New member looking at buying an Enyaq

[Ovv]

Thought I would introduce myself prior to asking multiple questions about the Enyaq.

Owned plenty of VAG cars over the years, including SEATS, VW Golfs (currently running a derv Passat estate) and Audis but never had a Skoda but really like the size and look of the Enyaq for family duties. Recently had a test drive in a newer MY23 Coupe Sportline and loved it, however I will be targetting getting a Suite 60 using the Scottish EST loan.

Also signed upto the Briskoda forum before realising that there is a dedicated UK forum.

Hoping to get some advice prior to taking the plunge.

Chris

[CrowSysE243]

Welcome.
I recently received my Enyaq, 5 weeks and 1000 miles ago. This is my first Skoda after 3 Passat estates and a Tiguan - all DERV. A friend got a Skoda about the time I got the Tiguan, after his 3 Passat estates and considers it the best car he has ever had. My experience so far has backed that up. I was looking for the features I had liked in the Tiguan with those I missed that had been in the Passat, but in an electric version as I find EVs more fun and relaxing to drive, based on using my wife's car. The Enyaq has so far deliverd all of this, with several areas being better than expected. The only feature I miss a bit is the panoramic sunroof from the Tiguan, but that was a deliberate choice.
As you have had VAG cars before a lot of the features will be very familiar.
This forum has been an invaluable source of information preparing for receiving the car. It would have been useful if I had found it before I placed the order in speeding up decisions, but fortunately I would not have made any different choices.

[Ovv]

Thanks for the welcome. Originally I went to my local dealer (Seat & Skoda) to look at a Cupra Born but I quickly realised that it was too small and the sale chap mentioned the Enyaq. That was last weekend and I went in again yesterday and was lucky enough to get a test drive. Took it away for an hour and did some A and B road driving, dual carriageway and town driving.

Absolutely loved it, felt solid to drive and I felt it had good road presence and was so smooth, interior was great as well and the kids loved how quiet it was. Overall I was really impressed.

Would love an 80 purely for the additional range however I am looking to fund the purchase using the Scottish EST loan which has a cap on the maximum purchase price so it's going to be a 60 Suite. Mileage isn't particularly important but again there is a minimum of 1k to meet the EST eligibility.

My Passat is up for sale now and I've spent today looking through the classifieds and getting my head around all the different packages that are available, which is a bit mind boggling.

Might try for a slightly higher mileage MY21 spec rather than a more recent MY22 although I am not sure if that makes any difference?

Sure I will have plenty of questions over the next few days/weeks.

Chris

[Thoringal]

If I were you I would think again about a bigger battery. It comes with reversing camera too.

[KBEE]

If buying a used car, definitely check what packs / options it has fitted. The 80s had more standard kit than 60s and Sportlines had more packs as standard again.

Before MY23 the packs could be selected individually so you’re likely to get much more variety between cars. Now several packs are grouped as Clever / Plus / Advanced / Maxx so there’s less flexibility.

[Ovv]

At the moment I've narrowed it down to two:

A MY21 60 which has a lot of the packages included and has done approx 15k mileage. This is within budget.

The other is a MY21 80 Sportline which has done approx 25k mileage. It's also out with the budget which is eligible for the Scottish EST loan. Car has to have over 1k in mileage but cost £30k or less to qualify. I would need to do some serious haggling with the dealer to make this happen.

Whilst there are quite a few Enyaqs available that qualify but my thoughts are trying to get some well specced considering the amount of money Im spending.

Given I intend to keep the cars for approximately 5/6 years, and do approximately 5/6k mileage every year, a higher miles car is an option as it would level itself out over the years. What's everyones thoughts on this?

Chris

[CrowSysE243]

I chose an 80 with heatpump rather than a 60 as there is a 180 mile stretch at the end of a frequent journey where it can be inconvenient to recharge without catching a later ferry and arriving the next day, so I want to be able to recharge to 80% and have sufficient range. Improving infrastructure is now making this less of a problem. If your journeys accomodate shorter distances between recharging then a 60 could be sufficient. It is worth looking at the spec options available and deciding how important each is to you to make trade off decisions within your budget. If you have home charging and mostly do less than ~100 miles in a day there may not be much advantage in going for an 80 and so other specification options may be more valuable to you. I have found the lounge trim in a basic 80 to be perfectly satisfactory but there were some options I really wanted, based on previous experience, which meant I had to choose the Maxx pack. If I had ordered earlier then I would have been able to select options individually. If I had purchased later I would not have been able to get the options I wanted without selecting a Sportsline. I think that without my range requirement I would have gone for a 60 plus packages and if my budget had been more constrained I would have considered sacrificing the range. On my first car I had to refuel every 150 to 200 miles and often had to detour off the motorway to do so as services were less frequent, so I would be prepared to adapt to it.

[Ovv]

Buying from new and getting to spec things is definitely the way to go but sadly not possible in my case. Lots of different packages for the earlier versions, which is making hunting one down a bit of a minefield when the dealer hasn't fully added the package names.

I think that a 60 will be sufficient although I have noticed on Autotrader some of the earliest examples on have 50k/w charging options and others have 150k/w as well.

Is this a software issue that can be upgraded or just that the earliest examples were limited?

Think this going to be a long hunt.

[Ken3966]

You can pay to upgrade earlier cars but consider if really needed.
It will make no difference for home charging times.
I have had my vRS since 5th April and now done nearly 4K. Only charged away from home on a charger 4 times.
At a Tesla charger on first 250 miles trip home, making mistake of charging at still 45% remaining and only reached a max of about 55kW.
Tried out at local shops to see if supplied cable worked; 7kW!!
Tesla again near daughters in Cambridge reached about 60 kW max for a few minutes.
Free chargers at a National Trust all day at 7kW.

We go to our daughters every few week for a few days, 150 miles away, so need to charge to return, but now use our granny charger as much cheaper and plenty of time there to refill battery.

Our car is supposedly 135kW max, but will only approach that when starting nearly flat with a suitably warm battery. Average charge is more like 60kW in our experience.

[CrowSysE243]

The DC/CCS charging upgrade from 50kW to 100kW for the 60 and 125kW for the 80 originally cost £440. In December 2021 Skoda announced that it would be included in new build from that time on, but the SW upgrade for earlier cars stayed at the same list price at that time. Later SW updates increased the specification to 120kW for the 60 and 135kW for the 80. As Ken3966 says, these charging rates will only be achieved with the correct battery charge level and temperature and the rate will decrease as the battery approaches maximum charge. When I checked the DC charging function on the Enyaq close to home I only achieved 43kW, although there was only 7% charge in the battery, because the battery was still cold. Although there are increasing numbers of DC chargers that can deliver >100kW most are still limited to around 50kW at present. I think that there are very few on the ChargePlace Scotland network. AC chargers are still the most common and with these the maximum Enyaq charging rate is 11kW. The most common, as well as home chargers, are around 7kW.

On our Kona, specified as being able to DC charge at 77kW, we have only once achieved a charging rate greater than 50kW but have been comfortably able to undertake 450 miles in a day by charging when we stop for food or coffee and, apart of the last leg, could have achieved that with a smaller battery.

150kW charging is not available as part of the specification. The standard 80 can deliver 150kW from the battery to the electric motor. For the standard 60 it is 132kW. For the 80X it is increased to 195kW and for the vRS it is 220kW, however the charging rates are not increased.