Five reasons to love and hate Skoda Yeti
Leaving the main design solutions, the engineers were forced to use the larger Volkswagen PQ35 platform, on which models such as the Skoda Octavia, Volkswagen Tiguan and Volkswagen Golf were built at the time. The Fabia and Polo platform originally prepared by the Yeti turned out to be too small.
In the spring of 2009, the crossover premiere was held at the same Geneva Motor Show, sales began in Europe in the summer, and in November of the same year Russian sales of Skoda Yeti were launched. Initially, two of the available range of engines were selected: 1.2 TSI (105 hp, 175 Nm) and 1.8 TSI (160 hp, 250 Nm). With them, a 7-speed robotized box with a double dry clutch DSG7 and a six-speed “mechanics” aggregated. The car was offered both in front-wheel drive version, and with the system of automatically connected all-wheel drive. At the same time, the DSG box could only be obtained on the version of the car with the “younger” 1.2-liter engine, and the four-wheel drive – on the most powerful, but only with the MCP: as it turned out, the latest DSG7 does not cope with the power and torque of the “older” engines .
Subsequently, the Yeti was also offered with a diesel 2.0 TDI (140 hp, 320 Nm), and this version was the first to offer a combination of an automated DSG transmission (this time 6-speed with a wet clutch) and all-wheel drive.
In 2013, the car has undergone a restyling. The round fog lights, as if crashing into the blocks of headlights, disappeared, the grille, bumpers and hood changed. A new steering wheel and gear knob appeared, the generation of the Haldex clutch in the transmission changed. The line has expanded due to a purely urban version of Yeti City, featuring body-colored bumpers. The gamma of engines grew due to the implantation of the “Kaluga heart” – an 1.6 MPI atmospheric gasoline engine with a power of 110 hp, which could be combined with a 6-speed “hydromechanics”. In addition, cars with supercharged 1.4 TSI (122 hp, 200 Nm) appeared on the market, and the 1.8 TSI engine began to be combined with an automatic transmission DSG6.
By 2017, when it was announced about the cessation of production and sales of Yeti in Russia, about 73 thousand of these cars were sold in our country. On the one hand, not bad, but on the other hand, the platform-based VW Tiguan, despite the higher price, has been sold in much larger quantities all the years.
In the owners’ reviews, there is no unanimity: someone admires the car and calls it just as “a faithful and reliable friend” and “a great family car,” and someone is indignant: “damn that day when I bought Yeti!” . So why love and why hate the Czech crossover?
Say what you like, and crossovers really buy from us mainly as family cars. And here comes a man in a car dealership to get acquainted with his future vehicle. She lives in the driver’s seat, looks at whether it will be convenient for children and households to sit in the back of the couch … Everything is normal and comfortable ahead, except that it’s a bit too narrow: you will surely touch your broad-shouldered neighbor, your long-legged women will be confused in the wings. And there is enough space behind, and there is enough space above your head.
Naturally, the turn of the tailgate comes, as the plans include a trip with the family to the country, to picnics, to rest in the summer, and you will certainly have to go to the shops. The documents indicate that the volume is 405 liters. It seems to be pretty well … The potential owner opens it – and discovers that, due to the high raised floor with the spare wheel hiding under it, the luggage compartment looks frankly small, and that in fact the volume is 322 liters. You can, of course, throw out the spare tire and lower the floor (by the way, in Europe Yeti went on sale without a spare wheel, but with a repair kit), but on our tracks without a spare wheel you feel somehow uncomfortable.
In general, “it won’t be enough!”, And some people begin to regret that they did not dare to buy the more expensive Octavia Scout: on the undercarriage – almost the same, only the body is 20 cm longer, and the trunk is twice as large. During operation, someone measures the volume in children’s bicycles (exactly two fits)