[Neil Roy]

Originally Posted by pgsagar

What way to go? You sound like a huuuuuge Skoda fan-boy. They took 5 years and unrelenting follow-up on part of Harish to resolve this issue and you say "thank you"? It is because fo people like you that some brands take us for granted. Skoda is not doing any favour. They should have done this years ago. It is their duty to oblige. ...........

Firstly, we are in India. Everybody takes us for granted.Our politicians, cops, judiciary, govt employees,fellow countrymen, heck even my wife takes me for granted So why blame only skoda. The only way we survive in this great country of ours is by fighting for what we believe or need, which is what Harishv has done.
Now for some common sense. In a management point of view, Skoda should have settled the moment harishv went to court. This issue has dragged on for 6 years by which time, our thread alone has gained enough bad publicity for skoda that the damage is irreparable. So why settle now, knowing that they could have let their egos rule and made harishv suffer for at least another 6-8 more years. Their sales is screwed anyway. The new octavia is not really setting the charts on fire. We are but keyboard warriors passing our opinions in our free time, but it was harishv who had to follow the case regularly and compromise on his time. I have been to court for a criminal case regarding a dispute and the judiciary apathy has to be felt to be believed. Even the most hard and steadfast resolution of fighting till the end is broken by our judiciary indifference/inefficiency. Passover and adjourned till, are legal parlance which you will hear often. Add to that court boycott, judge on leave, judge transferred, document lost etc, etc you will feel that you are fighting a losing battle. In that context, what skoda did knowing that it has already lost the biggest case i.e, customer confidence was an act of decency which has to be acknowledged(my opinion)
Regarding you fan boy insinuation, I bought my chevy beat fully loaded petrol for 5.4lacs in 2011 when a fabia diesel mid range was priced at 6.5 lacs even though the comfort and space was worlds apart. In 2012, I bought my Duster 110 RXL for 12.25 lacs and spruced it up for another 2 lacs when the much superior Yeti was priced at 17.5 lacs only. In both cases, even though I was thoroughly impressed with the car per se, I did not touch it only because of this thread. I am a hands on guy, who does most the mechanical stuff by myself, so unless I have major engine/electrical issues poor ASS does not affect me. Skoda's attitude was a personal insult to me. They challenged our forum with their arrogance, which is unacceptable.
In this context this settlement should be perceived as a call for truce/surrender which I believe should be graciously accepted.
I know thad is going to tear me apart, but hey, Iam used to being wrong

[harishv]

Originally Posted by dozer

Considering the utter dross they've been serving up in the name of A.S.S. and considering your case, would you now discourage your friends/relatives from buying Skoda cars? I know you like the new MD. I'll be surprised, nay shocked, if your answer is a NO.

For the time being, No, I won't recommend. I will wait and watch. If my experience of this last month continues for a while and if I see the change I expect to see, I will definitely recommend giving someone a second chance. Especially when someone is serious about setting things right. And Yes, one on one I like the new MD. You will like him too since he has set out to buck the system.

Originally Posted by Neil Roy

but it was harishv who had to follow the case regularly and compromise on his time. I have been to court for a criminal case regarding a dispute and the judiciary apathy has to be felt to be believed.

Even the most hard and steadfast resolution of fighting till the end is broken by our judiciary indifference/inefficiency. Passover and adjourned till, are legal parlance which you will hear often.

Add to that court boycott, judge on leave, judge transferred, document lost etc, etc you will feel that you are fighting a losing battle.

Cannot have said that better. Have to experience it to feel the helplessness and the frustration.

Originally Posted by dozer

In that context, what skoda did knowing that it has already lost the biggest case i.e, customer confidence was an act of decency which has to be acknowledged(my opinion)

In this context this settlement should be perceived as a call for truce/surrender which I believe should be graciously accepted.

Agree totally. Let us see if they deliver. Give them time.

[srameshdelhi]

Originally Posted by harishv

For the time being, No, I won't recommend. I will wait and watch. If my experience of this last month continues for a while and if I see the change I expect to see, I will definitely recommend giving someone a second chance. Especially when someone is serious about setting things right. And Yes, one on one I like the new MD. You will like him too since he has set out to buck the system.



Cannot have said that better. Have to experience it to feel the helplessness and the frustration.




Agree totally. Let us see if they deliver. Give them time.

Though in your case "better late than never" way they did something and you also accepted wisely (I also would have done so, given a chance) as the other option you had (Indian Judiciary) did not seem to be helping you much.

Think this way, With the spirit you have which normally people don't possess, had Indian Judiciary been prompt, you would have set them perfectly right and shown them their right place they deserve instead of arriving at a compromised out-of-court settlement.

As far as I understand through my friends who own VAG cars, their arrogance has always been the same and will continue forever. It has taken many millenniums but Europeans never understood Indians. And I don't see it changing just after your case. They just must have just had a sigh of relief after settling with you. That is all. Nothing more will come from them.

Aren't you seeing one hapless Dr. VineetKr is fighting with the same Mr. Rao now?

I might be sounding cynical, but in my opinion that is what the current state of affairs with VAG.

[harishv]

Originally Posted by srameshdelhi

Aren't you seeing one hapless Dr. VineetKr is fighting with the same Mr. Rao now?

I hope his case gets sorted out soon.

[pgsagar]

Originally Posted by azeemhafiz

Not sure how you base this statement on, but on the contrary most of the germans get into trouble because they sell their product almost similar to Europe / NA specs in India without preparing the car for India spec.

I based this on my personal experience with most consumer goods. Some years back I was broguht a mach2 shaving blade cartridge from Europe ( the one with green strip ). Heck, I lost count how many shaves it lasted before the strip wore out and the blades blunted. Now, the same stuff same brand bought off store shelves in India did not last beyond 3/ 4 shaves and even those 3/4 shaves were nothing compared to the imported one. Then this case of pefume 'aqua di geo'. I get this regularly from US from visitng cousins. In between when I had run out, I bought same stuff from various stores in India from various cities ( on visit) but this Indian-version perfume was not half as good and as lasting as what I get from US/Canada. I can pick out the difference blind-folded. I have seen this quality difference in cases of some more goods, too. Hence my conclusion.

[azeemhafiz]

Originally Posted by pgsagar

I based this on my personal experience with most consumer goods. Some years back I was broguht a mach2 shaving blade cartridge from Europe ( the one with green strip ). Heck, I lost count how many shaves it lasted before the strip wore out and the blades blunted. Now, the same stuff same brand bought off store shelves in India did not last beyond 3/ 4 shaves and even those 3/4 shaves were nothing compared to the imported one. Then this case of pefume 'aqua di geo'. I get this regularly from US from visitng cousins. In between when I had run out, I bought same stuff from various stores in India from various cities ( on visit) but this Indian-version perfume was not half as good and as lasting as what I get from US/Canada. I can pick out the difference blind-folded. I have seen this quality difference in cases of some more goods, too. Hence my conclusion.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the engineering build protocol for shaving blades & perfumes are astonishingly different from that of building a car.

Localizing something as simple as a blade (with consumers and environment) is trivial compared to the thousands of moving parts and their suppliers. Here is an interesting read on Gillette blades: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ing-water.html.

With perfume its a little more trivial since one needs to consider the general category of consumption and environment, well not so trivial after all, but a walk in the park when you throw in a complex machine that can propel 4 or more people across several thousand kilometers safely.

But you make a good point, and that has been my point against Maruti for such a long time now. The Suzuki Swift sold in UK v/s the one sold in India reminds me of the example that you have quoted above. We in India get it engineered to survive the country but do loose out on the nice, premium and well built feeling that I perceived when I drove one abroad, many moons ago.

When it comes to Germans & some Japanese (like Honda & Toyota) there seems to be a consistent feeling of build across the world. The Golf GTI that I have been driving recently, is reminiscent of my Laura vRS back home. On some aspects, I'd rate the Laura's build quality superior.

The current generation of Mk7 Golf has known issues of the Turbo blowing up, but I still bought it. Primarily because thats what an enthusiast do, secondly because if they dont take care of me when the turbo goes kaput - I know the laws in the country will make their life a living hell. This makes it reassuring even for the non-enthusiast consumer, the rigid and stringent consumer centric laws. The same laws when guarded well, executed well and made easier for people consume and deploy is what makes the big corporations to think several times before they take the consumers for granted. This is simply missing in our country and its denied (I meant to write delayed, but denied is more apt) judicial system.

While most of us in the forum reads this as a failure of Skoda, and I'm not making any bones out of it. It definitely is a horrid way to treat a consumer regardless of the country or judicial system. I personally am appalled at an example that testifies the age old adage - 'Justice delayed is Justice denied' and the horrendous trouble one has to go through in our country to get what is rightfully theirs.

Skoda failed - Yes definitely. Inefficiency of our Judicial systems leading to an inevitable failure - without a shadow of doubt.

[vb-saan]

Reading through some of the comments, I feel a few are getting a notion of an anti-climax with this settlement; almost like we were expecting Harish to fight for a few more years, go through shifting dates of court hearing, all the related agony and then emerge victorious. Skoda was wrong, and the matter did get dragged for too long. But if they have agreed to make necessary amends, I feel this is the best result for Harish. Since the issue is now closed, I guess we should just feel happy for Harish and move on.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by vb-san

Reading through some of the comments, I feel a few are getting a notion of an anti-climax with this settlement; almost like we were expecting Harish to fight for a few more years, go through shifting dates of court hearing, all the related agony and then emerge victorious. Skoda was wrong, and the matter did get dragged for too long. But if they have agreed to make necessary amends, I feel this is the best result for Harish. Since the issue is now closed, I guess we should just feel happy for Harish and move on.

I think we all feel happy for Harish (I definitely do, and going by so many posts of congratulations, a lot of members do too), but there's also a sense of this being 'Skoda getting rid of a tenacious customer' rather than 'Skoda mending its ways'. No customer should be made to suffer like this, but I just can't digest the notion that Skoda suddenly grew a conscience after years of playing dirty tactics with Harish.

Skoda is fast joining the FIAT bandwagon in India, cars everyone likes but no one wants to buy.

[thoma]

Originally Posted by vb-san

Reading through some of the comments, I feel a few are getting a notion of an anti-climax with this settlement; almost like we were expecting Harish to fight for a few more years, go through shifting dates of court hearing, all the related agony and then emerge victorious.

I had put a comment on this thread which could easily be felt (misunderstood) this way.

But no. I was just thinking how, many a corporate feels the customer and the court proceedings to be peanuts; because there is always a 'settlement' card, which was kept aside all these 6 years just to try whether the customer would wither off under the undue delay from our judiciary. I wish our judiciary mechanism to be faster to avoid such dirty tactics by players.

[Horizon81]

Disclaimer: I own a Skoda and a Hyundai, that doesn't mean I'm illogical. Readers, just imagine that I don't own these cars, read the following and check if it makes sense.

On Harish: He's the one who decides if he's happy with the outcome. None of us keyboard warriors have gone through what he has, and lets respect his judgement on this.

On Skoda: A company is what its top brass is. In many ways. 6 years is a long time, and the management has changed (from what I've read in this thread). Everyone here is of the opinion that this ordeal shouldn't have lasted 6 years. But if the current management is looking for an amicable solution, shouldn't that be encouraged? Or are you of the opinion that this should've been drawn out another 6 or more years, given the turn-around time of our courts?

Generic opinion:
I, for one is of the opinion that the more car manufacturers we have, the better it is for us consumers. Be it VAG, Fiat, the Koreans, Japanese or the Americans. Each of these families have very specific characteristics in their cars that appeal to different people. What looks unacceptable for some may be okay for someone else. What appeal to some may not be important for someone else. So lets give Skoda a chance, if they are truly serious about improving customer satisfaction.

Lets see some positive in this case that Harish is satisfied with the outcome.

Note to Mods: Both parties have settled the case and moved on. Just curious, any particular reason to keep this thread open and have more arguments over this?

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by Neil Roy

I know thad is going to tear me apart, but hey, Iam used to being wrong

No I'm not. I think we agree that Skoda went from very bad management to better management, at least of this issue.

Did I mention that, despite VAG trepidation, I have a VW? And that, if I could afford one, I would love a Yeti?

[malq]

My own experience with Skoda is that they appear to be a top-heavy kind of company. We actually reached their showroom to make the final payments and sign the required documents for a Rapid but for a variety of reasons documented on other threads simply walked out with the first gut feeling and then logical cold conclusion that a risk of losing the 50 thousand rupees (booking amount) was better than risking another 8 lakhs or so on the car and subsequent after-sales horror stories being revealed.

Yes, the larger issue is that days in India have changed, and self-respect comes before anything else. The single largest reason why we walked out of the Skoda showroom in Delhi is because the way they proceeded with documentation as well as inspection of target specific vehicle implied that they thought that we were now locked in because of the 50 thousand advance which the sales person and others dangled as a sort of hostage.

I may or may not have 50k stuck with Skoda India, but I do know that my self-respect is worth way way more, and that I have saved myself from chasing good money after bad.

[Thad E Ginathom]

The new Skoda MD really needs to find out, directly, what it is like being a customer.

He needs a task force of mystery buyers checking out the dealers and reporting to him. The secrecy/security would have to be a bit like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy!

Then he needs to clean the stables.

[noopster]

Originally Posted by malq

I may or may not have 50k stuck with Skoda India, but I do know that my self-respect is worth way way more, and that I have saved myself from chasing good money after bad.

What on earth possessed you to sign away the entire booking amount of 50,000? This is unheard-of. The Rapid is a 10L car; no way can they retain 5% of the value as non-refundable booking charges. Have you even made an attempt to retrieve this money from them? What does your booking receipt say? At the most they may retain 5/10K as a penalty. To be honest I think you can extract even that from them with the correct approach.
Sorry, but no amount of "self-respect" is worth forfeiting 50,000 of my hard earned bucks for no reason. Please update the forum on this since it's a pretty grave allegation and if true the Skoda dealer in question needs to be named and shamed.

[malq]

I did not sign off the amount. I refused to get drawn into an a verbal argument or anything that could be recorded and held against me. Simply waled off after asking once about the refund and getting a smarmy answer about "investigation".

After that, these posts on t-bhp, escalations on FB & twitter to Skoda abroad, and my refund cheque reached me at 1720 hours a while ago, in full.