[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

In case t-bhp is sued, I promise to contribute 1K to the kitty.

That said, I request the Skoda corporate guys / gals to please read Sam / Yeti's thread on good English. Y'know, I am actually instigating you into writing good English.

BTW, Skoda, which is owned by VW. We, as a nation, have not forgotten the "Varisht Wahan" entity. ;-)

Ok. Now sue us for defamation.

[shajufx]

Managed to take 2 Fabia guys (booking was fixed for 2nd April) to Hyundai i20 too ! Just heard from my cousine that a corporate brand was planning to book 5 superbs and got transfered to Merc. I doubt a team-bhp hand behind this ! If any potential buyer sees this thread, I am sure they will leave the plan even for a test drive !

[GTO]

Originally Posted by nareshtrao

I own a Civic for two years and still own/have owned brands like Lancer, Maruti, Hyundai etc. in the past.

Honda Service has also not been outstanding in the past.

I'm glad you brought this up; we were discussing exactly the same thing in the support forum this morning. Couple of points (which you will agree are valid).

1. It is IMPOSSIBLE for any large brand / mass manufacturer to please a 100% of its customers. What then?

2. We simply look at percentages from a pretty indicative sample size. Get this : Maruti sells in a week the number of cars that Skoda sells in the entire year. Yet, why does one see more complaints of Skoda (as a percentage of total ownership too)? Honda sells 10 times the number of cars that Skoda sells in a year. Why do we see more Skoda complaints then?

3. With relevance to the Japs, I'll be the first to tell you about some scoundrels amongst Honda dealers. Butttttttttttttttttttttt again, the complaints against a Honda are far lesser than that for a Skoda. Look, we are talking about maintaining standards here and there isn't a doubt that when Ichibaan Honda crashed my car, Honda Motor Company did put Ichibaan through some pretty serious heat (not as much as ACI did though!). In Harish's case, you have Skoda representatives working hand in hand with the cheat of a dealer!! What the heck does that tell you?

4. Now consider that the Japs are infinitely more reliable than a Skoda. Thus, you visit the service station with MUCH less frequency. Plus, diagnosing problems in a simple Honda City or Toyota Corolla is nowhere as complicated as the Euros (thus making the dealers job easier too). Not everyone of us is an Ajmat who knows his Skodas ECU malfunction codes and orders parts online from the UK.

5. Some get away with reliable cars + good to average service, others get away with unreliable cars + stellar service (Mercedes for e.g.). My C may have it's share of issues. But Mercedes changed a lot of parts beyond the warranty period. Auto Hangar's standards of service are amongst the best I have experienced ever. However, Skoda has the unique situation of cars that lack in outright reliability + horrible aftersales + ridiculous corporate attitude. That leads to pretty much the dissatisfaction you see in many corners of this forum.

Please don't come here and say "You think Skoda has terrible service? Wait till you see what happened to my Swift". Even customer service leaders like Maruti, Hyundai & Toyota receive some complaints.....Remember, we are NOT talking about individual experiences here, instead look at where the majority of complaints are coming from.

Originally Posted by Steeroid

How do you instigate me in a court case? I thought this was wrong from what little I know of the language, so I looked up various online dictionaries.

it seems rather pointless as they have already provoked us plenty.

No one thought of this yet. You remember how everyone joked that Chris Bangle was actually on Daimler Chryslers payroll?

Either way, it would be rather cool to go around saying "Skoda has instigated me in a court case", so I think they should do this to me.

Or did they just forget to Czech?

[Evolution_VIII]

Hi,
I have been following TBHP for over 4 years for anything and everything about cars but had hardly contributed. But after going through this thread, I can’t help but speak up.

@ Harish: Appreciate you for courage and patience you have shown by taking stand. Many talk but a very few actually do it.

@ All the guys who have suffered because of poor Skoda A-S-S: it’s really sad to have our car dreams turned into nightmares because of the people who do not do their job well. But good that you guys are speaking up, these is going to save a lot of trouble for the people who were considering to buy Skoda cars. All I can say now is – thank god I don’t own a Skoda.

@ Skoda Corporate: This forum is NOT just a bunch of netizens coming together to gossip and bitch about some car company. This forum is for the guys who LOVE the cars and LIVE the cars. We share our good and bad experiences and also appreciate what we like (if you have noticed, one of your Skoda product appears on the top of homepage).

It is so rude and unprofessional gesture to threaten the forum and members with legal action. It’s a pity that you call yourself a PR person but you do not realize that people do not buy cars for which car maker wins lawsuit in court. People buy for the quality of product and services offered and most importantly by the publicity a car gets by word of mouth. And you have severely lost on that front. Skoda could have won the hearts of these 40 thousand members and millions reading this thread by taking prompt corrective action but instead what you have incurred is hatred and anger of car lovers like me.

I was not much bothered about the quality and services of Skoda because I do not own one and neither am I affected by such a bad experience. But now, I am never going to own a Skoda car, ever. And I am going to advice and request all the people I know who are planning to buy a Skoda to abandon their plans.

@ GTO, Moderators and TBHP Support: You guys are really doing a great job by taking a stand for one of the car lovers who has suffered due to wrongdoings and arrogance of the dirty car dealer and car maker. All I can say is, I am PROUD to be a Team-BHPian.

Cheers,

Mandar

[harry10]

Amazing!
More than 500 posts, 30+pages and thousands of views in 3 days, well Humanity is not dead after all.
Who is Harish ji or Kapil to us?
How many of us know them personally?
Very few of us or maybe none of us might be knowing them personally. Still so many responses and helping hands, did you asked yourself Skoda/Meghna why?

Because they are fellow BHPIANS and common PEOPLE whom we can relate to as most of us have faced manufacturer/dealer harrassment with some or the other product we bought.

This is not the Gandhian era where you slap one side of the face and we will give the other side to slap as well. People know what their rights are and though most of us do not choose to fight with so called big companies there are brave people like Harish ji,Kapil etc who have Instigated this feeling into us by their initiative. Hats off!

@Meghna- after reading your posts i feel i was listening to an automated speech by a computer with no emotion or consideration whatsoever. Disappointed is an understatement for those posts.

@GTO and rest of the Mods- I had requested earlier for the Red Skoda to be removed from the forum and that post was deleted by mod team. I can see many more requests here now.

However i will request to keep in consideration the sentiments of few people who own Skoda cars like - Abhinav,Ashish,Navin ji(who have Vrs) and other members who have any Skoda cars(Sorry i can recall only these names right now on the top of my head).
These people own skoda cars and if the picture has to be changed it should be done with their agreement as well so noones feeling gets hurt in the process.

Expecting Skoda to reply back in the positive is waste of time as they wont do that imo(considering the arrogant way they have behaved so far)

Am asking this Q again-
Can the links for the facebook,Orkut,Technenclave,techdigit and any forum which is popular on net be posted on this thread in which this thread is reflective?
If yes kindly post the links or let us know the path so we can join that group or post our opinion on the same.

Course of action from my side - Have flooded the email with these threads in my company (5000+ people), have send email to all the email ids existing in my gmail account, will be making status message and groups on facebook, orkut etc.
result- 4 people had changed their decision to buy Skoda, am expecting more to do so in few days.

I got much more to say on this issue but gotta move to home now so will carry on from their.
Cheers!

[Dark_Light]

i just got off the phone and advised my relatives who stay in bombay to stay away from buying the octavia or any skoda for that sake as their company vehicles and gave them the link of this thread as they have the worst after sales services and its not worth buying one and going through something inhuman , convinced them not to buy and asked them to spread the news across to all their staff and friends.
This is really bad what ever is happening hope to see skoda improve and take coustomers seriously i future.

[ibm_jennifer]

Oh my bad, My friend planned to buy an octavia soon. Just forwarded this complete Skoda sh*t to him. Will let you know his decision.

Hi SKODA, Leave India - We are not fools.

[zerocritical]

Originally Posted by GTO

I'm glad you brought this up; we were discussing exactly the same thing in the support forum this morning. Couple of points (which you will agree are valid).

Well, this reminds me of something. In the past, my cousin's NHC was called for a free replacement of shock absorbers just because Honda felt that the existing shock absorbers were not upto the Honda Standards.
Also I heard about the after sales part replacement of the break light of the civic.

Now this is called after sales. Companies like Honda can go to the extent of replacing parts even if the customer doesn't report an issue with the same just to keep up the company's image and standards.

[Akshay1234]

Originally Posted by zerocritical

Now this is called after sales. Companies like Honda can go to the extent of replacing parts even if the customer doesn't report an issue with the same just to keep up the company's image and standards.

honestly hondas sales in nothing great. even suzuki does recalls. what about the absurd spare prices. but then again if your comparing it to skodas service then maybe. now thats ot.

anyway i cant help but laugh at what skoda corporate has written. all bs. i am also gonna stop my friends from buying skoda. had recommended the superb to a few but now will have to take that back.

[janitha]

A supporting thread from a popular forum- Should Internet forums be liable for Defamation - Page 2 - Erodov.com

[drpullockaran]

After lot of minutes spent on the phone I could not convince the brother in law of a collegue of mine from buying the Volkswagon Jetta. He is not computer literate and does not use the net for me to forward him this thread. He is into liquor business. Against all advice he went and bought hiself a spanking new Jetta. They are not serviced at Skoda service centers but GENES do matter don't they!!

[aaggoswami]

Its now confirmed that Skoda Corporate does represent Skoda here at TBHP.
After these many pages and these many cancellations that various users have posted + the emails we have sent to all we know, I think this will affect Skoda sales hard.

What is even more surprising is that they are still not acting after reading all this. If there were any other proactive company, by this time the dealer would have left no stone unturned to ensure customer satisfaction. But from Skoda still no response ? Its just irritating and frustrating to see Skoda still having closed eyes and ears and a mouth that rarely opens except for tall talking bold steps.

I am sure now that Skoda is keeping an eagle eye on this thread. What is coming in its path from taking appropriate actions? Its impertinent behavior towards those who have made what Skoda is today. If Skoda has the audacity to join in here and initiate a talk, I think its your responsibility to act in positive direction. I was excited when I read " online ..." and thought that it will immediately make a positive effect. But again its proven that online services are glorified electronic trash cans.

Your are knocking your own death knell with this kind of behavior.

I will share a very small experience : When I was pouring oil in automotive vehicle, I got a feeling like I was feeding a small kid with Cerelax ( baby food ). This is the love towards cars. I think this is the best statement to prove how much a car means at TBHP. To take action or not to take action, its upto you now. Skoda India, the ball is in your court, act fast or die a painful death in India.


EDIT : When I was pouring oil in automotive vehicle, I got a feeling like I was feeding a small kid with Cerelax ( baby food ). THIS IS JUST MY FEELING AND NO OFFENSE MEANT TO ANYONE. IF FOUND INAPPROPRIATE, @MODS DELETE THIS SENTENCE.

[MaxX]

Wow, just read the entire topic... Whatever brand value Skoda had for me is now gone.. poof!

I was planning on buying a Skoda (and as usual came to team-bhp whenever I make any decisions car related), came across this topic at the right time I must say! I would also strongly recommend my acquaintances to not touch it with a barge pole too!

[Harbir]

After anger, I am now feeling deeply sad. How has Skoda managed to get itself sucked into a situation like this?

it seems Skoda did not put in a model of service quality governance, which has caused a situation where its dealers are free to rip off Skoda's clients without suffering any penalties, and Skoda, instead of moving to kerb its dealers, cooperates with its dealers.

I get the feeling that some very smart businessmen have taken the german executives of Skoda for a ride. THey have maneuvered Skoda into being a company that works for their interest rather than the other way around, and the executives are helpless because the entire indian establishment of Skoda is in cahoots with the corrupt dealer body.

I doubt Skoda can get out of this situation. The dealer body and their collaborates in the Skoda Corporate office certainly are better placed than Skoda executives when it comes to manipulating the law to subvert the actions of Skoda executives.

I don't know if my reading is right, but I hope for Skoda's sake it is not.

[furobiker]

There was another case like this, when some blogger ckunte wrote something about barkha dutt, eventually after some behind the scene suing/settlement, ckunte posted an apology on the net. This raged the public so much that millions of blogs/articles came to support ckunte. Now this is what happens when you tease even one bee in the beehive.

First thing, dont fool customers. Second, even if you fool them, dont dare to incite them with such acts.