get so much technology so many features and a really roomy interior with a big boot and you don't get that with a lot of
15:00Smaller SUVs in this segment. So I still think these are underrated and it's got a really nice punchy engine as well
15:05So take one for a test drive
15:07If you do want to buy an SUV in that small segment and do let me know in the comments section below
15:12Do you own a Skoda? What's it like as a long-term proposition? A Skoda dealer is good to deal with?
15:17I want to know why we don't see more Skodas on the road in Australia
15:20Now if you did enjoy this video
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