Motoring review: Skoda Yeti

LIKE much of the motoring media I have had my moments of scorn about the wasteful manners of 4x4s but in the past few weeks a loan of a Skoda Yeti has been reassuring if not quite vital. The heavy snows around Christmas, and this week as I write, have given the Yeti a chance to live up to its name.

• Skoda Yeti

My test car was a 4x4 version but for most of the year the much cheaper front-wheel-drive model makes more sense with higher mileage. Until it snows – or maybe you have to traverse foreshores and farm tracks.

It uses the Haldex system which transfers up to 90 per cent of drive to the rear wheels when the front wheels spin. The marque's Octavia can be had with the same kit.

This power transfer is not as immediate as the grip you get from a full-time 4x4 but it quickly latches on and pushes the car forwards, or indeed backwards. It was on Dunlop Sport "road" tyres (225/50/17) and would have dealt with snow better if fitted with some rural treads, or indeed winter compound rubber.

Yeti is a decent all-weather car at a decent price from a maker with a more than decent reputation and it attracted the attention that models get when they have just come out. One set of customers at an M4 service station looked, looked again, turned round and looked again, and yet again.

This attention can't be for its "looks", or can it? The Yeti has substance and a cohesion which, say, the Roomster lacks. Yeti is planted, with a wide body, squat stance (fat enough to fill a parking bay in SW4) but a few inches shorter than a Ford Focus. In essence it is a five-door estate car with "cross-over" connotations.

The rear seats can be slid, reclined, folded or removed one by one. You can take out the middle one and position the outer seaters inboard, to give extra elbow room on the outside.

There are movable hooks on side rails in the luggage area. This attention to detail is such that it is odd to find that the grab handles over the seats are not damped, but slap back against the roof when released. Just about every other car in the Volkswagen Group has damped "grabs".

Prices start at 13,990 for the 105bhp front-wheel drive petrol model in E format. The other Yeti E uses a 110bhp 2.0 diesel and costs 15,310. It has better in-gear performance and economy and if you do a high annual mileage is worth considering over a 1.2 petrol.

The Yeti E is well equipped, with roof rails, curtain airbags, power heated mirrors, height adjustable front seats, air conditioning including the gloves box, remote locking, trip computer, the Varioflex rear seats, on 16-inch steel wheels with a tyre repair kit instead of a spare wheel.

The higher grades, S to SE to Elegance bring more engine choice, the option of 4x4 drive and a DSG automatic gearbox with the 1.2 petrol. The entry price for a 4x4 model is the 110bhp diesel in S trim at 17,580. The entry price for the 1.2 DSG automatic, also in S trim, is 15,720. A 160hp petrol 1.8 4x4 is available for SE and Elegance models.

Top Yeti is the Elegance with a 170bhp 2.0 diesel and 4x4 at 22,635. My loan car was one rung down, with 140bhp diesel power and a six-speed manual gearbox.

The Elegance (surely a queer name to go with the word Yeti?) has leather, stability control, heated front seats, cornering fog lamps and cornering double xenon headlamps with auto-on courtesy lights which light up when you unlock, or leave the car. A glasses storage case is also thrown in. The 4x4 model has an off-road button which activates hill-crawl, throttle response and other parameters to ease the Yeti over, say, slippery roots on a woodland track.

Going downhill it holds the car at 5 miles an hour, which you can reduce by engaging neutral and then braking to the required lower speed. It retains this speed when you lift off the brake: neat.

My test car gave 30mpg on short runs, to 47mpg on the motorway. Extras included audio and graphic park assistance at both ends, though the graphics are not shown if the screen is, for example, showing the radio bands.

It also had built-in navigation, which was mostly good but out of date on some routes and too often gave unreliable spoken and visual traffic jam information. The leather seats hadn't kept their shape on the base, with the hide sagging, and on longer journeys I got a pain in the bum.