[harshakodli]

Congratulations on the Kushaq!
Beautiful pictures. Equal credit to the Skoda designers and the photographer in you. Very well written review.
A very balanced review without any bias, highlights the smaller but pertinent issues like door seals and arm rest etc.
And Thank you for simplifying the 1.0 vs 1.5 decision-making.
Happy Driving!

[rideon74]

Originally Posted by harshakodli

Congratulations on the Kushaq!
Beautiful pictures. Equal credit to the Skoda designers and the photographer in you. Very well written review.
A very balanced review without any bias, highlights the smaller but pertinent issues like door seals and arm rest etc.
And Thank you for simplifying the 1.0 vs 1.5 decision-making.
Happy Driving!

Thanks for reading through! The thing with the German/Euro design styling is that one eventually is smitten by their attention to details. And I tried my best to lose the coloured vision and bring out the good + the bad for any future buyers. Glad it helped! Cheers & looking forward to reading about your decision/buying experience soon.

[rideon74]

Beeps, dings & XDS | A minor coding job

Silence please!

I've clocked just over 3k on the odo till date and the baby Skoda has been a joy to own. Brilliant drive dynamics and a definite head turner when on the road.

A few factory settings were spoiling the fun though. Predominantly, it was the speed warnings: the one-off 80kmph ding and the persistent +120kmph dings. With my usage being 70% highway runs, this was not something I could live with.

There was also the matter of a triple ding notification which seemed to coincide with the gear shift recommendation on the MID. This was a more pressing issue that had to be resolved - it dinged at every 'recommended' gear shift.

What was worse was that the pesky notification sound would mute the music momentarily when it came on. Major bummer. However, this irritant has been sorted out after the uninstallation of the Sygic app. Many thanks to the BHP-ians who figured it out and posted about this on the official review thread.

Back to the coding job...

An interesting find

About a month ago, I'd come across Ram G. Kulkarni's post on the official Kushaq review thread about the minor coding job completed on his Kushaq.

His post is here:

ramgkulkarni's post on the official Kushaq review thread (Skoda Kushaq Review)

Reassured by his positive feedback, I decided to take the plunge too.

The entire process was handled very professionally and the actual time taken for the coding was not more than 15-20 minutes.

The tweaks successfully completed:

1. Remove the 80 kmph speed alarm
2. Remove the 120 kmph speed alarm
3. Improve torque vectoring with XDS
4. Improve steering feel with dynamic mode
5. Increase lane change clicks to 5 times

The unsuccessful ones:

6. Improve brake assist
7. Enable door lock/ unlock confirmation sound

I'll get back to the these two misses later...

[rideon74]

Torque vectoring with XDS? Wassat?

Everything on the list was easy to figure out except for the 'torque vectoring with XDS' feature. Googled it and here's what I got from the www.carwow.co.uk website

"Put simply, it’s a computer-controlled system to distribute an engine’s power across the left and right sides of a car. By controlling the power across the axle more effectively, the car is able to corner with more grip and turn into a bend quicker.

With torque vectoring through braking (known as XDS in Volkswagen Group cars), the system brakes the inside wheel during a turn.

On the road, a car equipped with torque vectoring should feel more secure and stable at speed, especially through corners. You should also notice that the front of the car is more willing to pull itself into a corner or ‘turn in’ more effectively before the front wheels begin to understeer (lose grip)."

Right. Me want!

[rideon74]

Leave it to the pros

Bhandari's procedure was simple:

1. A OBD cable was sent across. Sent it back to him after the job was done.

2. Three apps were mailed by him and these needed to be installed on my personal laptop.



3. The time to get the job done was mutually decided upon.

4. A TeamViewer link was shared with him inorder to remotely execute the tasks.

5. Step by step guidance was received via whatsapp.






(He meant turned on the brake assist actually)

6. Sat back & waited as Bhandari took over and approx. 5 minutes later, the coding part was over.



When everything was done, Bhandari gave the go ahead to check out the changes. I must admit that there was a moment of hesitation - I've never had coding of any sort done on my previous cars - so with mild trepidation I gently pressed the engine start button.

With a sweep of the odo and tacho needles the baby Skoda's 1.0L mill came alive and settled to that familiar thrum. No boom, bang or spluttering. Phew...all iz well. But wait a minute! A sweeeep?!? Whoa! That wasn't on the list....Nice! Very nice! (Serves no purpose whatsoever but hey, that is one really cool feature to start a car with!)

The next thing to do was the test run. However, on that day I could do only a very short one nearby and with the evening traffic already on boil, I just couldn't get a feel of the changes. Bhandari was kind enough to allow a few days of testing before I was to courier the OBD cable back.

In the days that followed it was mostly city driving and yet, two immediate changes were noticed:

1. The super light steering feel had weighed up ever so slightly.

2. The throttling felt smoother in lower rpms alongwith a definite improvement in low end torque (the 1k-1.5k rpm range).

Of these two improvements, that tiny boost of the low end torque is super helpful while in city traffic. I mean, the engine struggled a bit whenever I was trying to maintain low rpms while in second gear - this lag is less pronounced now.

A tap on the turn indicator lever now gives five flashes while changing lanes - the factory default was three. This has become a go to feature for me now whenever I use the indicators for mild deviations from my drive path. Earlier, I'd always felt that the three clicks might go unnoticed by traffic behind and had avoided using it out of safety concerns.

On to the day of judgement...

[rideon74]

The report card


Look who's ready to roll...

The real test of the dynamic mode and XDS happened yesterday on my short drive from Coimbatore to Ottapalam, Kerala (approx. 90km). This route has a good mix of city traffic and highways.

Those who are familiar with this route also know that the best part is the state highway (SH62) taken from Palakkad to Ottapalam.

This is a well built, wide single-lane road that runs past small towns & glistening paddy fields, with gentle curves that climb over mild hills and swoop down the downhills - all of this through low traffic density at most hours of the day. And best of all - no speed cameras. A driving enthusiast's delight for sure.

So here's where I put the new avatar of my Kushaq to a good test and hoo boy! Things just got better. I did the stretch very early in the morning, so even though it's full of curves and climbs, I was able to maintain speeds about 80-100kmph mostly and I pushed hard into the curves whenever possible for a proper test.

The dynamic mode addition with the improved steering feel certainly felt better at good speeds. The XDS was working it's magic while gliding into the downhill curves and the smoother acceleration was very evident while coming out off the curved climbs.

Jeez! I was in love with the Kushaq's dynamics all over again.

[rideon74]

The two misses

The possibility of the brake assist function and the door lock/unlock confirmation sound not being successful had been mentioned to me before it was tried out.

The brake assist is a feature that's not really necessary on the Kushaq - with larger calipers and brake pads than its earlier VAG cousins like the Vento, the Kushaq's brakes have solid bite anyhow. After crossing around 2.5k on the odo, they've become quite progressive too. So an additional tweak in that department is not missed.

As for the lock/unlock confirmation sound, that's just an additional convenience of personal choice. I wasn't too bothered about not having this. I'm fine with the auto-closing OVRMs letting me know when the car's locked or unlocked.

A big thanks to Kulkarni for helping me out via DM with his super prompt replies.

And muchos gracias to DrCodeMyVW for making the whole coding process a breeze.

A thing of beauty...

I hadn't stopped during my morning test run to take any pics as my focus was on getting to know what was the effects of the coding. But I couldn't resist taking some when I had to pass by this road today evening.

[sbm]

A very nice and detailed review @Rideon74. Can you please describe the difference between the engine performance of Creta's 1.5NA and Kushaq's 1.0Turbo unit as you might have driven them both in succession.

[rideon74]

Originally Posted by sbm

A very nice and detailed review @Rideon74. Can you please describe the difference between the engine performance of Creta's 1.5NA and Kushaq's 1.0Turbo unit as you might have driven them both in succession.

Thanks for reading my review. I'm sorry but I can't help you with your query since I'd not taken any test drives of Hyundai or Kia vehicles. My personal preferences lay with the brands I'd mentioned in the first part of my review. I'm sure the same query posted in the official Skoda review thread might yield some responses. Cheers!

[Vid6639]

Originally Posted by rideon74

The dynamic mode addition with the improved steering feel certainly felt better at good speeds. The XDS was working it's magic while gliding into the downhill curves and the smoother acceleration was very evident while coming out off the curved climbs.

Jeez! I was in love with the Kushaq's dynamics all over again.

Just a note on the XDS. With the additional setting you have enabled do keep in mind that it will eat brake pads way quicker. The system will braking the inner wheel under power to help it turn but the downside is accelerated brake pad wear.

[rideon74]

Originally Posted by Vid6639

Just a note on the XDS. With the additional setting you have enabled do keep in mind that it will eat brake pads way quicker. The system will braking the inner wheel under power to help it turn but the downside is accelerated brake pad wear.

Yes, quite right. Thanks for highlighting this. The website article link I'd shared & other sources I'd read up had mentioned this point as well.

I looked at it from this perspective though: my work takes me to the curvy, hill roads of Nilgiris and Kerala predominantly - which I absolutely enjoy driving on. In which case, it made sense to get the XDS activated. At the cost of a bit of extra brake pad wear, curves can be carved safer. I had weighed in this factor before going ahead with this feature addition.

If I'm not mistaken, don't other VAG models like the Polo GTi or the T-Roc, for example have XDS as a default feature?

[Stribog]

Wonder what the effects of modding out speed limits are on insurance claims in case of an accident.

Anyone done some research on this? My guess is they they will use it to void it entirely.

[agambhandari]

Originally Posted by Stribog

Wonder what the effects of modding out speed limits are on insurance claims in case of an accident.

Anyone done some research on this? My guess is they they will use it to void it entirely.

The speed "limit" is obviously not messed with, only the alarm is. There is no way for the insurance guys to check that on any of the usual scans. And it makes hardly any sense because I don't think insurance companies impose a speed limit on validity of your insurance .

For what its worth, I for a fact know of 2 coded cars of different manufacturers which were successfully repaired under insurance. And No issues with warranty either. So it doesn't seem like something we need to worry about

The only easy way to check this warning is to drive the car at 80/120 and even then there is anyway a user defined alarm option in most cars. So use your imagination on what to leave it at

[Rocketscience]

These are some cool additions and i envy VW group cars for being so mod friendly, there is a huge list of high quality tweaks and mods on these cars which is unparalleled by other brands.

These are some easy and neat mods which i'am guessing should work really well, knowing past history of such mods in VAG cars.

It is unclear which modder guy you used but the one mentioned in Ram Kulkarni's post (the insta link), i had enquired something about Creta from him (my car doesn't come with speed senstive automatic lock) which i now understand he doesn't do and only apparently does VAG cars but his response was very cold and something that left a very bitter taste in my mouth.

I understand i wasn't his potential customer that day so no incentive for him to be cordial but i could have become one day or could have recommended to friends or family which obviously won't happen now.

[ramgkulkarni]

Originally Posted by rideon74

The two misses

A big thanks to Kulkarni for helping me out via DM with his super prompt replies.

Welcome to the club mate! I agree with you on the low end torque. I noticed the difference right after the coding. I initially thought that the turbo started kicking in at 1500 instead of 1750 but obviously I was wrong. However the low end feels much better and you can hold the car in second gear in dense traffic and on most speed breakers.

Coding has definitely made a big difference in the overall ownership experience. Here to many more happy mile munching