I recently bought an Edition version of the Kodiaq. If you like to swing a cat in the car the cat will need to be considerably smaller than your previous cat, if you don't want to bruise its whiskers.

If you previously owed a Yeti and moved house with it and then bought a Kodiaq you'll find that that the chest of draws that so conveniently fitted will no longer fit. Sure the width is the same, almost to the millimetre, but the height at its highest point is 150mm lower. But even if it was the same height, the stupid curvy top is so low at the back that it will restrict entry to a matchbox, and then rammed in by several of England's best ever prop-forwards. Its made curvy to be aerodynamic, no on a 4X4 ( Skoda claim that this is not a 'proper' 4X4 in the handbook so don't get ideas above tour station) you need a square top at the back top cram in the livestock. The curvy top saves metal, higher back, more metal, curvy top lighter weight and importantly less.manufacturing cost across a manufacturing cycle yielding savings equivalent to the bank of England's reserves. See how many modern cars that you can find without a curvy top, now are they practical or not.

And what is my very personal ire absolutely directed at? Well if you look at the dashboard of a Kodiaq within the brochures and more often or not ,on line, you will see a massive infotainment system, gleamy and shiny, deep in its blackness, and the one in your car looks exactly the same. Look harder is your car the same as the one in the brochure, you think so, really? No, the one in the brochure is left-hand drive and your car is right-handed. So what, well all the access controls to the infotainment system are right next to the steering wheel, in the brochure, just as well because you will be hitting the home and menu buttons quite often and they are not repeated anywhere on the steering wheel functions. In the car you bought you will need arms the length of a baboon, a baboon who has been taking stretching lessons to reach these buttons, otherwise you will have to take your hand off the wheel and lean across and look at the screen, to touch the correct button. all a bit dangerous and not an intuitive action. How simple it could have been to arrange for another facia and as everything is by touch screen, rearrange the software to make the thing suitable for a right hand market, at practically no cost, even do away with the screen legend and have the entire unit software display based. But no, stuff the UK market this is what we make for left-handed Europe. Is this a particular demonstration of design laziness or is the failure to take reasonable account of the right-hand drive market. Like the rules of the EU everything must be manufactured to particular standards whether it is appropriate or not for an individual nation within the EU. As a political party once stated 'for the many, not the few'.

Now if you wonder why you cannot hear all of those radio stations from the town just a few miles in front of you, then you will not be amazed to discover that those clever designers at Skoda have placed the radio antenna at the back of the car. But that's where it has always been I hear you say. But its a teeny tiny antenna, aren't they all these days you say. Very true, however by a masterstroke of genius the designers of the roof appear to have failed to talk to the technology people and like the size 14 figure struggling to enter a size 10 dress, the sides do not join correctly. The antenna is actually lower than the peak curvature in the roof so, with the best will in the world, it cannot see where it is going, only where it has come from and where it is passing. This level of design annoyance takes years of diligent training to perfect.

By the way, if you have a seven seater and a large young family with a dog make sure it is a small dog, a very small dog. You will never get the lab in together with very basic travel necessities behind the last row of seats. If you want to take your larger dog, then you may have to trade it for your least favourite child for the duration of the trip.

Talking of seven seats,. Its a dark rainy night, and the tyre inflation indicator shows a leak and you need to get to the handy air compressor supplied with the car. Is it to hand no, all the passengers out. you lift up the rear floor area, just as teh handbook shows, nothing doing no inflation kit, you grovel around frantically, it must be there, there are complaints from children, noses dripping with rain, the dog however is loving the break. In desperation, after a frantic search of the car and many phone calls, you finally read a review that says that says that the tools are not in the most obvious place at the rear, where there is space, no they are buried where only a pirates treasure map will find them under the rear set of seats which incidentally are carefully designed to tilt at a maximum of 30 degrees so you place your hand into the slot to find the invisible tools. . . . and prey.

If you like toys the car has toys, plenty of them including an eco mode that must help you move from a diesel Yeti with a 60-65 mpg fuel economy to the jaw dropping 24mpg in this petrol version of the Kodiaq. Hmmm, must be time to look again at buying petroleum shares.

It has a massive screen for 'infotainment, but unlike a tablet with a USB port the file access is limited, so none of those 500GB drives here please. However with ingenuity you should be able use the car Wi-Fi to connect a large hard drive, with a portable WI-Fi hub and a Solid State drive. However the hub must be WAP2 and password protected, guess what there appear to be none available, the only way that this can be done is finding an old Wi-Fi router, with a USB port and runs from 12V and plugging it into one of the cars very many 12V sockets, remembering to unplug it after EVERY journey as you will flatten the battery, because the sockets do not switch off with the ignition. Why a small separate Wi-Fi router with a USB port could not have been fitted it the media centre is not able to cope with too many files I do not know ?

However a good feature is a voice repeater from the driver to the rear passengers. hmmmmmmmmm

Verdict, style over substance, for people who like gadgets, but would not know what to do with a proper 4X4 outside of a hard road They would not be looking at dashboard screens for a start.

If Dacia ever get their act together over the Duster instrumentation and computer, that will be a better car for half the price.