Skoda making an effort?

[ACM]

Have attached a couple of scans of a new initiative by skoda.

1) Service interval for all skoda's changed to 15,000 kms or 1year which ever is earlier.
2) Continuous drop in prices of spares over the last 1 year.

Observations:

1) They first increased the service intervals on Laura 10,000 kms from the earlier 7,500 kms. The latest move of increasing the intervals to 15,000 kms would result in significant savings for users. This is applicable even for cars bought earlier irrespective of them being within warranty or out of it.

2) Since skoda recommends only Synthetic oil and recommends Helix 5W30 for its diesel cars, the cost of the same droping to about Rs. 600 per liter vs the earlier almost 1000 a ltr is also a major saving.

3) Also the cost of the flyweel (a major component) that fails in the Skoda has been dropping. Earlier it was about Rs. 80,000 for a manual it has now dropped to about Rs. 45,000.

4) The side view mirror cost too has been dropping plus its individual parts are available seperately. Have myself replaced the bottom plastic portion for about Rs. 2k twice (once had an accidents claim through insurance)

5) Had an accident requiring replacement of front bumper and the cost came to less than that which a colleague of my incurred on the Optra for a similar front bumper accident. (actually my cost came to just about 50%)

6) Recently did the 63000 kms service (requiring timing belt change) - that aspect I would put up seperately in my long term ownership thread in a day or two - but the summary was that the specific to timing belt replacement with associated rollers etc came to about Rs. 11,000 out of the total bill of 28,000.

Somehow there seems to be an attempt in recent times to ensure the owner visits the service centre less often and that each of these visits cost less aswell.

Yep the Harish issues still remains, but this may be a positive effect of the TBHP trio being visited by Skoda team.

Since we have been bashing them quite a bit, we also need to acknowledge their attempts.

PS:
1) Met an owner of a new Model Skoda Laura at the service centre - Ac Compressor failure.
2) Myself have been recommended to get the Flywheel replaced. - Cost Rs. 4000 including labour for the Auto L&K Laura.

So some woes do continue as well.

[McLaren Rulez]

Good news indeed. But more than spare prices, the issues of grey market parts was always the main one IMO

[navin]

Skoda has usually offered good cars in India (other than the ill-fated Fabia) from the 1.9Tdi to the vRs to the Laura and the New Superb. If they get their after sales service act together it will really help their sales. The climb however will be uphill. Reports of poor A.S.S have percolated down through just about every form of media be it the internet or print and even TV (just ask Hormazd Sorabjee and co).

It is no secret that 3 TBHP mods (incl. myself) did meet with Skoda reps and they comments they made there gave us hope of improved service at lower costs.

At the same time Skoda might think it is fine by them to forget about cases like Harish and Evo (they seem to have) and continue like nothing ever happened BUT TBHP (as ACM has said) will not. Harish especially has documented his case quite well. He continues to pay EMIs on a car he does have use for. What is Skoda's answer to this?

[muke31]

The advt about using only Genuine parts on all Skoda vehicles...

It is not the customer who goes for duplicate spare parts for these high end vehicles, it is in the hands of service centers only and no one will know if service centers use genuine parts or duplicate parts.

I think skoda should not advertise telling customers to use only genuine parts but they should start put strigent policy telling service centers not to involve in such activities and involving in such activities and severe action will be taken against then, they should also put stringent check with skoda service centres and verify if service centers provide all Skoda genuine parts.
it is not every customer who will come to know if service centers are using genuine parts or not.

why not Skoda ask their dealers to send the copy of service invoices to skoda and match what parts are replaced and check if skoda sold those parts to this service centers and also skoda should select some customers vehicle and do surprise audit check to identify if there are any duplicate spare parts are being used in that particular vehicle.

Is skoda spares carry unique serial numbers on all spare parts?

-MUKE

[Thad E Ginathom]

If they are telling the public to only use genuine spare parts, that means they have no objection to the public buying the genuine pare parts --- for their own mechanics to fix.

Right?

[shuvc]

Not sure I understood the part about the service interval being increased. Is it for all cars, past and present? Or for a particular model?

If it's for all cars - well that's a good move. But does it also not indicate an open admission that the intervals were unnecessarily short earlier?

Bottomline, I for one would love to hear that they are improving. Someday, that would enable me to consider buying a Skoda.

[Sahil]

This news couldn't come at a better time, getting delivery of a Superb this week and my only glitch was A.S.S ( sigh of relief )
let's give the devil it's due, atleast skoda is making an attempt to improve certain issues so let's not convert this into a Skoda bashing thread. We as it is have a lot of those thread

[kbk_75]

Lower priced parts are well and good, if the dealers put genuine parts in the cars and not some spurious rubbish! Also, provided the quality of the genuine parts has not been compromised in order to make a lower price point!

[aaggoswami]

1) I dont agree that things have improved. The way Skoda has reacted and tried to put pressure on TBHP member harishv and TBHP itself proves there is something still wrong. Any why are they not solving the cases reported at TBHP ? I think Skoda had arranged for a meeting with TBHP mods then IMHO, cases of TBHP-ians must be looked into. No, I am not demanding any favor, but still their cases are pending. Skoda is not interested in improving.

2) Prices of parts have been reduced, but what about quality ? Is quality compromised too. Moreover, the real issue reported on TBHP is the dealers putting in fake parts.
Rather than cost of spares, the issue is honesty from dealers and how Skoda India co-operates with Indian customers who are facing problem. There are some emails posted by members, one can read those emails which clearly show Skoda is running away and not cooperating with customers. This is main issue. Reducing parts price is a good move nevertheless, but the other issues are also major that needs to be looked into.

Dealer issue is not yet solved, so overall, Skoda has not improved IMHO.

[ACM]

Originally Posted by shuvc

Not sure I understood the part about the service interval being increased. Is it for all cars, past and present? Or for a particular model?

If it's for all cars - well that's a good move. But does it also not indicate an open admission that the intervals were unnecessarily short earlier?

Bottomline, I for one would love to hear that they are improving. Someday, that would enable me to consider buying a Skoda.

YES, it is for all Cars. As per the Dealer JMD, skoda had been keeping an eye on how the cars performed with the earlier intervals, and with people sometimes overshooting the intervals, plus basis todays fuel quality, plus basis the same engines being used in VW cars today and they service intervals, they have concluded the new interval is safe. Of course this was only the dealers word/ logic and not the offical statement from the company. Seems logical enough. Yes we have paid higher amounts for servicing at shorter intervals, but then when I bought the Laura the Accord then required service intervals of 5K kms and my TCIC safari too was at a similar interval so 7500 to start with was good, but one piles on kms very fast on a diesel car, and their subsiquent increase to 10000 (then only the new Laura & Superb) and then 15000 kms is a good move. The Pasted hang out does not mention any specific car limitation.

Originally Posted by kbk_75

Lower priced parts are well and good, if the dealers put genuine parts in the cars and not some spurious rubbish! Also, provided the quality of the genuine parts has not been compromised in order to make a lower price point!

The Company uses the spares bin of Audi and VW. Even last month when I got the car serviced the Brake Pads Packaging clearly mentioned the model numbers of Audi and VW cars that use the same pads. So a quality compromise is not likely.

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

1) I dont agree that things have improved. The way Skoda has reacted and tried to put pressure on TBHP member harishv and TBHP itself proves there is something still wrong. Any why are they not solving the cases reported at TBHP ? I think Skoda had arranged for a meeting with TBHP mods then IMHO, cases of TBHP-ians must be looked into. No, I am not demanding any favor, but still their cases are pending. Skoda is not interested in improving.

THAT as I clearly mentioned in the first thread is still pending and the improvements seem to be post that meeting, so we need to credit TBHP mods for this and also acknowledge an improvement, rather then just bash them up irrespective of changes.

2) Prices of parts have been reduced, but what about quality ? Is quality compromised too. Moreover, the real issue reported on TBHP is the dealers putting in fake parts.
Rather than cost of spares, the issue is honesty from dealers and how Skoda India co-operates with Indian customers who are facing problem. There are some emails posted by members, one can read those emails which clearly show Skoda is running away and not cooperating with customers. This is main issue. Reducing parts price is a good move nevertheless, but the other issues are also major that needs to be looked into.

Dealer issue is not yet solved, so overall, Skoda has not improved IMHO.

Have given the Audi & VW spares being the same logic above to explain the quality aspect. Also we need to note that.

1) Rogue dealer was disbanded once the Harish issue came up. - Yep am aware of the futher story there as well.
2) Recently a Skoda Fabia 1.4 owner was given the money back for issues with his car. That story is live on another recent thread. Hopefull Harish too get something similar or better soon as a solution.

[discoverwild]

I came to know recently that one of my friends was actually a Skoda dealer and in fact I had driven his car, the first one to enter Coimbatore, for a test drive. I didn't know it then.

When asked about the current issue of Skoda dealers exchanging parts, he answered that when a customer comes in with a complaint and the issue could be due to one of many parts.

Now, to verify whether a particular item is faulty, they cannot use a new spare from the store, as it would have to be billed to the customer, the moment it moves out of the store. This part may or may not solve the issue, so the customer will have to bear an unnecessary expense. To avoid this, they do use that particular part from another customer's vehicle that is having a longer repair schedule (accident, etc) to check if it solves the complaint. If it does, then the part is ordered from the store and billed to the client. This is common practice in most (all makes) A.S.S. To an outsider who looks into the garage, this might look like someone is switching parts. I said most A.S.S, because some dealers like Rajshree Ford would probably prefer replacing all four shock absorbers just because I complained of a clunking noise from the back.

Please note that this is not related to what Harish and the others are undergoing and I just stated what I heard. I don't own a Skoda though I would love to. (VFM in the upper mid-size segment).

[gemithomas]

Well. Do you really think that skoda reduced the prices to help us customers?? It's an inevitable sustainance strategy taking into consideration the new market positions. How long do you think customers would have been willing to shell out that kind of money for the regular spares? This along with the bad instances that they got into i dont think they had any other go. The only advantage they had was the F.E and power delivery of their diesel engines. With the newer cars i think they must have understood that they will slowly loose that USP.
All this that we say here is just another piece of marketing crap.

About using genuine parts its not the customers who wanted to use them. In both cases here its their own dealers who used non-genuine parts and the company was naver willng to accept that for whatever reason. LEt them try to sort out those issues and give out a positive signal before they say that they are changing.


The point on trying to make minimum contacts between the customer and the service centre is well taken. Thats the same strategy being used by the manufacturer who is in competition with Skoda for the Last Place!!!

[akj53]

Originally Posted by ACM

YES, it is for all Cars. As per the Dealer JMD, skoda had been keeping an eye on how the cars performed with the earlier intervals, and with people sometimes overshooting the intervals, plus basis todays fuel quality, plus basis the same engines being used in VW cars today and they service intervals, they have concluded the new interval is safe. Of course this was only the dealers word/ logic and not the offical statement from the company. Seems logical enough. Yes we have paid higher amounts for servicing at shorter intervals, but then when I bought the Laura the Accord then required service intervals of 5K kms and my TCIC safari too was at a similar interval so 7500 to start with was good, but one piles on kms very fast on a diesel car, and their subsiquent increase to 10000 (then only the new Laura & Superb) and then 15000 kms is a good move. The Pasted hang out does not mention any specific car limitation.

Has Skoda sent a letter to all its old customers intimating them about increase in the service intervals, else they may backtrack and make the warranty void.

Originally Posted by ACM

1) Rogue dealer was disbanded once the Harish issue came up. - Yep am aware of the futher story there as well.

2) Recently a Skoda Fabia 1.4 owner was given the money back for issues with his car. That story is live on another recent thread. Hopefull Harish too get something similar or better soon as a solution.

Then why they are not compensating Harish other users whose geniune complaints are pending. Cant they realise that negative publicity due to such cases is costing them much much more in terms of lost sales and profits than the compensation.

[ajmat]

On the other hand, I am being harassed to service my skoda, on the day i give it in and again two weeks after i gave it in!

[T_Girl]

Well I think nothing can change them. Incorrigibly callous!! If they try to improve it's good for them.