[Bailee_Jatt_Boy]

I think we should absolutely stand by our commitment to truth.

There is no way Team BHP can associate itself with such dubious standards.

[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by ssjr0498

Strangely, even after 65 pages of dismay!! The team-bhp page still has a Skoda as its log!!!!!

The fact that they act like little children does not mean that we have to as well.

I dont think this thread is against the car - it is against the apparent malpractice by the dealerships which the manufacturer seemingly condones and therefore encourages.

[X-Machine]

Just noticed this thread. Excellent stuff there Harish and GTO. Skoda should learn thier lessons that they're operating in India, and ought to respect the customers first. They cant sell crap and walk away. Apparently, most of the people i know are 'against' buying a Skoda, no matter however tempting the offer. And after reading this thread (which im gonna mail them), im sure it will reinstate thier beliefs. I was too tempted once to buy the Laura, but thanks to my father who had warned me against anything remotely related to VW, i did'nt. And after reading this thread, i feel i made the right choice.
And for you Skoda, wait until this thread blows up in various forms of media. Go look for shelter. Na shledanou (Goodbye in Czech) Skoda.

[navin]

Imagine being chased by this car
FileSC00255.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

at first it seems to catch up with then it's timing belt snaps he he he ok it is a poor joke but I could not help it. Old age is also known as a second childhood.

[YC.BALENO.CHD]

Originally Posted by Steeroid

The fact that they act like little children does not mean that we have to as well.

I dont think this thread is against the car - it is against the apparent malpractice by the dealerships which the manufacturer seemingly condones and therefore encourages.

I will second steeroid on this,even though the dealerships/service centres of Skoda treats its customers poorly,that doesnt mean that all there cars are poor.I by no means am defending skoda, all I mean is instead of wasting time thinking about what car's pic to have along with forum's logo,we should concentrate more on helping the victims of skoda's poor After Sales and behaviour and also on getting skoda back to the right track. I do not want to offend anybody here, I hope people understand.
Regards.

[theMAG]

Originally Posted by navin

Imagine being chased by this car
FileSC00255.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

at first it seems to catch up with then it's timing belt snaps he he he

Thats a cracking one Navin!!

[abhibh]

Originally Posted by navin

Imagine being chased by this car
FileSC00255.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

at first it seems to catch up with then it's timing belt snaps he he he ok it is a poor joke but I could not help it. Old age is also known as a second childhood.

Oh my my my...

I just saw a Skoda Octavia towed by an Indica today.

There was no external damage to the car. Must be something related to timing belt.

I'll post the pic later.

[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by navin

Imagine being chased by this car
FileSC00255.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

at first it seems to catch up with then it's timing belt snaps he he he ok it is a poor joke but I could not help it. Old age is also known as a second childhood.

Old age doesnt seem to have done any damage to YOUR timing chain!
(EDIT: Touch Wood!)

[theMAG]

Originally Posted by ImmortalZ

You shouldn't group all German brands together and brand them as bad as Skoda is.

Skoda isnt a German brand . Thats what the Indian buyer has been made to think. Its a east-European brand

[YC.BALENO.CHD]

Originally Posted by theMAG

Skoda isnt a German brand . Thats what the Indian buyer has been made to think. Its a east-European brand

And unlike the Germans,its a budget brand in Europe,I guess it wont be wrong to say that octavia is indigo's counterpart in Europe.

[Xehaust]

Originally Posted by navin

Imagine being chased by this car
FileSC00255.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
at first it seems to catch up with then it's timing belt snaps he he he ok it is a poor joke but I could not help it. Old age is also known as a second childhood.

Originally Posted by abhibh

Oh my my my...
I just saw a Skoda Octavia towed by an Indica today.
There was no external damage to the car. Must be something related to timing belt.
I'll post the pic later.

This just brought back a long forgotten memory and a flood of thoughts.
Though it might seem funny in your posts, can you believe that this has actually happened

Before i go on, lets relieve some of the stress
No one was hurt thank god and no accident took place.

My family owned a Skoda Octavia quite a while back (the earliest i can remember owning the car was October 2004).
I think that only the Octavia was present at the time. It was an excellent car and driving it was awesome. I had the diesel 1.9 tdi & i think Skoda diesel engines were what warmed up the Indian customer & market towards diesel as people had horrendous views of diesels at the time & further, the Skodas performance from a diesel engine was just shocking to say the least.

Anyhow, what happened was that the timing belt actually snapped and did some serious engine damage. When enquired as to why this would happen, the reply we got from the service centre was that we did not get the car serviced properly and the timing belt was due for replacement anyway!!!
Unfortunately, i had not come across TBHP at the time and had no knowledge as to the innards of the car and the parts or servicing related knowledge. Another unfortunate thing related to this thread is that i dont remember how many kms the car had clocked, else today i wudve known for sure if it was our fault of not getting the belt replaced on time.

Come to think of it, if the belt was due for replacement, why wasnt it changed when we did send it for service or even informed of the same.
Furthermore, to conclude the story, after this, the car started having serious maintainance issues and was costing a bomb to upkeep. And i do mean a bomb as in the prices which people are talking about here in this forum. So we eventually sold it for a fairly LOW price even though the car was hardly a couple of years old as the sale loss was way better than putting in more money and more importantly, compromising on safety.

Anyhow, im seriously happy that the belt dint snap in a worse case scenario & no injuries were caused or lives lost. I dont dare imagine the different possibilities of what could have happened.

Spurious and damaged parts are a serious safety risk and they are actually playing our lives here. Im all for doing something about this and seriously hope something concrete materialises out of this thread.

P.S: Though mentioned earlier, i would like to add that the cars are great, i would even go to the extent of saying that i personally think that Skodas are really safe cars.
The problem lies that how safe can these cars remain after seeing the tactics, spurious parts and shoddy service these cars are subject to???

Originally Posted by Xehaust

Note: Am quoting just to make this stand out.

Finally, the last word is to Skoda itself - People are willing to pay premiums for your cars & are even willing to make do with expensive maintainance and not giving you crap as they knew what they were getting into. But they also expected fair practices & above all SAFETY in return as that is the main reason they are servicing their cars at authorised workshops and paying a bomb rather than getting it done elsewhere.

All of you at Skoda, those who encourage all this, and even more, those who know whats going on though you dont take part in it but dont bother to do something about it either...
doesnt it make you feel guilty inside, just even a wee bit, that you are putting people, even families in harms way due to compromised vehicles even after they are paying you in full?

Just imagine if this is what is happening with your very own car, how would YOU feel and moreover, if your family was driving in that same car as well???

Thats all i have to say. Sorry for the long post but thank you for reading this post patiently.
Xehaust.

[Dr.Sumit Bhatti]

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

Imagine the reliability of those machines whose parts were interchanged and are still happily plying on the road.
I think Skoda is even taking the aspect of safety as granted. I think in any other developed country they will be charged for attempt to murder.

The only solace that I have now, is that the vRS that I have been zooming around in at high speed up and down the Mumbai-Pune Expressway is a car that belongs to my friend who treats it so well that after four years it still looks like it has just come out of the showroom. I am one of the few people that he lets to drive his vRS. He accompanies it for every servicing and waits while it is serviced.
Now for a standard story: He, too, started this ritual because during his early service days, one of his headlight ballasts was replaced by a faulty old one. He had sent the car for service with both xenons working, but it came back with one headlamp out of order. It was odd and we noticed quickly that all the car fittings were new and this 25,000/- odd Rupee ballast was distinctly old as compared to the other one. When he made a ruckus, the part was changed back free of cost. Forget the 50% discount mentioned earlier on a part as a 'goodwill gesture' , it's possible to get 100% off on a spurious part ! Now we understand that this seems to be standard practice and an old trick at Skoda service centers !

Team BHP-ians who have regularly used the old Mumbai-Pune Highway Bhor Ghat section may know about the notorious two wheeler borne mechanics who used to prey upon unsuspecting motorists who had fuel pump failure while climbing the steep up-slopes. All they would do is let the fuel pump cool down and re-install it. They would meanwhile claim that they had replaced it (they sometimes did, with one from a previous victim) and then charged exorbitant amounts from the hapless motorists.

This madness doesn't seem to end. Another friend with an Octavia landed up with a cracked engine cover after a routine service, even though I clearly remember that it was intact when the car went in for servicing. Unfortunately, we noticed many days later, and there was no proof to follow this up.

[Dr.Sumit Bhatti]

Originally Posted by finneyp

Yes, I too feel the Govt should intervene & take serious action against companies involved in such large scale malpractices!

This is where Team BHP can step in, using recourse to the Competition Act, 2002 and presenting these cases before the Competition Commission of India.

[Harbir]

Originally Posted by theMAG

Skoda isnt a German brand . Thats what the Indian buyer has been made to think. Its a east-European brand

I don't see that this matters. THe brand was originally german, but the Skodas that have shown up in India are german cars and there isn't anything about Skoda's eastern european connection that has any relevance to the Indian consumer.

Frankly, the troubles of Indian Skoda owners are very much part of the VAG parent's problems.

In the US VWs of this platform (jettas and Golfs) have proven to be of low reliability and needing frequent dealer visits. There was a huge fiasco when all the Jettas and Golfs in the US had to have a part replaced but VAG didn't have enough parts so most people ended up having to wait long periods of time many with cars that had become non-operational.

And Indian consumers shouldn't take "german" to mean something special for them.

it is true that Germans make cars that are very nice to drive. But their cars are also quite troublesome and unreliable. And its not as if many Indians are particularly curious about the handling of a car around a decreasing radius bend at the limit of adhesion. most are used as prestige symbols.

My 330i was an absolutely awesome car, but it went to the dealer so often, its almost hilarious. I would buy one again in a heart beat because of how awesome it was, but without having any illusions about its lack of reliability. In addition to routine service stops, my car went to the dealer to fix a failed A/C unit, a failed rear window regulator, a failed engine cooling fan, another failed engine cooling fan, a failed fuel level sending unit, a failed CD changer, a failed navigation display, and sound system failures that were never correctly diagnosed and fixed because they were intermittent and could not be located. All of this within 30,000 miles, starting within the first 5,000 miles. In comparison the of the 4 MX-5s I have owned, two never went to the dealer except for oil change, one went to replace a weak alternator at 50,000 miles, and one went for clutch slave cylinder replacement at 28,000 miles, but only because it was 15 years old and the rubber seal had rotted due to age. My Camry never went to the dealer in the time i owned it except for oil changes. My Accord has been to the dealer for non oil change visit only once, to replace a navigation system's DVD unit because it scratched the navigation DVD.

So, yeah, just because its german doesn't mean its anything great.

Don't even ask me to tell you about my buddy's nightmares with his Audi A4.

While germans do make cars that are excellent to drive, let me also tell you as a mechanical and Industrial engineer, they have no clue about the statistically obsessive engineering that the Japanese practice, which leads to such staggeringly high levels of quality, consistency, longevity and reliability from the end to end of the car. The germans focus only what the driver feels when the car is working right. THey don't obsess on making their cars such that almost every single unit out of millions of units keeps working perfectly for years and years and years. Certainly even the japanese are not above having problems, such as Honda had recently with its automatic transmissions failing, but on average, german cars are very very poor in reliability compared to Japanese and even the Koreans now.

In summary, I think its fair to say that Skodas are german cars, but that being german is no special recommendation unless you buy a german car that is especially superior to Japanese products in terms of driver pleasure. Most german car are not. Some certainly are like the 3 series. But most VW and Skoda badged products are not.

[navin]

Originally Posted by Harbir

I don't see that this matters. THe brand was originally german, but the Skodas that have shown up in India are german cars

My 330i...went to the dealer to fix a failed A/C unit, a failed rear window regulator, a failed engine cooling fan, another failed engine cooling fan, a failed fuel level sending unit, a failed CD changer, a failed navigation display, and sound system failures that were never correctly diagnosed and fixed because they were intermittent and could not be located. All of this within 30,000 miles....So, yeah, just because its german doesn't mean its anything great.

I think you meant 'originally Czech'

Harbir is right. After driving a Skoda vRS even the Civic seems uninspiring. If only germans made cars as reliable as the japs.

Harbir, what did you pay for all thsoe failed parts for the duration you owned the car. That is a lot of parts.