Skoda Karoq review - Reliability and safety

As it’s based on the VW Group MQB platform the Skoda Karoq shares its underpinnings with a huge number of cars from the Audi, SEAT, Skoda and Volkswagen stables. The list includes names from the Audi A3 to the VW Touran.

This means that the Karoq’s engineering and technology is already very well-proven, and that bodes very well for the model’s reliability. As a marque, Skoda regularly puts in an extremely good performance in our own Driver Power survey but, in 2021, the Czech car maker finished 12th out of 30 manufacturers and in 2022 it came 20th  - quite a drop from its 5th place in 2020. The Karoq itself placed a creditable 5th out of 75 cars in the 2021 owner satisfaction poll and 18th in 2022 - both decent showings.

Euro NCAP has already performed independent crash tests on the Karoq, awarding a full five-star rating and a great score for adult occupant safety at 93%. 

There’s a full range of the latest safety measures available as you would expect, and most of it’s fitted as standard to the top-spec Karoq Edition. It comes with traffic sign recognition, lane assistance, cross traffic alert and blind spot monitoring, as well as autonomous braking that’s standard across the range.

Warranty

A three-year/60,000-mile warranty is standard, which is standard for the industry. However, rivals such as Toyota, Renault, Hyundai and Kia offer more extensive coverage. You can extend the warranty, bumping cover up to five years for an additional cost. 

Servicing

The Skoda Karoq requires annual servicing unless you do mainly long-distance motorway driving, in which case the intervals can be extended – onboard computers tell you by how much while the brand’s servicing packs are relatively affordable when bought up front. There’s a service plan on the options list that will cover the car’s first two services for £456.​

For an alternative review of the Skoda Karoq, visit our sister site carbuyer.co.uk...