[Rohit_Quad]

The exact same thing was also about to happen to me during my Virtus purchase in January 2024. There were three vehicles available with the dealer with the same specifications as the one I wanted: one manufactured three months earlier than the third car, the second six months earlier than the third car, and the third with the latest manufacturing month. When booking, I was shown the stock sheet of all available cars, where I could make out the manufacturing date by looking at the VIN's, and of course, I chose the third vehicle, which had the latest manufacturing date among all the three available cars. I asked the dealer to get the car I had selected a couple of days before delivery to do PDI. I ensured that I would pay only after I liked what I saw. And on the day when they were supposed to get the car, there was a delay, and they got the car in the evening instead of the morning. Of course, I was all excited, saw the car for the first time, and started checking it thoroughly. Since there was so much discussion about the manufacturing date of the vehicle when I was booking and the number of times I mentioned that I would only buy the third vehicle, I assumed they would get the correct car for me to do the PDI. After thoroughly checking the entire car, two things stood out. The car had empty water bottles in the back seat, which they said the guys at the yard must have left while checking the car. The second was that the floor in the rear also had dusty foot marks, for which they gave the same reason. I do not know why, but I casually walked to the front to check the VIN of the car, just before wrapping up, and there it was. It was the second vehicle, which I refused as it was manufactured six months before the one I chose. I immediately brought this to the attention of the salesperson I was dealing with, and he was in shock. He called the stock yard, found out that they sent the wrong car, and apologised immediately. If I hadn't caught that, I would have taken delivery of the wrong car. By God's grace, I caught it at the last moment, and they agreed to get the correct car the next day for me to check. And it was all plain sailing after that.

[TurboTorque]

Originally Posted by sh3lby

I think you let them get off lightly to be honest. I think you should've escalated with Skoda corporate the moment you realized you were sold the wrong car (god forbid it'd been a lemon?!), ie VIN mismatch, which shouldn't have occurred anyway.

The dealership's disrespectful demeanor, lack of customer support, refusal to accept responsibility, etc; is astounding. Couple this with the fact that they made you drive 400-odd kms which turned out to be pointless (I don't know how you were composed enough even after this, I would've gone berserk), I think this particular dealer needs more consequences.

My mistake is that I did the PDI and did not check whether the same VIN is there in the invoice and RTO forms while signing and on delivery day. When I noticed the odometer difference on the delivery day, I reported it to them and they gave me some lame reason. Even at that time, it did not occur to me to cross-check the VIN number, as I was emotionally high due to taking the delivery of the car with my complete family. Ideally, it is their basic responsibility to deliver the same car that I did the PDI, which they failed to do. Since it was my mistake of not checking the VIN, and they accepted their mistake after the escalation, I let it go, given the fact that there was no issue with the car.

Originally Posted by sinharishi

While not verifying the VIN was a mistake made by you it does not change anything, they cheated you. Your invoice has the VIN from the car you did saw during PDI? Your RC has a different VIN? Or both has the same VIN and you are driving a car with different VIN?

Yes, it was my mistake for not checking the VIN on my invoice and RTO forms before signing. The VIN is the same on my invoice, RC, and the car that I am driving. I feel they cheated me because: 1) They showed me a different car during the PDI and delivered another car. 2) They sold me a car that had already been invoiced to another person. The car I took delivery of was already invoiced to someone else on April 29th, and they re-invoiced it to me on May 31st. I was not informed of this until I learned from Skoda’s customer care a month after the delivery.

Originally Posted by BhayanaV

And VAG/Skoda stories keep coming. The reason I didn't even took a test drive of any of their cars while in market 6 months ago. Nothing is more valuable than peace of mind.

This experience has made me hesitant to consider another Skoda car in the future.

Originally Posted by DieselAnna

Forget the VIN issue aside, it is still ok if the car is running fine and would have been the same as the VIN of the PDI car. I'll still sleep better. But the audacity to make you run 3 times to the showroom for frivolous things. I'll not put the blame on the entire Showroom but that guy who called you saying that the Fastag/Number plate/SMP package has arrived and you need to come down for it. You should've really escalated this to Skoda.
.

Yes, that was the most frustrating experience. They told me that they would take action against that sales executive. I do not know whether they took any serious action. Hopefully, the dealership learned from this and improved their service for others.

[arnav17]

Ironically, I got this ad while reading through your post 🙁



All this aside, them making you do so many round trips for no joy was completely unacceptable. I feel you should jave escalated the issue then and there instead of coming back home disappointed. They have definitely cheated you and they need to be punished. Hope further action is taken soon.

[naikameya]

Not much can be done now. Make peace with it if your car is running fine and has no issues. We get excited when we are actually taking delivery and make mistakes. You escaped. A month-older car has no practical impact.

It is a wonderful car enjoy it.

You can squeeze out more care going forward and some freebies from them.

[Brumby]

Originally Posted by TurboTorque

Issue #4: The wrong car was delivered; it was not the one I inspected during the PDI.

I always insist on receiving the VIN number/Chasis number on my mail before I will proceed with payment for purchase. Thats the only way to be at advantage in legal terms, if the dealership registers/delivers a vehicle with different VIN number/Chasis number without prior intimation, dealership will be liable legally.

Maruti Suzuki used to send the customers the VIN number of the car which used to be allotted to them (for cars with some waiting period), for cars readily available, once PDI has been done, we must ask the dealership to immediately send a mail mentioning the allotment of the vehicle with XX......XXX VIN number, once confirmed to be the same as at the time of PDI, only then we must proceed with payment, and finally it must be checked in the registration form and again at the time of delivery.

Unless the car has multiple issues, enjoy the drives, have fun and relax, everything else is not so much of an issue.

Cheers

[L8ButV8]

Originally Posted by sh3lby

Also shoutout to Zac Hollis for actually replying and assisting you out of his busy schedule; I wonder if part of the job profile is personally/having a team look for complaints on social media and resolve them.

It is in Zac's job profile to run an institution that does not cheat customers at the ground level. To ensure that that Skoda gives customers cars that are not lemons. Skoda's bosses have failed at both. It is a small consolation that Zac goes out of the way to try to help. His bigger success would have been to institute clear structural change, delivering more reliable cars & better dealer accountability.

Our Skoda Superb has run 50k km and has chewed through multiple DSG gearboxes. Meanwhile our Camry has done the same without breaking a sweat. More importantly, Skoda ASS has been a nightmare to deal with and actively tried to cheat us, while Toyota has been an absolute breeze. I simply don't trust Skoda, and I believe thats the case for a lot of people I know.

I do admit-- I have not owned a Skoda 2.0 car. Maybe the new cars are very reliable & Zac has improved trust in Skoda India. But that doesn't seem to be the case per Team BHP reports.

[Latheesh]

If company's top executive have to get involved with low level daily transactions, there is something seriously wrong the way company operate. I had to send an email to Zac Hollis to get my Kushaq booking amount back.

[Bumblebee22]

This is quite a terrifying experience. About 9 years back, I had a similar experience when I had my heart on a toffee brown Rapid. The salesman kept insisting that I should buy the white colour one. I had refused but he tried one more time when he came home to collect the cheque. This flipped something in me and I just asked him to buzz away. There is something about the Skoda India culture that is deeply wrong. I cannot believe that your experience was a mistake.

[TheGearBox]

It seems to be Skoda's lackadaisical attitude towards their customers that draws shady dealers towards them.

Some time ago, I had booked a Kushaq Ambition 1.0 MT. My preference was actually the Taigun but given the discounts Skoda was offering (loyalty bonus plus an additional discount for a promotional scheme for some credit card running at the time, along with a 4 year SVP and the accessories kit for free) the Kushaq was coming to less than Rs 15 lakh on-road and around Rs 70k cheaper than the Taigun. Given the significant difference in price, I decided to choose the Kushaq.

While making the booking, there seemed to be some difference in opinion between the SA whom I was dealing with and his senior regarding the applicability of the discounts. They both went into the manager's cabin, discussed something and came out saying that they could offer both discounts to me. So I went ahead with the booking.

One month later, the SA called me to say that they could not offer both discounts (loyalty and credit card scheme) together that month. Instead, they were willing to offer me the accessories kit for free. I told him that the kit was already a part of the deal, to which he replied "Oh, is it?", feigning surprise. I then told him that they could not change the terms of the deal like this once they had been agreed upon. He gave me some nonsense about how offers keep changing every month and there was nothing he could do. I told him that if that was the case, I would like to cancel my booking and his reply was "No problem." Not a hint of remorse for losing a sale.

Just one day prior to this, Skoda also decided to increase the price of the Kushaq. That along with the denial of the erstwhile discounts made the Taigun's price not much more. This along with their dishonest way of dealing with me was the reason I cancelled the Skoda booking and went ahead with the VW.

But that incident made me wonder what exactly was discussed with the manager that day. And if they had just taken my booking knowing full well that the promised discounts would not be allowed anyway.

[nimblemaster]

Originally Posted by TurboTorque

My mistake is that I did the PDI and did not check whether the same VIN is there in the invoice and RTO forms while signing and on delivery day. When I noticed the odometer difference on the delivery day, I reported it to them and they gave me some lame reason. Even at that time, it did not occur to me to cross-check the VIN number, as I was emotionally high due to taking the delivery of the car with my complete family. Ideally, it is their basic responsibility to deliver the same car that I did the PDI, which they failed to do. Since it was my mistake of not checking the VIN, and they accepted their mistake after the escalation, I let it go, given the fact that there was no issue with the car.



Yes, it was my mistake for not checking the VIN on my invoice and RTO forms before signing. The VIN is the same on my invoice, RC, and the car that I am driving. I feel they cheated me because: 1) They showed me a different car during the PDI and delivered another car. 2) They sold me a car that had already been invoiced to another person. The car I took delivery of was already invoiced to someone else on April 29th, and they re-invoiced it to me on May 31st. I was not informed of this until I learned from Skoda’s customer care a month after the delivery.




This experience has made me hesitant to consider another Skoda car in the future.


Yes, that was the most frustrating experience. They told me that they would take action against that sales executive. I do not know whether they took any serious action. Hopefully, the dealership learned from this and improved their service for others.

Reading this thread reminds me that I too had purchased the skoda extended warranty for my car. Does the myskoda app work for you now? Mine just keeps showing some error.

[TurboTorque]

Originally Posted by nimblemaster

Reading this thread reminds me that I too had purchased the skoda extended warranty for my car. Does the myskoda app work for you now? Mine just keeps showing some error.

It seems like the MySkoda Plus application is a half-finished application that was released without supporting essential features from the old application. Generally, any new application should have backward compatibility features.

As of today, you can only add your car using its VIN number. If you've changed your mobile number, you can't add your car because the OTP will be sent to the original mobile number registered at the time of purchase. Even if you successfully add your car in the app, it doesn't display the service history, service due-date, SMP expiry date, or EW expiry date. When I inquired about these issues, they mentioned they are currently performing data migration, merging the data of both Skoda and VW vehicles, and plan to add these features in future updates. For now, all we can do is wait. In my opinion, they shouldn't have launched the new application until they completed the data migration and supported all features from the old application.

Please send me a PM about the error that you are seeing, and I will see if I can help you.