Living with a Skoda Superb is great, but not perfect – here are five annoying things about this cavernous car

This is our Skoda Superb – a hugely spacious family hatchback with an economical diesel engine. It’s been a great companion over the last six months, and you can check out five things we love about this car in the previous report.

However, there are a few annoying quirks which have become annoying during our time with the car, and here are five examples.

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1. Temperamental auto hold
2. Overly cautious emergency braking
3. The rear tablet holder
4. Glitchy cameras
5. An issue with the spec

1. Temperamental auto hold

Our Skoda Superb has a knack for switching off the auto hold function, which holds the brakes on when you’re in stop-start traffic, at the moment you need it most. There have been a few times in heavy traffic that the car has rolled back when you lift off the brake pedal, and while it hasn’t led to any mishaps it has led to some increased heart rates at times.

2. Overly cautious emergency braking

Another tech foible we’ve noticed in the Superb is actually shared with our Volkswagen ID7, and it’s the automatic emergency braking. Specifically, this happens in both cars when you’re manoeuvring or parking at slow speeds – it detects obstacles which aren’t really there and slams the brakes on. The jolt is so massive that it makes you think you have hit something.

3. The rear tablet holder

There’s a tablet holder attached to the headrest for rear seat passengers, and while it’s nice for them to use on the move it creates an awful rattle if you forget to put it away. For a while we thought something in the car had fallen off, so just make sure you remember to close the mount when it’s not in use.

4. Glitchy cameras

There are moments when the rear-view camera takes a bit too long to come up when you’re reversing, and on the odd occasion it hasn’t popped up at all. It’s a pain when this happens in a car as long as the Superb, but at least rear visibility is good enough to manage without.

5. An issue with the spec

The last gripe we have is one of our own doing. When speccing this car we went with the optional 19-inch alloy wheels, which means it’s not quite as smooth over bumps as it could be. It’s still a supremely comfortable cruiser, but the added tyre sidewall you get with the standard 18-inch wheels make it that little bit more refined. Still, the 19-inch rims do look better so it depends on your priorities really.

Living with a Skoda Superb: 5 things we love about this big diesel cruiser

So that’s a collection of small gripes out of the way – now it;s time for five reasons we love the Skoda Superb.

Five good things about the Skoda Superb

1. Multifunction knobs
2. ‘Simply Clever’ features
3. Huge fuel range
4. Cavernous practicality
5. Super-comfortable seats

Multi-function knobs

So many new models bury the climate controls in the infotainment screen, including Skoda’s electric cars. The Superb however sticks with old-fashioned knobs and buttons, and they’re quite clever.

You get a little display in the middle of each one, and you can press the dial to change its function. You can easily toggle between the fan speed, heated and cooled seats and the driving mode.

Simply Clever features

Any Skoda fans out there will be similar with the brand’s “Simply Clever” features. The ice scraper in the fuel door and the built-in funnel for the screen wash are both commonplace on new Skoda models, but the Superb has one which we’re particularly keen on.

The hammock in the boot has been really useful. The boot on this car is so vast that single shopping bags can fly around in the corners, but the hammock keeps them in place. It’s really good for containing smaller items.

Huge fuel range

When you brim the Superb’s tank, it shows close to 700 miles of range. This is really reassuring in a world of electric cars which do less than 300 miles on a charge, and it makes it a great long-distance car.

We used our Superb as a camera tacking vehicle on one of our recent EV range tests. It followed all of the cars until they ran out of charge, and then ferried Mat home again on a single tank.

Cavernous practicality

You can forget SUVs, the Skoda Superb is one of the most practical family cars around. The boot capacity is 645 litres, making it 25 litres bigger than a Hyundai Tucson’s and it even outshines the massive Kia Sorento.

The rear seats offer limousine levels of legroom as well, and there’s a clever headrest with wings which can flip forward to lean on if you want to take a nap.

Super-comfortable seats

The Superb’s seats are, well, superb. You get comfort chairs with a massage function as standard, and they’re lovely to sink into after a long day of filming drag races. They’re really supportive as well, so you can do long journeys without a hint of backache.

Third report: Driving the Skoda Superb

Diesel engines are dying. Sales of cars with oil-burners are plummeting month by month, and by 2030 almost all new cars with diesel engines will be banned, with the exception of a few plug-in hybrid Mercedes.

*Prices correct at the time of writing

But is there still a place for this old-school fuel in 2025? Well after 5,000 miles with our long-term Skoda Superb, we certainly think so.

We predominantly use this Carwow Award-winner for long slogs on motorways and major A-roads, and it’s averaging 49.5mpg. That’s not only super impressive for this enormous 1.8-tonne family car, it’s actually almost 2mpg more than Skoda claims.

It also means that the Superb will do close to 700 miles on a single tank, which is really reassuring on long trips. We recently used the Superb as a camera tracking car on an electric car range test where we drove the Tesla Model S until it died. While the Tesla did around 300 miles before conking out, the Superb managed to follow it all the way and then do the entire journey home without a single fill up.

And the Superb was the perfect car to do this journey in as well, because it’s an excellent cruiser. The seats are fabulous, there’s very little wind noise and it glides over bumps. There’s not a lot of fun to be had, but the four-wheel drive system means it remains planted in harsh weather conditions.

With 193hp on tap there’s also plenty of grunt for overtaking, however the gearbox can be frustrating at times. It’s quite laggy when you put your foot down at junctions or to nip past something – we keep it in sport mode a lot of the time to try and get around this.

Small gripes aside though, the Skoda Superb has been an excellent companion on long journeys – it really makes a compelling case for the good old-fashioned diesel engine.

First report: an introduction to our new hatchback

The Skoda Superb is one of those cars that’s more than the sum of its parts. Even though it’s really the poorer relation to the Volkswagen Passat – sharing its oily bits with the posher Volkswagen – the Superb stands out thanks to its cavernous interior and clever features. Combined with a comfortable ride, great value and even discreet good looks, it’s such a complete package that we named it the best ‘Comfortable Cruiser’ in the 2025 Carwow Car of the Year Awards.

Getting more hands-on time with a Carwow award-winner is always great, and we’ve lucked out here because we’ve got the keys to this Superb for a few months. It’ll spend its time heading up and down the country to video shoots and press events, so the ‘Comfortable Cruiser’ aspect is one we’ll have plenty of time to assess.

And we’re not doing it in a bargain-basement model, either. The Superb we have here is top of the range – it’s the most powerful diesel engine in the top-end Laurin & Klement trim (named after Skoda’s founders).

Under the bonnet sits a 2.0-litre diesel engine with 193hp. Paired up to four-wheel drive and a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox, it’s good for 0-62mph in a brisk 7.5s and a top speed of 147mph – good to know in case we take it on any autobahn runs.

Better yet, being a diesel, it’s supposed to do up to 48mpg – but our experience with previous diesel Skodas suggests that we might see even higher than this on a long motorway drive. We’ll monitor economy closely and let you know what we’re achieving in the real world in later reports.

It’s decked out in classy Midnight Black metallic paint with silver wheels – a real funeral spec, but the ‘Cognac’ (brown to you and me) leather interior gives the inside a lift. So too does all the equipment on offer. There are all-round heated seats, Matrix LED headlights, three-zone climate control, two wireless smartphone charging pads, electric seat adjustment and all the safety kit anyone could want.

The Superb’s also packed with ‘Simply Clever’ features, such as a built-in screen cleaner, wings on the rear headrests to allow passengers to sleep, and the classic umbrellas built into the front doors.

There’s certainly a lot to like about this car, and we’ll be testing it very thoroughly over the next few months. Check back on this page to see how we get on, and remember to follow Carwow’s social media channels if you aren’t already, as we’ll be posting about ‘our’ Superb on there too.

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