Skoda Yeti TDi 4x4

[RS Grant]

Recent purchase, although it's not strictly 'my' car, more of a family pool car. My parents recently bought a new house which is out in the NE Scottish countryside, so winter could prove quite slippery for them. So it'll stay with my parents who plan to run it as a daily driver through winter and relegate it to occasional use through the other part of the year.

My dad drives a 635d and has a set of winter wheels/tyres, but works away at times which would leave my mum with her F80 M3 on summer wheels/tyres. Obviously we could have bought some winter wheels/tyres for the M3, however, there were a couple of issues with that plan; firstly there is a chance of snow being more than just a couple of inches deep given that the roads near their house are quite exposed and snow could blow off the fields and across the road.. meaning that the low ride height of the M3 would turn it into more of a snow plow/risk beaching itself. Second of all, given they've just moved into a new house and they will be sorting through the boxes of stuff they brought with them, a car which they can fill with stuff to take to the tip/charity shops will be really useful. It'll also be useful for taking the dogs further afield/to the vet. Finally in the unfortunate event of any issues/collisions in poor weather, the problem will be with a car worth far less than their current cars.

Process of elimination started with this list:

Core Criteria:

£3500 budget
4WD/AWD
Car or SUV or Pickup
Manual Gearbox
Reliable
Petrol or Diesel

Nice-To-Haves:

Leather Interior
Heated Seats
Xenon Headlights
Cruise Control
Estate/Hatch Practicality

...my initial thoughts were Subaru related with a Legacy Estate ticking a lot of their boxes. Got lots of useful advice and suggestions in a thread that I posted about it on here. As it turned out, the 'nice-to-haves' became a little more important to them and so some of the suggestions (in particular a Subaru Forester) became obselete.

During a scan of the classifieds, eBay, PH Classifieds etc.. I noticed this car and after a few messages back and forth with the seller, it sounded like it was suffering from some form of slight 'DMF Chatter' meaning that it would require new clutch/flywheel, which wasn't cheap but a fairly straightforward repair and the price agreed reflected this.

Fast forward a few weeks and an extended stay at a local specialist, the car now has a new clutch/flywheel and a rebuilt gearbox as it was found to be making a noise on removal. It got an oil change and a couple of other small bits (ARB link, CV joint etc) have been replaced too; I got a good look around the underside and it's in fantastic condition..... every cloud and all that.

Here are a couple of exterior photos of it:

Untitled by RS Grant, on Flickr
Untitled by RS Grant, on Flickr

The main reason for purchase:

Untitled by RS Grant, on Flickr

Two of the biggest beneficiaries:

Untitled by RS Grant, on Flickr

Interior/Dashboard:

Untitled by RS Grant, on Flickr

Some of the best headlights I've ever used:

Untitled by RS Grant, on Flickr

In addition to the usual Yeti things such as raised ride height, removable rear seats, great visibility; the specification on this car is absolutely brilliant and so far it all seems to work as it should too:

2.0 CR140 TDi
4WD
6-spd Manual Gearbox
Leather Interior
Heated Seats
Xenon Headlights
Cruise Control
Dual Zone Climate Control
Skoda 'Off Road' (Hill Decent Control)
Parking Sensors Front & Rear
Parking Assistant (Self-Parking)
SatNav
Speed Limit Recognition
Bluetooth

Anyway, that's it back, I'll keep the thread updated with photos/info during our ownership.. I'm hoping a couple of things now: my mum gels with the car and gets some real use out of it and also that all it'll require for the foreseeable future is fuel and a wash every now and again.

[RS Grant]

I'm surprised to find so many PH driveways have a Yeti tucked away, I was imagining a tumbleweed-esque car journal here where it was like I was talking to myself!!

They're fantastic cars though so I can understand their popularity; if you can live with the slightly quirky looks then I think that they represent fantastic value for money and offer genuine versatility and quality too. I tried out the park assist yesterday before I dropped the car back with my folks and was blown away, what a system it is; surreal as hell, but absolutely brilliant!!

magooagain said:

The Yeti has been on my radar for some time now but the one the op has bought has now got me questioning that.

Op can you go into detail about the dmf problem along with why the gearbox was changed please.
What year is the car? and how many miles had it done when it needed the work done?

This car is a '59' plate car and it's got ~120k miles on it, doing a glut of miles (~100k) in the first few years of ownership. The previous owner was an old lady who I get the feeling trundled around in the car day to day which caused the DMF to give up the ghost and start to rattle.

I wish I'd taken a video of the car while it was rattling, but it was worse than this on the Yeti but sounded similar to this: Click Here

I think that the gearbox work could have possibly been avoided if the DMF was diagnosed and fixed as soon as it happened, but the excessive vibrations by the DMF caused damage to the box.. so that was a (not insignificant) unexpected cost, but things seem to be quiet and operating as you'd expect now so no point dwelling on it.

Drive Blind said:

the dog on the right doesn't look too happy with your purchase

Haha, he doesn't does he! Bailey is just over 15yrs old, he's done more than his fair share of posing for photos and doesn't have time/patience for it now... can't even bribe him to look at the camera with treats anymore?!

[RS Grant]

Good to see the Yeti love is still strong here.

Our car has been an almost instant hit with my dad and sister, who both really like it's combination of practicality/comfort/equipment/ease to drive... it is still finding favor with my mum, however she is notoriously slow at warming to cars so that's not a big surprise really.. I'm sure given time and some more miles in the car she will really start to appreciate it, she certainly will when the ice/snow arrives and it's the only car which will be any use to her!!

Re: the MPG, I don't know what MPG it returns on runs into/out of town that it does now. However on the drive home I was getting some pretty respectable figures from it, first picture was after a whole mess of average speed/contraflow driving:

Untitled by RS Grant, on Flickr

The second picture was taken once I'd cleared all that and was able to travel at more typical motorway speeds with a steady reduction in traffic the further north I got:

Untitled by RS Grant, on Flickr

...I don't think that's bad at all given I wasn't on anything like an economy drive and it looks like it's got the aerodynamics of a brick!!

[RS Grant]

Glad to see more and more people subscribing to the Yeti revolution.

Update on ours, the car is doing the dog transport/icy country lane commute perfectly. It's found favour with my mum now too, who hasn't looked near her BMW in the past few weeks, automatically reaching for the Skoda keys regardless of journey time/temperature/road conditions.. and has commented that she is really enjoying the higher driving position and visibility of the Yeti.

I'm not sure if that means that after winter it'll remain as a backup car, or whether the M3 and Yeti will go and be replaced by a newer Yeti, but it's certainly opened her eyes a bit and is doing exactly the job that it was bought to do.

Usget said:

Why the fk do I now want a Yeti after reading this?! Did they embed some kind of witchcraft into the design or something?

Off to Auto Trader...

Haha there's no shame there, that is where a lot of my Readers' Cars browsing ends up!!

They're a guilty pleasure, part of me was hoping that my folks would be shipping theirs on after the winter and (despite having limited space/need for it) I could take over ownership... but the bond is growing far faster and stronger than I had envisaged, so that's looking less and less likely. It's bitter sweet; I'm happy they like the car and are using it regularly but it means I would now have to buy my own if I want one.

Easternlight said:

That colour looks fantastic, like VW Blackberry that you got on the old Corrados.

[RS Grant]

The Yeti has been performing perfectly over the past few months; being pressed into daily use and the only means of transport for my folks during the very poor weather that we have had recently.

The car is wearing part worn BFGoodrich tyres (may or may not be OE fitment, unlikely though?) and even with some extreme snow covered roads and inclines, the Yeti never got into difficulty once. Granted there were roads that weren't passable, but 8-9ft snow drifts will stop most things.. so I'm sure we can forgive the wee Skoda for that!! Once the tyres were needing replaced, the plan was to fit some Michelin CrossClimates or similar, but given the ability of the car on the current tyres, I'm not actually sure that the extra expense of those tyres would be justified and I might well organise a set of my midstream favourite Kumhos instead.

There are a few things which I'd like to do with the car; wheel refurb and steering wheel refurb/replacement being the very first things I'd address.. but it's not my car, so I've got to rein in those thoughts and let them enjoy their car as-is.

You may remember that I wasn't sure if my mum would get on with and warm to the car originally, well, she loves it so much that she's named it 'Hetty The Yeti' and uses it regardless of the weather... meaning that her M3 has covered an astronomical 500 miles since January.

Everyone likes a photo and they sent me this a couple of days ago while away visiting friends who live in the Cairngorms:

Untitled by RS Grant, on Flickr

Edited by RS Grant on Wednesday 11th April 11:50

[RS Grant]

ST565NP said:

Do you know which dimension tyres are on the car ? My father's 2011 1.2 TSI uses 215/60/16 but Skoda recommends 205/55/16 for winter tyres ( so that you can use snow chains) . I like the idea because these 205 are much cheaper, but the diameter difference is 13-14% which is really too much - it should be max 3%.

So, does someone uses 205/55/16 on a Yeti, and how is it?

Can't help with the ride/drive of it on 16" wheels I'm afraid. This one uses 17" wheels and 225/50/17 tyres, but for what it's worth, I think that the car rides really well. I drove the car home a few hundred miles but at no point did I notice any rough ride and I'm sure that if it was an issue then I'd have heard about it from my mum and dad by now as well.

[RS Grant]

alfabeat said:

My wife had a 110bhp 4wd 2.0 TDI for 3 years (64 plate). As said lots before they are really competent cars. We had a few problems with EGR gubbins and trim falling off. Its the only car that's let me down on a journey in about 15 years.

The major disappointment though was the mpg. I don't know if there was something wrong with ours, but even on long motorway journeys cruising along at 70, we never could get more than 35mpg. And overall average over the 3 years/45k was low 30's. It did drop quite a bit after it went in for it's VAG dieselgate fix.

Average daily commute was 15 miles so maybe just not long enough for it to be efficient.

I know that urban economy can be a little woeful on TDI cars sometimes, however, this one seems to be doing ~47mpg average on a mixture of roughly 40% town/village pootling and 60% open road at ~70mph stuff. Not sure if there were any mechanical differences between this 59-plate and your 64-plate though? I would assume that to keep costs down it was just a calibration difference between the 110bhp and 140bhp model but I could be wrong about that.

[RS Grant]

Shakermaker said:

RS Grant said:

alfabeat said:

My wife had a 110bhp 4wd 2.0 TDI for 3 years (64 plate). As said lots before they are really competent cars. We had a few problems with EGR gubbins and trim falling off. Its the only car that's let me down on a journey in about 15 years.

The major disappointment though was the mpg. I don't know if there was something wrong with ours, but even on long motorway journeys cruising along at 70, we never could get more than 35mpg. And overall average over the 3 years/45k was low 30's. It did drop quite a bit after it went in for it's VAG dieselgate fix.

Average daily commute was 15 miles so maybe just not long enough for it to be efficient.

I know that urban economy can be a little woeful on TDI cars sometimes, however, this one seems to be doing ~47mpg average on a mixture of roughly 40% town/village pootling and 60% open road at ~70mph stuff. Not sure if there were any mechanical differences between this 59-plate and your 64-plate though? I would assume that to keep costs down it was just a calibration difference between the 110bhp and 140bhp model but I could be wrong about that.

The 110hp used the EA288 engines whilst the 140 and 170 bhp models used the E189 engine - the 110s weren't affected by "dieselgate" from what I recall either.

So just as I thought, no real changes between them... apart from the entire engine.