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3,000 km drive through 4 states in a Skoda Slavia

8th January 2024, 16:00 by Brij Gawde

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We travelled through Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerela.

BHPian AlokSharma recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

3000 kms - 15 days - Through 4 States

We recently did a long road trip down south through 4 states. It was me, my wife and our furry kid Rumi.

Summary

Total Distance : 3020 kms

Average Mileage : Approx 15.5-16 kmpl

Fuel - XP95 octane

The car was driven throughout the 3000 kms with me as a lone driver. We travelled through Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerela. Karnataka has the best of roads when it comes to quality with Tamil Nadu and Kerela coming next. Maharashtra has a lot to catch up to. Majority of the Pune-Bangalore highway is being revamped. The whole stretch from Satara to Belgaum has diversions in like every 2-3 kms.

The car is a pleasure to drive. I got to stretch its legs on the highway and boy oh boy it never disappoints you. The way it builds up speed is just amazing. The brakes are very confidence insipiring. It got tested to the 'T' on the ghats as well as on occaions where drivers were changing lanes of highways as if it was a football field. I have made it a point to honk or flash lights whenever I'm overtaking anyone now. Sometimes it feels like your waking them up from their highway slumber. Anyways, so brakes are just amazing. There were couple of close calls on the road trip which made me realized on how important it is to choose a car with sorted driving dynamics.

The sports mode puts the car on steroids. As someone mentioned in the forum, it sometimes doesn't even think before dropping two gears on heavy acceleration. Handling is pretty good and was quite useful on the narrow roads of Kerela. Cruise control was used pretty heavily throughout the trip. I found it to be on the aggresive side when it comes to building speed. It gets activated when the speed is equal to or more then 20kmph and irrespective if it being in normal drive or sports mode, the build up of speed to the targeted speed is aggressive. Fuel efficiency in sports (if driven heavily)mode and in the ghats is never in double digits. The best fuel efficiency I got for a stretch of 140 kms from just before Pune to Belapur in Navi Mumbai was 19.5 kmpl with cruise control predominantly set to 90-95. This fuel efficiency figure also saw medium density Pune City traffic from Katraj ghats to Mumbai Pune express way. I was pretty impressed. The average fuel efficiency for the whole trip which would include a lot of ghats and small town traffic would be close to 15.5-16.5 and I am very happy about the same. You want to have some fun with the car and drive with a heavy foot and you will have a heavier fuel bill. This is the nature of the 1.5 TSI. The ground clearance is pretty good and I go to take it through some pretty steep inclines and declines to reach our offbeat stay options during the trip. There were 1-2 incidents of some contacts with the side fenders but I would attribute it to me being a little impatient.

The suspension set up is a tad stiffer especially if you come from predominantly driveing the likes of the Asian category of cars like Hyundai, Hondas and the Toyota's. But I don't mind trading it for better handling and driving dynamics. The car feels pretty stable at higher triple digit speeds. The Ceat Secura tyres are quite good when it comes to dry and wet grip but pretty average when it comes to tyre noise. Tyre pressure was checked ever 3-4 hours during the halts to avoid any higher build up of pressure and there was no event of a puncture throughout the trip. The boot space gobbled all of our luggage for a 15-day trip.

The horn placement is a bit weird and I found myself stretching my fingers or palm of my hand to press the horn while holding the steering. I have an average-sized hand to say so. The gears don't upshift on downhill slopes unless given some throttle input. I found this happening on a lot of occasions, especially between D2 to D4 gear ratios. I had to manually use the paddle shifters to upshift.

The AC performance is pretty average. During the day travel especially from 11 am to 3-4 pm, the AC temperate used to toggle between 18-21°C, and the fan speed was between 3-4 bars. Occasionally on a day or two, we had to keep it near 16-17 around 1-2 pm. In my ex-car Aspire, it used to be set around 20-22°C and of course, in Hyundai and Honda, this should be 21-23°C. But in no sense, I felt the AC was not cooling. It is definitely weaker as compared to cars in the similar category.

The window roll down and up is a bit noisy and the ventilated seats are also a tad noisy. The driver-side auto up-down works 70-80 pc of the time and the rest of the time it acts weird.

The seats are super comfortable, especially over long distances. The conturing in the seats keeps you supported especially in the ghats. The electric seats are a boon. They help you find the perfect driving position.

At least when it comes to the rattling issue, I am happy to say that I haven't faced the same in close to 5000kms of ownership. I have taken the car through some rough roads on my road trips. It was even once parked under the afternoon sun and it didn't rattle from anywhere inside the cabin. All the rattling that happened was either the metal bottle in the door storage or the keys kept in the cupholders.

The sound quality of the infotainment system is pretty good too. We heard all sorts of music right from EDM, Rock, Bollywood, Ghazals, and Deep House. The treble and the bass are pretty neat and the woofer does a good job of delivering a punchy and a tight bass. Overall pretty happy with the sound setup. I couldn't figure out a way to set up a trip stat. The driving information is self-updated after fuel top-up and on the next day when you start driving. Has anyone figured out a way for this? For example, I couldn't keep stats of my 3000 kms trip. I had to manually keep a tab on fuel efficiency figures.

Overall I am pretty happy with how the car has behaved over this long trip. I had my apprehensions reading about various issues pointed out with this generation VW and Skodas. But there was not a single point in the whole trip where I felt any sort of glitch or possible issue developing or in the making. Hope it stays this way. Glitch free.

I am following all the DSG Do's & Dont and will stick to the recommended XP95 octane fuel.

A detailed travelogue of the whole trip will come in Jan.

Enjoying some homemade ginger tea on the Pune Bangalore expressway