Practical cabin, comfy ride and sorted driveability – that sums up the Skoda Kushaq for me!
The Skoda Kushaq 1.0 TSI has been a part of our long term fleet for a couple of months now. My colleague Javeid had the car for the first month and after that he was driving another car and was travelling too, so I called dibs on the Kushaq for the second month and I can say is that I really didn’t feel like returning the car back to him!
Our thorough first report already has details on the car and the initial experience so I’ll now pen down my experience with the car. When Skoda had sent us the Kushaq for the first drive review back in 2021, we had driven the 1.5 MT only. In fact, when I took our Kushaq long termer home, was the first time I actually drove the 1.0 AT. I had driven the Taigun 1.0 earlier but that was the MT variant. The 1.0 engine isn’t as powerful as the 1.5, for sure, but even then 115 PS is pretty decent and the TSI mill does a fab job with pulling this compact SUV.
The engine has some vibrations at low revs and it does get a bit noisy for the initial couple of minutes on a cold start but things settle down nicely after that. The Kushaq offers pretty decent driveability in the city and works well at speeds between 10-40 km/hr. Because this car has a torque convertor and not a DSG, the low-speed jerkiness which is a trait of the DSG also isn’t present and the car feels smooth to drive.
I used the car mainly for work commutes and that meant a round trip of 80 kms on most days. Fuel prices have really gone up way too much in the recent so I try and maintain a light right foot these days but sometimes it isn’t possible when the roads are relatively empty and you have a dynamically sorted car with you! So my morning commute to work has been pretty entertaining the last one month and I’m kind of happy with the performance from this engine. Yes, the 1.5 TSI is another beast and there are times when I felt having that one would be even more fun, but the 1.0 lets you have fun too.
The torque convertor is a pretty good gearbox too and works very smoothly usually. The car’s drinking habits really depend on your driving style and I’ve extracted as much as 17 km/l on a leisurely highway drive and I’ve even seen 9.5 km/l on one of the bad days on the Western Express Highway. Overall, I’ve averaged out at 10.9 km/l in the city and 15.6 km/l on the highway. Imagine the Kushaq with a diesel engine; wouldn’t that be something?!
That aside, I’ve started liking the car’s cabin too. It has all the necessary features and the front ventilated seats are nice too. The dimensions of the vehicle are just spot on and that makes it quite easy to maneuver it through tight lanes. The steering is also light enough but I feel it could have been more communicative at high speeds. I encounter a lot of bumps and potholes on my commute and the Kushaq’s suspension helps filter them out. The car doesn’t really crash over potholes and drives over them without much of a fuss.
I’ve really liked the comfort offered by the seats too. I have been in the driver’s seat 9 out of 10 times but once I had a chauffeur drive me to a party and back and during this instance I got a chance to check out the back seat comfort for a good 50 kms. I found the legroom to be very good and even the head room felt enough. The backrest angle is just fine and overall the trip was comfy though I couldn’t help but notice that the cabin isn’t as wide as some of its rivals so fitting 3 people may be a bit tight.
The infotainment system had a bug earlier wherein the Bluetooth connection with the mobile phone would get disconnected every time anyone received a call but Skoda solved it with an update when they had taken the car from us for a few days during the Slavia media drives. The system is working flawlessly now and wireless Apple CarPlay is a boon too. Overall, I’ve had a pretty good experience with the Kushaq over the last one month and I’m hoping to spend some more time with this in the near future.
Further Reading –
Skoda Kushaq Long Term Review – First Report