Thing about any VAG group product, be it Seat, Skoda, Audi or VW is that under the skin they are all pretty much the same. Any mechanical unreliablity with the Audi is going to affect the rest too. Having said that, the only issues you may be likely to encounter would be if going auto in which case you will have the DSG gearbox. Diesels can also be trouble, depending on the type of journeys your friend is likely to do. If sticking to the 1.4tsi engine and manual gearbox, it should be fine, regardless of which badge is on the front.

She's been doing a lot of reading of all the cars on her list and has written a list of what she needs and what she will be using the car for. And the cars after doing lots of research by reading she has shortlisted her list down to these cars ,

1) Toyota RAV4 ( she's knows it's not seven seats but it ticks most of her boxes)

2) Kia Sorrento ( this is her favourite from looks and from reading , she was also really impressed with how the Kia Sorrento handled snow , I thought this was a litfli weird decideing on a car by how well it does in snow but she said it's important to her as she lives in an isolated small village and the nearest town is 30 mins away so being able to go grocery shopping , getting to work , kids to school ect when it's snowy is important to her as she said everytime we get snow we get it really bad with us being a very small isolated village so there roads never get cleared , the roads that lead out of the village)

3) Honda CRV

4) Skoda Kodiaq ( the Skoda also really impress's her in the snow, she's been watching loads of videos on YouTube)

She also watched the review videos on carwow and said the Skoda and Sorrento did really well and she's sure he said just go ahead and buy the Skoda it's that good.

I know this is not really anything to do with us on the forum, but the thought of a dog that size and weight (up to 50kg for a male i believe?) being loose in a car along with children, alarms me greatly. In the event of an accident the dog really could kill them. It should ideally be in a purpose built cage (properly secured) in the boot, or at the very least, in a proper dog guard, made for that vehicle (i.e, not one of those rubbish universal ones with telescopic legs).

Badbusdriver- yes they can go up to 50kg , her Bernese is 48kg ( I think) , it's just in the Mii , her current car that he is not in a crate as she can't fit him in the boot area let alone the crate , one of the things at the top of her list is fits the dog in the boot so I think either of these would be big enough to fit him in and he will be in a crate , since getting him it's the only thing she hated about the Mii but it's not the miis fault as she has only owned him a year.

Fantastic dog though , has an amazing temperament is a lot like a golden retriever apparently in temperament. If only I could tempt my boyfriend I'd have one in a heart beat.lol

Skidpan- do you think Kia will ever make a hybrid version of the Sorrento or even a petrol version? As I myself am thinking of getting one several years from now when I'm looking to replace my Niro ( hopefully that's years from now as I love my little Niro) but I do find the Sorrento very beautiful.

Edited by Cumberbatchfan on 04/10/2018 at 19:33

Don't you think that's daft though as they would probably sell more if if they sold a petrol version here.

She has a big budget, is fuel economy at all important to her given the sort of mileage she's going to do?

My wife's/our family car is a 15 plate Sorrento KX3 2.2 diesel TC Auto. It's done over 51k miles now (purchased at 6 months old and 1800 miles).

Ours does about 33-34mpg day to day- I'm not sure I could stomach it on 100-150 miles a day (which surely equates to at least 30k miles a year....ours does about 17k-18k a year).

Obviously the manual will be a little more economical than the auto.

I'm sure a CRV will be a lot more economical. We looked at one when choosing the Kia, but I was nervous about the twin turbo 1.6 diesel, decided to play it safe with a bigger capacity 2.2. in the KIa. The price nearly new in 2015 was about the same. We got the benefit of 7 seats too.

The 7 year warranty on the KIa might be reassuring, but I think its only 100k miles- at your friend's sort of mileage, the warranty would be up after 3 and a bit years or so. By 6 or 7 years of ownership she'd have run up c. 200k miles, there's going to be big maintenance costs..DPF etc. etc. A 5 year unlimited mileage warranty might suit her better- Hyundai, Ssangyong?

Like your friend we live rurally and like the security of 4wd and all season tyres, but TBH, 99% of the year you don't need it. Winter tyres on a 2wd do very well. And in the beast from the East last year, the only thing that got me out of the house was my little Kubota tractor and loader.....

Regarding the dog question, the family member who looks after him when they go on holiday owns an SUV and he gets in by a ramp that desighde to help make it easier to get in and he easily walks up the ramp.

Looked down the thread and I am not quite sure she is giving you all the facts.

Initially you said she had to drive 20 minutes to the shops and to take the kids to school.

Then you said she drives 100 to 150 miles a day.

The 2 are not really the same. The first is the mumsy shopping and kids riun, the next is the driving a rep does.

From personal experience doing 35 miles each way to work and back was pretty tiring. In the late 80's it took 45 minutes on a good day, 60 minutes on an average day and well over the hour on a bad day. Since then traffic has got much worse and with cameras ypu cannot risk speeding as much. Doing 150 miles a day she would be in the car at least 4 hours, thats 20 hours a week. then she has to look after the kids etc and a new baby. Are your sure you have the facts correct.

Over 6 years doing 100 miles 5 days a week the car would do 156,000 miles. During that time she would almost certainly have issues whatever she bought.

she's going to be test driving the Honda CRV, Toyota RAV4 and Skoda Kodiaq tomorrow.

To get a good feel for the car you need a test drive of at least a couple of hours especially when you intend to keep the car a long period and do huge mileage. 3 tests in a day will just confuse her.

Does she do that type of mileage in the Mii or is her usgae/job changing?

An I ask a question, you know how Kia's 7yr warrenty is 7yrs or 100k miles and Hyundai is 5yrs unlimited mileage, I wanted to ask is there a set mileage on Skoda, Toyota and Honda , I know they offer 3yr warranty but is there a mileage limit like Kia?

Skoda - 3 years, 60,000 miles, but you can pay a few hundred pounds to extend it by 2 years

If you extend the Skoda warranty to 5 years the mileage limit increases to 100,000.

But if Skoda operate like Seat did (both VAG thus surely must) you only get the original T & C's extended to 5 years if you buy the warranty before the car is registered. Extend the warranty after registration and its very different product, some items are excluded and there is an excess to pay on every claim, think it was £200 on the Seat warranty.

Many are caught out by this and I expect dealers do not bring the extended warranty to customers attention before registration because they hope to sell them their own useless and expensive warranty later.

This was the case when we bought our pre-reg Roomster - they refused to sell me the warranty extension. In fact they also refused initially to sell me a service plan, but relented on that when I explained their terms and conditions to them...

The Skoda service plan is available on new cars up to one year old (and presumably 10,000 miles) and covers the first 2 services. But its only available for car set on fixed servicing, they do not do a plan for cars on variable servicing.

But what is not clear is the plan has to bought from the sales team, go to the service desk and they will claim to know nothing and try and sell you their own far more expensive plan which is worthless if the garage goes bust. Another reason a garage plan is also risky is simple, what if they are rubbish when they do the first service. You have paid up front for another 2 but you cannot take it anywhere other than the dealer providing the plan. The Skoda plan can be used at any dealer.

which one did she buy in the end?