2016 Skoda Superb wagon long-term car review, part three

THE GARBO is one of the great unsung heroes of local council.

These humble blokes and blokettes earn their packet by rising early to patrol our darkened streets on the wrong side of a whiffy, diesel-belching dumpster to ensure our towns remain litter- and rat-free.

If you ever doubted the importance of garbologists in our urban eco-systems then consider the good folk of Napoli, who endured eight months without waste collection back in 2007-2008, leading to mountains of stinking rubbish and a multi-million-dollar bill to send the stuff north to Hamburg for incineration.

So, yes, our Garbos are champions of the first order but, as you’ve no doubt discovered, they can be a tad devil-may-care with the placement of bins once empty.

The Good Wife found this out to her detriment recently while threading a back-road short-cut to collect the kids from school.

The route avoids some traffic lights but ducks and dives, jinks and jigs to get there, mixing ragged road edges with blind crests and mid-speed chicanes, among other amusements.

These, when taken at pace, provide an exhilarating appreciation of the Skoda Superb’s steering precision and handling.

Normally.

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But this time, our friendly garbologist had casually dropped emptied bins right on the edge of the thin ribbon of tarmac; as the Superb sailed up and over a blind crest, sticking well left to avert a nasty coming-together with unseen approaching traffic, the passenger door and its protruding handle clipped a bin just hard enough to leave a smear halfway along the door.

It looked innocuous enough and, after the Superb had pitted and race control were advised of the incident, I thought we’d escaped with just a mark that would buff out.

Sadly, it wasn’t quite that simple: the whack had taken out the Skoda’s keyless entry function, which the amber alert on the dash and its accompanying chime has been eager to remind us of ever since.

Acknowledging the warning via the rotary dial on the steering wheel shuts it up for a bit, but the moment speed drops below 60km/h it comes back.

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And despite trawling the Skoda’s touch-screen menu, I can’t find a way to shut it up more permanently.

If it weren’t for the pre-Christmas rush I’d have had it in for a good seeing-to by a Skoda technician … but in lieu of that I handed the keys to acting editor Inwood for his annual festive-season road trip to the family home in Bathurst.

The bloke reckoned the Skoda’s air-sprung cruising road manners, its commodious 625-litre boot, all-wheel drive and gutsy 206kW turbo-petrol engine would be an ideal combination for hauling better-half Bek, their border collie Riley and a swag of Chrissie gifts on the 1000km inland run.

I couldn’t agree more, but may have failed to mention that damn warning chime during the handover...

Read part two of Whichcar's long-term review of the Skoda Superb wagon here!

This article was originally published in Wheels magazine February 2017