Skoda Superb Estate iV vs Volkswagen Passat GTE Estate: safety and reliability
Both cars are very safe and have good Euro NCAP crash-test scores, but there are further standard safety aids that could be included
With adaptive cruise control, autonomous emergency braking, lane-departure warning, LED headlights and parking sensors at the front and rear, you get a decent amount of safety kit with both of these cars. The Passat also has lane-keeping assistance, traffic-sign recognition and traffic-jam assistance, which combine to give it a semi-autonomous driving mode that functions very well in snarled-up traffic
It also reads road signs and automatically adjusts the speed of the car if cruise control is turned on, which can feel rather nannying, but is done smoothly and without any drama. You can turn this function off, too, should you wish.
You have to pay £515 extra for lane-keeping assistance and £90 for traffic-sign recognition to give the Skoda similar abilities, so the Passat’s system is usefully more advanced as standard. A rear-view camera is optional on both cars, as is a 360-degree camera and a semi-autonomous parking function. Neither can be had with a space-saver spare wheel, as the batteries take up the space required.
Reliability is a little hard to gauge as this powertrain is new, but its components are all fairly well known. Skoda finished slightly ahead of Volkswagen in the 2019 Driver Power customer survey, but both promise to be safe and reliable.
