[rdhawan15]

Most service issues on Skoda cars relate to dealer attitudes and a reluctance on part of the company to honour its warranty claims. Assuming that an owner has already passed the extended warranty period and is on his own when it comes to getting the Skoda products serviced, are there any options for such a person to source spare parts online/open market and get the car fixed at his choicest garage?

I feel that Skoda makes solid cars; inability of the company to support their own product is an issue for most of us. So, what if I want a Rapid and get it serviced on my own after 4 years of ownership? Are there any issues in sourcing the parts? I know, for sure, that these cars can be serviced outside the Skoda dealerships.

[shankar.balan]

My experience, Ajay, has been significantly different with Vinayak. So much so that we are in the process of buying a brand new I20 from the same dealer's Hyundai dealership branch in Madras.
It's your choice what you wish to do. I'm only trying to help by pointing you in the right direction. You're welcome to take the advantage of this if you wish to.
However, if you would prefer to wait for a 'systemic correction' then that's your choice. It may take longer though, because as per my experience things rarely happen in India in an automatically efficient manner without some kind of intervention. This is a sad admission of fact, yes, but it is absolutely true 8 times out of 10.
Me, I like quick resolutions through the 'personal touch/ personal contact' route, wherever possible. Hence I make the time and take the trouble to create those relationships.

[nikhilmadgavkar]

Moderator note: Post edited, please punctuate the sentences and paragraphs. Will help in readability.

Service quality will always be an issue with VW and Skoda, I had a similar issue with my Skoda Laura L&K when my car was given on service to Autobahn Sewri, Mumbai. After delivery, I started getting faulty alerts from my front bumper sensor. When I checked the same, the sleeve for that sensor was missing and they had replaced it with a black insulating tape, resulting in fault alerts. Regular emails and countless calls to the customer support helped me resolve this issue.

Similar incident in Volkswagen, a friend's VW polo just didn't start up one day, nothing on the instrument cluster, no indication, called the Volkswagen breakdown service and took the car to Andheri east workshop, Tornado motors Mumbai. They said it was a fuel pump issue, whereas the problem was with the starter and even layman could guess it was not a fuel pump issue.

This is how you get treated to buy a premium brand and 0% customer satisfaction.

[speedfreak01]

A friend of mine owns a Laura since 2010. He hasn't faced any problems till date. But his running is also very low. Only done 15k kms till date. Currently his car is standing in the workshop from past 20 days waiting for ORVM's which got stolen. Skoda has quoted a price of 65k.

Also his 2013 polo refused to start the day after he bought the car. Was towed away immediately.

[saket77]

Originally Posted by speedfreak01

.....waiting for ORVM's which got stolen. Skoda has quoted a price of 65k.

65K for OVRM??
(I ran out of my quota of 2 smilies - if it is a 'smiley' anyway!)

If you add up the costs of a few Skoda spares, it will easily cross the cost of the car - means only 2 things:

1. Either Skoda is selling the cars for a huge loss upfront (which of course looks highly unlikely)
2. Or they have an atrocious pricing mechanism for the spares and hence are making huge money out of them.

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by speedfreak01

A friend of mine owns a Laura since 2010. He hasn't faced any problems till date. But his running is also very low. Only done 15k kms till date. Currently his car is standing in the workshop from past 20 days waiting for ORVM's which got stolen.

Why does the car need to be left standing in the workshop if the ORVM's have been stolen?

[speedfreak01]

Originally Posted by smartcat

Why does the car need to be left standing in the workshop if the ORVM's have been stolen?

Waiting for spares. Since the other cars are doing their duty nicely. He is in no hurry to pick it up.

[alpha1]

Originally Posted by speedfreak01

A friend of mine owns a Laura since 2010. He hasn't faced any problems till date. But his running is also very low. Only done 15k kms till date. Currently his car is standing in the workshop from past 20 days waiting for ORVM's which got stolen. Skoda has quoted a price of 65k.

Also his 2013 polo refused to start the day after he bought the car. Was towed away immediately.

Originally Posted by saket77

65K for OVRM??
(I ran out of my quota of 2 smilies - if it is a 'smiley' anyway!)

If you add up the costs of a few Skoda spares, it will easily cross the cost of the car - means only 2 things:

1. Either Skoda is selling the cars for a huge loss upfront (which of course looks highly unlikely)
2. Or they have an atrocious pricing mechanism for the spares and hence are making huge money out of them.

I think we were discussing about this issue on another Skoda thread.
It was postulated that since the same parts are shared by Skoda/VW/Seat/Audi and Audi fetches the max price, the spare pricing is uniform. Otherwise people would start fitting cheaper Skoda parts on their Audis.

Of course this was just a postulate - and if true is extremely terrible for the poor buyers who cannot do this kind of due diligence of total cost of ownership!
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...ml#post3345431

Originally Posted by speedfreak01

Waiting for spares. Since the other cars are doing their duty nicely. He is in no hurry to pick it up.

I can again postulate that perhaps because of this condition where the buyers are not so demanding (which they would be if they had the sole vehicle of their household lets say Suzuki Alto sitting at the garage for long period) - the seller doesn't need to "pander" to sensitive customer demands.

[saket77]

Originally Posted by alpha1

I think we were discussing about this issue on another Skoda thread.
It was postulated that since the same parts are shared by Skoda/VW/Seat/Audi and Audi fetches the max price, the spare pricing is uniform. Otherwise people would start fitting cheaper Skoda parts on their Audis.

Of course this was just a postulate - and if true is extremely terrible for the poor buyers who cannot do this kind of due diligence of total cost of ownership!

Oh yes! Thanks for reminding. Someone even pointed out that first they share parts across the range and get benefited from economy of scales, then make a hue & cry over the sharing stating that Audi owners will fit cheaper Skoda parts. Hilarious! That was a good debate!

[a4anurag]

he problem I find with Skoda A.S.S is they don't look into the root cause of the problem, they just replace the whole system and get rid of it.

My neighbour had reported spongy brakes so as a solution the guys at the A.S.S have replaced all the brake pads and ABS module. I was like

Anurag.

[Screwdriva]

What were you thinking when you bought the two Skoda Superb AT cars?

That you would be an exception to the norm? That Skoda's repeated technology failures would not apply to you?

I should state that I bought a Yeti in 2011. But I bought the base with no electronics that could fail me. And I did so because I knew that VW's competency is with Diesel motors and not with electronics intensive equipment.

The head of Skoda's Mumbai workshop asked me why I purchased the Ambient when everyone was buying the Elegance. When I told him my reasons and fear of all the electronics in the top end Skoda cars, he smiled, said that was a smart decision & that people forget that Skoda's reputation was built on the Octavia Diesel, a relatively bare bones car.

If you're buying a VW car, avoid the temptation of electronics and automatics. Stick with the Japs if you want those.

[k_ajay]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

My experience, Ajay, has been significantly different with Vinayak. So much so that we are in the process of buying a brand new I20 from the same dealer's Hyundai dealership branch in Madras.
It's your choice what you wish to do. I'm only trying to help by pointing you in the right direction. You're welcome to take the advantage of this if you wish to.
However, if you would prefer to wait for a 'systemic correction' then that's your choice. It may take longer though, because as per my experience things rarely happen in India in an automatically efficient manner without some kind of intervention. This is a sad admission of fact, yes, but it is absolutely true 8 times out of 10.
Me, I like quick resolutions through the 'personal touch/ personal contact' route, wherever possible. Hence I make the time and take the trouble to create those relationships.

Shankar, I agree with you in the relationship building efforts. About 3 to 4 of my friends who are all Fabia owners (and members of this forum) have been getting our Fabias cared for my Vinayak Cars at KR Puram, right from 2010. At that time we built good relations with the then CRM (can't remember his name now but he was from Maharashtra, Mr. Naik or some name like that). After he left (and even a little before that), we developed good relationship with the next CRM Rajendra Prasad. Ultimately he left too and one of the older service advisors I was familiar with, left too.

Everytime I come someone new tends to my car and I am unable to keep relations with a constant advisor (Francis mainly takes care of parts now and Mohan deals specially with body shop, guys who I am comfortable with).

I'll be going back to them to get my wheel's bolts and hope to meet Aiyanna then and have a chat if possible. I am in agreement that personal relationships will help against a blanket system correction and I hope dearly that building a relationship with Vinayak Cars helps, because its only on that hope that I'm still keeping fingers crossed for a Yeti or a Rapid, if not a new City, as my next car. But i'm still very cautious and wary of Skoda the company (ultimately Vinayak will have to toe the line drawn by Skoda, irrespective of personal relationships). Let me try..

Thanks again for reaching out. Hope we meet sometime at the KR puram centre. Would love to check out your Yeti.

[Mr.Beat]

Originally Posted by speedfreak01

A friend of mine owns a Laura since 2010. He hasn't faced any problems till date. But his running is also very low. Only done 15k kms till date. Currently his car is standing in the workshop from past 20 days waiting for ORVM's which got stolen. Skoda has quoted a price of 65k.

Also his 2013 polo refused to start the day after he bought the car. Was towed away immediately.

65k for ORVM's? Are you sure you did not miss a dot in between?

We have a Vento (petrol) and a Rapid (Diesel) in our extended family and both haven't reported any problems or exaggerated service or spare part costs to date.

[Agarwaka]

A colleague of mine who loves driving (his current car's a Civic) is looking to upgrade and after long deliberations, had zeroed in on the Octavia. However, the issues cropping up in the Octavia + my feedback on Skoda's apparent steadfastness to not bother about customer service have had the obvious effect - he's not considering the Octavia any longer. Such a pity as Skoda cars are awesome (I prefer the Superb over the A4) and they can achieve so much more by just removing their ear plugs. A real disappointment that endures.

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by k_ajay

Shankar, I agree with you in the relationship building efforts. About 3 to 4 of my friends who are all Fabia owners (and members of this forum) have been getting our Fabias cared for my Vinayak Cars at KR Puram, right from 2010. At that time we built good relations with the then CRM (can't remember his name now but he was from Maharashtra, Mr. Naik or some name like that). After he left (and even a little before that), we developed good relationship with the next CRM Rajendra Prasad. Ultimately he left too and one of the older service advisors I was familiar with, left too.

Everytime I come someone new tends to my car and I am unable to keep relations with a constant advisor (Francis mainly takes care of parts now and Mohan deals specially with body shop, guys who I am comfortable with).

I'll be going back to them to get my wheel's bolts and hope to meet Aiyanna then and have a chat if possible. I am in agreement that personal relationships will help against a blanket system correction and I hope dearly that building a relationship with Vinayak Cars helps, because its only on that hope that I'm still keeping fingers crossed for a Yeti or a Rapid, if not a new City, as my next car. But i'm still very cautious and wary of Skoda the company (ultimately Vinayak will have to toe the line drawn by Skoda, irrespective of personal relationships). Let me try..

Thanks again for reaching out. Hope we meet sometime at the KR puram centre. Would love to check out your Yeti.

While I am always scrupulously polite to them, I do not deal as a rule, with the lower levels as they are prone to change.
This is why I have suggested you speak to Hemanth, the GM of Sales who sits in in Palace Orchards and Aiyanna, the GM of Service who sits in KR Puram.