[GTO]

A clearly exasperated Satya Singh just sent in this email.

Team-BHP,

First of all, I want to thank you for replying to my email.

February 09, 2020: My Skoda Rapid showed 2 yellow lights on the odometer. I called Skoda's roadside assistance. They told me to go to the workshop and not drive if the "yellow became red". It was Sunday, I dropped my vehicle there.

February 10, 2020: I called them and described the problem. Service advisor said that they charge 3.5k for the inspection alone which is payable if I won’t repair the car with them (after inspection), to which I said okay.

February 11, 2020: I called them to enquire about my car and they said it has a problem in one injector. I asked for the estimate (photo attached) and it’s clearly mentioned "one" injector and some other things. I told them to go ahead with the repair; they said it will take around 5 days to deliver the car.

February 18, 2020: I called them & they said it’s done. Reached and they were preparing the invoice. Post that, me and the service advisor went for a test-drive.

After some distance, I heard some weird sounds and the pick-up was jerky. I asked him about it and now he says, the car has a problem in one more injector. (GTO = do they not test-drive or check cars? Expecting too much of a Skoda workshop?)

I told him this is not fair and he tried to give some silly excuses. He called his superior, who came and told me "you have to replace the other injector too". They are not ready to listen to me. I got angry and said "remove the injector you replaced and return my car". Now they became a bit more serious and tried to make the situation better.

The senior guy said that it is a very minor problem (i.e. the other injector) and I can drive it easily for 1 - 1.5 years. He further diagnosed that there might be a problem with the engine mounts and told me to replace them. I said okay (invoice attached).

But they have fooled me. Even after spending so much money & trusting them, the car was never running like before. The acceleration was just not there. The engine felt jerky. Worse still, after around 1 month, both the warning lights came up AGAIN. It was around the end of March 2020 (lockdown had just begun). I waited for the lockdown to end.

After the service station opened, I went there, but they are not even ready to talk. I called Skoda's customer care, but it's all in vain.

I have some questions:

1. I doubt if they really replaced the injector or not?

2. If they are charging Rs 3500 for the inspection only and taking 2 full days, should they not know that it has a problem in 2 injectors? (GTO = and where was the magical engine mount in this original diagnosis?)

The service advisor said "sir your car is 90% better than before". I gave the car to them to make it perfectly fine, not 90% better . Which brand has this type of a service advisor?

I want to request you to please try and help me.

Satya

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Dealership section!

Whoa! Spending 27000 on repairs and still ending up with a troubled machine? And why the heck is this injector still costing 20 grand a piece? Can't it be localised? Since so many Rapids & Ventos suffer injector failure, can't the VW group do something about it and make the repairs more reasonable? This is so clearly a product defect & such steep bills must be killing their reputation.

Quoting a related post from the other recent Skoda thread. This is clearly not a brand for people who don't understand cars and don't have access to honest friendly-neighbourhood garages:

Originally Posted by GTO

Skoda can try "revamping" their after-sales experience all they want, but frankly, unless they change every single dealership (which won't be possible for them), these kind of experiences will keep coming up. Worse still, for every such experience that we read up on Team-BHP or social media, there would be a hundred unreported ones.

There has always been talk of how Skoda dealers cannot fulfil their financial ambitions with the small number of monthly car sales, hence resorting to looting at the service centers. You'll see this with many low volume brands, including Nissan. Autobahn has long had a shady reputation; am disappointed that Skoda continues with such dealerships.

Please ask your friend to remove his car from that wretched workshop and take it to a good independent garage. As I'd told you earlier, I strongly recommend Sunil Shanbagh @ Select Auto. There are many other good, honest shops in The Team-BHP Directory.

Related Thread : REPAIR the Vento / Rapid injectors

[moralfibre]

Originally Posted by GTO

Quoting a related post from the other recent Skoda thread. This is clearly not a brand for people who don't understand cars and don't have access to honest friendly-neighbourhood garages:


Related Thread : REPAIR the Vento / Rapid injectors

Actually since his car is a 2012, then the more relevant thread for injector failures is this. (A case of unreliable Volkswagen Ventos (2010 - 2012))

Very sorry to see the state of your car, Satyapal. I'm not surprised though. These earlier versions of Rapids and Ventos are prone to injector, EGR, fuel rail, fuel pump failures. The repairs of all combined exceeds 6 figures and in some cases the value of the car.

[PrideRed]

Everytime I see 1.0TSi/ Rapid Rider thread, my heart says- just get it and then when I see these threads, reminds me of my past experience, my brain says "Stay Away". Despite selling same model for 10 years how difficult is it make it reliable and why are the parts price so high? Numerous engine/GB options to blame?

[Turbohead]

Skoda and Volkswagen India should honestly be shut down if they can't replace defective components in their car. These are known issues worldwide but Indian customers will conveniently be ignored thanks to lax consumer protection laws.

They only replace it in goodwill warranty if the issue is sufficiently blown out of proportions. I sincerely hope Satya Singh gets his car back in proper shape without paying a penny.

Dealerships taking you for a ride is one thing but when the company is hand in glove with those crooks, it's a totally different ball game!

[Sabrish]

Another horror story from the Skoda Stables! Here is what Zac had to say about this thread!



Meanwhile this is what I had shared in the Skoda Owners Forum sometime backand many seemed to be on the same perspective:

Let's honestly hope this changes!

[GTO]

Zac Hollis says "we have 22000 cars going through our workshops each month and less than 1% are not satisfied with the service".

Whatever the actual percentage is, it is still too high.

Skoda sells 1200 - 1400 cars / month, while Hyundai or Maruti do 40 - 100 times that. If every brand had just 1% of unhappy customers, then we should see 40X the complaint threads for Hyundai (as Skoda) and 100X the complaint threads for Maruti (as Skoda).

Somehow, that isn't the case at all. Despite selling such a low volume of cars, the most shocking after-sales complaints are primarily of Skoda.

[lapis_lazuli]

I was the one who made the original FB post with a link to this thread. It is clear Mr.Hollis is trying his level best. In fact, he had commented on the Autobahn Skoda incident also, again, posted by me on the Skoda Owners page. The problem with low running cars, is unlike Maruti, they might not have a very strong control on the dealer network. The symbiotic relationship is far too important here, perhaps. Just keeping fingers crossed, modern cars if not abused and serviced regularly, usually do not malfunction. I have owned a FIAT too, and Touchwood, no issues. Despite ASS inconsistencies! Skoda is slowly but surely gaining popularity in the mass market segment, especially with the Karoq and Rider. Time to pull up the after sales experience by a huge factor and ensure it keeps rolling.

[nirmaljusdoit]

All said and done, the entire repair process would need to see major changes in the way its carried out to get the root cause of such issues sorted.

- How did the dealership identify the injector issues? They should have shared the scanning report with customer initially and taken approval to proceed

- Where is the photo and video proof of replacement being carried out ? In today's day and age of affordable mobiles and data plans, each replacement should be captured and sent to customers. This step also builds trust and is a transparent process.

- Engine mount if identified for replacement would have cracks in the rubber surface. No before or after proof has been shared. Also engine mounts need to be replaced as a set. Changing only one side would not serve the purpose

Mr. Zac Hollis needs to look at the whole process and fix things one by one. such process improvement once done will change fortunes of Skoda in India

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by GTO

Zac Hollis says "we have 22000 cars going through our workshops each month and less than 1% are not satisfied with the service".

Whatever the actual percentage is, it is still too high....

This is not specific to Skoda, but any claims made on basis of 'customer satisfaction' stats are BS, because the surveys themselves are BS more often than not.

What customer hasn't been asked to rate their experience on a scale of 1-10, where the actual number they accept are 8,9 & 10, and often badger customers incessantly to give highest possible rating?

[Sunny_ST3]

Sorry to hear about it, I have gone through same but for Honda and Ford. My experience with Skoda is much much better than Honda and Ford.

From my experience, Skoda support have already moved from worst to good. We have many positive experiences shared by people on some other forum. Plus Zac Hollis is on India Skoda Owner group and himself replying almost every query and complaints. In this case also he is paying attention. He is definitely working to improve service.

[Kosfactor]

Legacy!

Some of you may recollect when the first Skoda was launched in India, the Octavia - the car became popular without any serious marketing attempt from Skoda , it was like an IFB washing machine phenomenon during those days. Keralite`s loved it, it was perfect replacement to their Lancer diesel. It was diesel mania, we had diesel version of everything including Corolla diesel imported.

The Octavia was an absolute dream, alpine audio leather what not - until it crossed 50 - 70K Kms on the odometer and the diesel injection system packs up.

If this Rapid car is old then the Injectors must be replaced in a set of 4 because whatever went inside and messed with the first injector may as well have made its way into the others. Also clean up the fuel system and filters, clean out the tank as well.

Mr. Zac`s 1% seems to be the result of 'Sir please rate me 5 star", maybe the others just do not bother to go to Skoda once the warranty expires. Either way VW Skoda will remain a brand for people with high level of patience to deal with them.

[INJAXN]

Another Skoda horror story, in fact, back to back on team-bhp.
Thanks to their good cars, people still trust the brand and still buying from them.

I wonder if they have ever analyzed, how poor after sales service affects their new car sale.
They should learn from Maruti, they have less disaster after sales stories even with great volume.

[Cyborg]

Skoda India = Don’t buy their cars - period!

Years back when I bought my Civic finally, I almost bought the Laura. Reading the horror stories at that time changed my mind.

What’s the point of having awesome gear shifts, premium quality etc etc, if this kind of pain persists. What a waste of life running behind service centres and many a times the legal route. Simply avoid the brand.

Cheers

[KMT]

What can you say, us Indians are terribily optimistic people.

We continue to buy Skoda despite all the horror stories that we regularly read about, we always are sure that it wont happen to us and these things happen to others only.

Seeing people gushing on this forum about the new Karoq, this tendency is obvious.

Its such a pity though, the cars are indeed very nice, however as a customer we never meet the factory worker who assembled the car or the designer who designed it, we just meet the Skoda dealer who sells/services it. If they give us a bad time, we cant help having to avoid the Skoda brand.