1.4 TSI 150ps SE L 7SEAT DSG 4X4 5dr SUV

Nice car but underpowered and shockingly bad MPG

The Kodiaq is a practical family car, without being a people-carrier type 'bus'; that is not in dispute. We've had it 13,000 miles and one year, and with its 7 seats, it's been ideal for a family of 5; 'divide and rule' across two rows of seats has worked well with our kids.
Everything else works fine, it has a nice commanding driving position, is comfortable, has good features and it handles well.
But in this 1.4 TSI 150 BHP petrol version it is underpowered and delivers a very poor overall MPG of 30-31; for us, that is not being driven hard on a daily cross country commute of 45 miles round-trip. So I would expect a lot more than this. Even on long motoway journeys it only delivers 32-35, again not being driven hard. Drive it with any kind of pressure on the right foot or at above 70-75 mph and it drops down to 28-31 mpg. This engine version is high revving, doesn't pull well for a big car and needs working to get the car going, so it's actually really difficult to drive the car economically, especially if carrying a load or more than 2/3 people.
The offical overall MPG is 44.9 for this model and I acknowledge those are 'lab' figures, which don't reflect the real world, but we've never got anywhere near that and constanty average some 25-30% below. Not good enough and make the car very expensive to run.
Niggles - (1) all 4 of the black plastic pop-out door protectors have stopped working at some point and they catch every time you close the door and rattle when they're retracted. (2) The rear seats are tiny and only suitbale for kids under 7/8. With both rear sets up, the boot is only big enough for a couple of shopping bags at the most. (3) Isofix seat fixing covers come lose all the time, take them off and store them safely somewhere.
Verdict - do your maths very carefully before buying the 1.4 TSI 150 petrol model, as MPG is poor and therefore fuel costs are high. We concluded it was not worth keeping long term due to the very poor petrol consumption, wish we'd stumped up the extra and bought a TDI with the extra power, torque and better MPG. Traded the car in at 1 year and went for something that did 50-55mpg.

Report as offensive