Skoda Laura - Review

[Team-CCI]

Introduction: The Skoda brand has always enjoyed respect in the Indian market. They entered the country with the Octavia and caught hold of the premium diesel-sedan market by its neck, going on to sell hundreds of thousands of cars to eager Indians. The audience mainly comprised of Indians who, by tuning in to the international car scene by now, had built up quite an appetite for reasonably expensive German cars. Perhaps the timing was everything, and Skoda went on to win various awards all over the country, continuing to do so even today. The Octavia vRS was a great example of Skoda catering to the performance-enthusiast crowd. To this day, the vRS commands a lot of respect in enthusiast circles, being one of the few real performance cars in India. Skoda made a bold move by introducing the Laura while keeping the Octavia available for sale. For one, the Octavia made up numbers because of its popularity; while the Laura would go on to entice the same people by giving them a bit more oomph for a few more rupees. Whether they succeeded in their plans is entirely out of the scope of this review, but suffice to say that the Laura has won the hearts of thousands of people all over the country. Looks and Exterior:   Skoda chose to update multiple cars in their stable, the Laura being one of them. Gone are the rectangular headlights and in come the new curvy much-more-German headlights. The tail-lamp cluster also gets a minor update to go with the front. The front grille sports a serious and down-to-business look, complimenting the new headlights pretty well. While the bulk of the Botox treatment has been in the front, the rest of the car still has enough updates to get people excited and talking. The car looks much more German, with the typical cold-and-calculated exteriors which give away just a hint of the car’s character. It won’t win many beauty contests against other cars in its segment, but it still retains enough charm and elegance to qualify as a properly-made German sedan. Engine and Performance: After pushing the car for a whole day, I am extremely happy to say that the TSI turbocharged petrol engine is a stonker. While the Superb has the same engine, the character is all-new, with a remap that boasts of putting down the max torque of 250Nm at 1500rpm. 160PS of power is generated between 4500 and 6200rpm. In simpler words, there will never be a dull moment during city driving. While there is a hint of turbo-lag, you literally get pulled back into your seat once the turbo spools and the engine makes all of its torque. Unlike most cars, flooring the accelerator pedal at stoplights and dumping the clutch as soon as the lights turn green will either result in the car being half-way along the road towards the next signal, or your car mangled and crashed badly into something at the side of the road. There are still a couple of weak points though; for starters, the turbo lag will scare the living daylights out of anyone who isn’t familiar with the car, and secondly, you need to keep the engine revs and gearing in check or the car stalls during heavy traffic. With these engine characteristics, you’d expect the fuel-economy figures to head south, but surprisingly, the car manages to return a fuel-efficiency of around 8km/l overall. Not bad by any measure. The gearing is neither overly tall, nor too short, so the first two gears are disposed off in a few seconds with the car already touching three-figure speedo digits. If you would rather prefer to cruise on highways, the gearing will allow you to travel at speeds of 140kph in 4th gear. The manual transmission sports 6 forward gears, the last two of which are only useful for cruising, and not on many Indian roads, if I may add. I’d still ask for Skoda to add a bit more torque towards the higher rev-range, since you can feel the car running out of puff in higher gears at anything about 5000rpm. Handling and Suspension: The Laura’s all-round disc brakes (ventilated discs at the front, solid discs at the rear), assisted by ABS will make sure that you will never be left without braking power or control at whatever insane speeds you decide to do. A 100-0 dash is completed in less than 3.5 seconds on proper roads, and owing to the presence of ABS you will have full control of the car at all times. The steering is just delightful, with no effort required at slow speeds and a firm feel at high speeds. It is an absolute hoot to drive around in traffic or mall parking spaces, as long as you keep the turbo in check. The ride is extremely planted and you will not have a scary moment even while cruising at speeds above 150 km/h. The car retains the suspension setup that was present in the previous-generation Laura and thankfully, it does a great job. There is a hint of understeer when you decide to throw it into a fast corner, owing to the weight of the engine at the front and the front-wheel-drive configuration. However, take those corners with a bit of finesse and you will find that the Laura will love going through them without making any fuss. The ride and handling has always been good in a straight line, so no surprises there. Interiors: The beige interiors make the car look more spacious with a feel-good attitude. The upholstery is top notch and the seats give good support whether you prefer sitting at the front or the back. The feeling of spaciousness is not misplaced since the interiors are quite roomy. The headroom is very good at the front and the back, and you can comfortably have two 6’ people sitting one-behind-another without any sort of cramped leg-space. The center console could have used the new touch screen interface present on most other Skoda's, but the one present in the TSI model is good too.   Safety Features: The car sports 2 airbags at the front for the driver and passenger, and side airbags. The car comes with ABS as standard, along with Stability control in the form of ASR. These assists will help you keep the car on the road even during hare-brained manoeuvres. Apart from that, Skoda's have been known to come out of accidents looking like tanks, and usually with all of the occupants safe and unhurt. Final Words: The Laura is an amazing car with a few rough edges. Sort out the turbo lag, give the engine a bit more grunt at the top-end, fix the understeer, give it the new touch screen interface; and what you will have is a car that overcomes all the different-spec variants of the Laura and perhaps, most of its competitors in the segment. Make no mistake, the Laura is not an out-and-out performance car. You will not have the most fun trying to wring out the last drop of performance from the turbocharged engine while you push it around mountain roads. Rather, put it in a high gear, keep the engine revs between 1800-3000 rpm and cruise on the highways while going on long drives. This will bring out its true character of being a grand-tourer; perhaps the best in the country in its class. There are better alternatives for performance enthusiasts looking for a rush, but if your idea of excitement involves travelling long distances, buy this car without thinking twice; it won’t disappoint you. The Good: • Clean-looking Interiors • Grand-touring capabilities • Turbocharged engine • Awesome low-end torque The Bad: • Lower-spec interiors • Understeers if you push it hard • Engine runs out of breath at high revs ConnectCarIndia Verdict: 4.5/5