Skoda Octavia 1.9 TDI L&K Review : 90,000 kms done

[amoghchaphalkar]

Dear Team BHP'ians,

This is the first review I am posting on Team BHP. So pardon me if I sound a little amateur (actually I am !!). I hope to get better with time !!

Before I start, I would say that I am surprised about the bad experiences users have posted about Skoda on Team BHP. I always wondered why Skoda sales keep on going down, and now I know the reason. Fortunately for me, I never experienced any major issues with the car or with the service.

We (i.e my family) have been owning a Skoda Octavia Laurin & Klement for more than 5 years now. The car has completed 92,000 kms and during the first three years (2004-2006), it cranked up a lot of kilometers on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. Needless to say the road conditions in Mumbai were at their worst then !!

I will first start with the mileage since I have been very impressed with the fuel efficiency of this car. On the expressway, I regularly got a mileage in the range of 19-21 km/lit and in the city it was never less than 15 km/lit. These figures are the ones calculated by the car's computer. I did a manual calculation a few times and found it consistent with what was being displayed by the dashboard. I must mention here that though, I never cross a speed of 100 km/hr on the expressway. 5th gear and engine RPM in the range of 2500-3000 gives me the best fuel efficiency.

Maintenance - Servicing : I treat my car like a baby and am very particular when it comes to servicing and maintenance of the car. I make sure the oil that they use is Mobil 1 and make the service centre change the oil in front of my eyes. I carry 3 cans of STP with me when I go to the service centre to pick up the car post servicing. Since the service centre is on the highway, I drive the car upto Lonavla to make sure everything is OK and there are no minor niggles anywhere. This 50 km drive also heats up the engine oil making it suitable to add STP to it. The 60 km drive back home is I think sufficient for the STP to get mixed effectively with the engine oil.

A couple of weeks back I suddenly got a message "Alternator Workshop" on the dashboard display. The battery light on the dashboard lit up (pretty obvious I guess), the steering lost power (I had to literally muscle it and I feared I would break it) and the AC stopped working. Fortunately, I was very close to the Skoda Service Station. The belt was broken and the pulley had failed. Fortunately, there was no damage to the alternator. I had to get the pulley and belt replaced. Damages of Rs.7500/- But other than this there have been no major issues where the car has given up on me.

As far as the service in Pune has been concerned, my experience with Skoda has been very good. I remember the dealer (Singh Auto) charging me Rs.400 for the white seat covers they use while servicing the car. I was pretty upset about it and took the complaint to the higher officials of Skoda at their Aurangabad plant. I was promptly refunded the money.

Tires : I have always been using Bridgestone B250 195/65R15. I don't have anything against Michelin, but I have always been a Ferrari fan and Ferrari always uses Bridgestones (What a stupid reason to be loyal to Bridgestone !! ) The car had come with Michelins, but I promptly replaced them with Bridgestones. I have been very impressed by the wet surface performance of these tires. Even during heavy monsoon, when there is heavy water logging on the expressway, the tires have delivered excellent performance. No aquaplanning whatsoever !!

Accessories / Electricals / Interiors : Till this point, I have not had any issues with electrical circuits of the car (Touchwood). The Xenon lamps have been excellent. I can't even think of driving a car at night that does not have Xenon lamps. The air conditioning is powerful. But I regret the fact that Skoda has not provided AC vents for rear seat passengers. It does take some time for the air to circulate uniformly throughout the car. The moon roof / sun roof are nice to flaunt and brag about, but frankly speaking, I have never used them. I wish Skoda had used that money to install AC vents for rear passengers.

Overall, I have been very impressed with the car. No niggles, no minor or major issues. To be frank, I have not compared the cost of maintenance with other cars. I think the cost would have been a concern for me if the car would have broken down often. But since it has been running smooth, I guess I have not been paying too much attention to it.

After completing 90,000 kms we (i.e my family) have now decided to replace this car with a new one. We were thinking about Laura or Superb, but after reading the experiences on Team BHP, I have strictly decided against it.

Well, this is it then !! I hope this is a useful review. I look forward to receiving feedback / comments / questions. As I said in the beginning, I am an amateur, and would appreciate receiving a few tips to make my future reviews better.

Drive Safe !!

Amogh

[ported_head]

Great review Amogh. Maintain the cars according to schedule and they seem to work just the way they are supposed. I guess you were fortunate enough to find a reliable service setup as well.
How about a breakdown of maintenance costs incurred over the period? I don't think we have had any high mileage Octy reports yet. Will surely help other users.

[mnhegde]

Amogh : Very nice ownership report. Fuel efficiency is great . Nice to know you had less troublesome journey with your car. Pictures of your car please? For how long have the bridgestones lasted ??

[shantyrocks]

thats a good write up amogh.
i know a couple of people who have had bad experiances with the octy. a friend of mine had some problem with the left side power window.he was quoted a bomb for its repairing. but other than that he has no issues and he consistently gets mileage of 17+.
how

[amoghchaphalkar]

Thanks for your replies guys. I will post the pictures soon and also post the maintenance cost breakdown over the years.

[ImmortalZ]

The Octavia is a consistent long termer. Pity the Laura cannot live up to the bar set by it's predecessor.

Great writeup. Pictures please.

[vinaydas]

good honest review and something different from the usual skoda owners cribbing about the poor service etc etc.
as mentioned by others pics please!!

[amoghchaphalkar]

Dear All,

As requested I am uploading the pics of my Octavia L&K.

I will be posting calculations of the service costs incurred over the 90k running. I do have all the invoices from 2004. I will break the costs down under appropriate headings (oil, wheel alignment, labour etc) and post all the calculations so that the thread becomes more meaningful and qualitative.

But to give a rough estimate : I service the car every 10,000 kms and the cost of each servicing is anywhere between 7.5 to 8k. So the minimum that I have spent over the past 5 years is 80k. I guess my service cost is going to come to around Rs.1/km

About the tires : The first tire change I did was at 50K since Bridgestone had a very good exchange offer. I haven't replaced the tires since. I do get them checked once in 3 months from the bridgestone dealer.

[anekho]

great pics and nice review!
she looks great for being 90k old!

I remember reading an old autocar article where they said octavia's in turkey (i think) are commonly driven up to 600k kms!

cheers

[diffsoft]

Great and helpful review Amogh:

I wish others too had had similar experience with their Octavia.

Cheers,

[ImmortalZ]

Whoa, that is one well maintained example! Here's to many more tens of thousands of trouble free kilometers.

[amoghchaphalkar]

Originally Posted by ImmortalZ

Whoa, that is one well maintained example! Here's to many more tens of thousands of trouble free kilometers.

unfortunately we are planning to sell her now, 5 years - 90K kms, its time to move on

Trying to figure out what would be a good resale value for her

We have decided to go for the New Innova

[GTO]

Great review! You've kept the Octy well....looks neat for a car with 90,000 clicks.

The Octavia was a heck of a car for its time. Simple mechanicals + robust build made it a guaranteed long-termer. Plus, the lack of electronics and the old school diesel gave it stupendous reliability (not so with the petrol though). The diesel was surprisingly quick too, with fuel efficiency that could embarass hatchbacks. My only grouse was with the tight cabin space, couldn't even stretch my legs in the front seat!

Classic example of where the Germans were at one time, and how they lost reliability with their cars of today.

[n.devdath]

Originally Posted by amoghchaphalkar

After completing 90,000 kms we (i.e my family) have now decided to replace this car with a new one. We were thinking about Laura or Superb, but after reading the experiences on Team BHP, I have strictly decided against it.

I know I m playing the devil here, but I would still suggest you think of the Laura or the New Superb which has gotten so many accolades from the automotive fraternity the world over for before you sign the dotted line for your next car...
I, in all frankness, believe that Skoda has been and still is a very successful brand in India but as long as you know a good service setup (which you do already), things should be smooth.
All the best...

[flyingspur]

Wow you actually do a 100km run-in after every service of your car