[flipsyde]

Originally Posted by .anshuman

Before generalizing, Are you sure you really have gone through all of the ownership threads?

My apologies. But I would just like to point out that Skodas are wonderful during the initial stages barring some service centre related issues. The problems, if you look at the broader picture is over Long Term Ownership. As the miles rack up on the odo Skodas are known to be troublesome compared to the Japs. Take the new Skoda Superb DSG for example. Every single Skoda Superb Petrol DSG owner I know have been stranded due to the DSG problem. And every 1st gen Laura I have seen has had its Sanden AC compressor replaced with the redesigned Valeo AC compressor. Lets not forget the 1st gen Laura DSG box packing up at 70-80k kms. I have also read on briskoda.net about some Dual Mass Flywheel issue though I can't seem to remember what it was.

I have read quite a few threads here and on briskoda.net because I was considering a used 2006-2009 Skoda Laura myself about a year back.

[vipul_bscity]

Forgot to add, the OEM clutch is Sachs and so is the replacement.

[n.devdath]

Originally Posted by vipul_bscity

I have driving this Car day in - day out, City, highways, country sides, broken roads, all across India. I must say that Skoda certainly make some of the great cars we have been seeing around here lately.
So, all in all its a wonderful experience owning and driven it in all terrains. Numerous extra long drives with family (I have two infants who always sleep peacefully in the boot bed, after folding the 60% of rear seat and enjoy it sooo much. The space is getting less day by day as the kids are growing. I need to think of a bigger alternative

Congrats on hitting the big ton with the Laura and with minimal fuss inspite of having used it across varied terrain and situations.

Since you have been driving a sedan happily for all these years, I d not recommend a change of vehicle since any sedan that you buy will only seat 4 in comfort. Add another vehicle like the Innova for example to your garage for those trips where the Laura falls short of space.

[vipul_bscity]

Originally Posted by mobike008

Wonderful to know the almost painless ownership experience. For benefit of others, it would be great if you can document the expenses and niggles at respective odometer mileage?

Service details and cost incurred till now. I will write separately about minor/major things which needs sharing.

[vipul_bscity]

Few more things which I feel necessary to share.

1) Till now got only three bulbs fused. Two Tail lamp bulbs and one low beam headlamp.
2) Still running on OEM (original ) wiper blades. However, the driver side wiper now gives a shuddering noise for first few wipes if used after few days. Then it gets OK. I will change it now.
3) The Master bolt has given me tremendous problem. When I was getting the tyre replaced at Anand Tyres, Pimpiri, Pune, the fitting guys wrongly used the motorized tool and cut the thread of one master bolt. It can't be unbolted now.
Unfortunately, only after 2 days, the same very tyre got punctured. One the recommendations of Asset Auto, take the car to a outside garage, where the person has to weld a joint on that bolt and open it. Somehow the bolt gets too hot and melted the Plastic - Aluminium Handbrake cable. It has taken me 3 weeks to get the cable ordered and refitted. The hand brake cable has only come after I got the order put under Vehicle on road.
4) Still running on stock horn.
5) The ground clearance of the car of this length is quite good. Even if I drive on very much uneven, potholed, big breakers (Bangalore type), it comes out fairly clean. However on more than one occasion driving across various parts on India, I have scrapped the underside very badly. Thanks to god, no major damages.
6) The trip meter automatically gets reset after 1000 KM. Not sure if it can be changed. Sometimes I drive more than 1000 KM in a single trip and it them seems difficult to sum up the exact KMs
7) AC vents - Although they are of good quality, fins of one vent is damaged by my Driver while cleaning. Few fins of then is not moving un and down with the direction control level. The cost of total unit is around 5000/- plus. So I left it as it is.
8) Very less air throw from the rear AC vents. you really have to go on higher blower speed to get effective air from it. I can't recollect if this was the same from the begining or happened later sometimes. Other Laura users, please comment.

Don't remember anything more now. Will take few inside pics and engine pics and post tomorrow.

[vipul_bscity]

Interior and Engine pics.

This where initial 2 years my Driver enjoyed. Then I have driven most of the time.


Still looking impressive ?


View from the rear right


Perfect to feel and holds great. Sometime the center has to be pressed hard for the horn. In one way this is good as I do missed pressing horn many a times



Single CD infotainment. Still churn out good sound with 4 speakers (door) and 4 tweeters (near the door open level)


Front Passenger seat, Gear Lever and central cup holders.


Driver side foot well. Not bad after 105000 KM.


Hand break Lever- Little problem below it, You can see there is just below the lever in the central console. One fine day it happened. There is something which slides up and down with the brake lever. Somehow it seems got disconnected and remain there at the bottom. Looks very bad when the hand brake is engaged. Need to get it fixed.


Boot - this is the place where my kids sleep with 60% seats folded. I really miss a strong AC blower in the 2nd row. At times in north India heat, I felt the back area is not getting cooled properly.


View from the open boot.


Open boot. Rear quarter profile


Continued..

[vipul_bscity]

Alloys are still shining. All the wheel bolt covers are in place. I need to wax the tyres again.


Here comes the Pumpe Duse


Closer looks. See the completely enclosed Battery cover. The new facelifted Laura does not have this. The new ones has only a plastic cardboard type battery cover.


Engine compartment - Side profile from left


Engine Compartment - Side profile form right


Halogen Projectors - Slightly inadequate low beam in terms of spread. I have normally made a practice to switch on the fogs also all the time in Night. Gives me a comfortable vision then.


Beautiful Tail lamp assembly. As I have already mentioned, I have got only one bulb fused in this assembly in last 4.5 years.


Yoko Decible v550 - After 30,000 odd KM on it.


Integrated turn indicator in side view mirror. Sometimes I miss the Electric folding one as I was used of this from my Toyota Corolla days. However, not even a single touch / scrap in the side mirror.


Enjoys friends and pour comments. In case you need more specific information, please PM.

[Swanand Inamdar]

Wonderful! Congratulations on completing 1lac+ kms in a spectacularly maintained car!
No small feat this.
Good to know that you had a relatively free ownership too.
When you say "Asset Auto", is it the one in Pune? If so, how good have they been in keeping their promises?

Lastly, you sure those pics above, are clicked recently? Looks like the car is as good as new .

[coloneljasi]

Congratulations and kudos for having maintained your car so well.

Did you get your seat covers done recently? They look pretty well maintained, like the rest of the car.

[fuel_addict]

Superb pictures. Your car could easily pass off as a new vehicle - well almost. The age of the car is barely visible. 1L km is a major milestone and you seem to have had an uneventful and reliable Skoda experience in 4 years except for the AC compressor change which anyway was covered under warranty. Your service records are well maintained too.

That boot door does go way too high up in the open position. Almost twice the height of the car!

[anandpadhye]

Originally Posted by vipul_bscity

Still running on OEM (original ) wiper blades. However, the driver side wiper now gives a shuddering noise for first few wipes if used after few days. Then it gets OK. I will change it now.

Very less air throw from the rear AC vents. you really have to go on higher blower speed to get effective air from it. I can't recollect if this was the same from the begining or happened later sometimes. Other Laura users, please comment.

First of congratulations on the 1 lakh kilometers. It's good to see a fellow owner retaining the vehicle over a long long term.

About the wiper blades - please do not stretch this too much. I am not sure if you like night drives or not, but I do and older/harder blades DO damage the windshield - the scratches may be hard to spot in the day and non hard core users may even consider them as acceptable but they completely ruin the visibility especially in the night with oncoming headlights and rains. Please change the blades every year else you will have to change the windshield. Again, just a friendly advice from my own experience, hope you do not mind.

About the AC - this is nothing to write about in the Laura and expecing the rear vents to be effective is asking for a bit too much . My 2 years old, 23000KM "WHITE" Laura becomes hotter than my 7 years old, 1 lakh km run "BLACK" Tucson (the entire Tucson glass house becomes chilled in a couple of minutes and this vehicle does not have any rear vents at all!!!) I think we have to live with the pathetic AC in the Laura...

Cheers!

BTW, nice FE numbers over such a long term. A strong point of the VW/Skoda diesel engines.

Regarding the battery: Rs.9700 looks expensive. We just replaced the OEM battery of a friend's Laura TDI with ROCKET for Rs.7000. Amaron was available for similar amount, but went with ROCKET as it was the OEM battery of the Tucson and served well for 5 years. Incidentally, Exide was being quoted for Rs.11,000.

[vipul_bscity]

Originally Posted by Swanand Inamdar

Wonderful! Congratulations on completing When you say "Asset Auto", is it the one in Pune? If so, how good have they been in keeping their promises?

Yes, this is the same Asset Auto in Pune. They are no different that any other Skoda dealers. Very non - transparent and confusing. If you are not knowing things and seeking their opinion, they will rob you like anything. They are the one who messed up my AC compressor warranty which I later got after negotiating with Aurangabad.

Lately, almost all of their older technicians and supervisors have left and customer are on the mercy of newbies. Just to add, Asset workshop(Shivaji Nagar)is currently closed for renovation since last 2 months and it will take at least a month to get it started again. Their Wagholi workshop is anyway almost closed and they are only taking accident repairs there.

Originally Posted by Swanand Inamdar

Lastly, you sure those pics above, are clicked recently? Looks like the car is as good as new .

The pictures are of Yesterday and couple of days before yesterday

Originally Posted by coloneljasi

Did you get your seat covers done recently? They look pretty well maintained, like the rest of the car.

The car comes with a very good Fabric seat covers, which is still laying around with me packed in a very good condition. I got my leathers done from Stanley Boutique in Andheri, Mumbai, just two weeks after getting the car.

So the leathers are almost as old as the car.

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

About the wiper blades - please do not stretch this too much. I am not sure if you like night drives or not, but I do and older/harder blades DO damage the windshield - the scratches may be hard to spot in the day and non hard core users may even consider them as acceptable but they completely ruin the visibility especially in the night with oncoming headlights and rains. Please change the blades every year else you will have to change the windshield. Again, just a friendly advice from my own experience, hope you do not mind.

You are very right. I will get the wiper blades changed in this week itself.

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

About the AC - this is nothing to write about in the Laura and expecing the rear vents to be effective is asking for a bit too much . My 2 years old, 23000KM "WHITE" Laura becomes hotter than my 7 years old, 1 lakh km run "BLACK" Tucson (the entire Tucson glass house becomes chilled in a couple of minutes and this vehicle does not have any rear vents at all!!!) I think we have to live with the pathetic AC in the Laura...

Thats true. Same experience I have with my 8 years old Corsa and 6 yr old Corolla, where still the AC really chills off.

[jacs]

Congrats on the 100K mark, Wishing you many more happy & peaceful miles.

I could see you maintained her like a baby and thats obviously a reason for the trouble free ownership. A.S.S is a subjective issue and happens differently for same brand in different cities. Thanks for the service history chart with costing, its really helpful for one who is looking for a preworshipped Laura.

[ashis89]

Congrats on acheiving the ton in this red beauty. The old Laura looked best in red, with all the black rubber side beads complimenting it in a very good way. Would like to repeat which others have said earlier, your car doesn't look 100k kms old from any angle. Even the beige leather seats are spick and span. Congrats again.

[mobike008]

Thanks for sharing the detailed expenses over the ownership period and also the blow by blow pictures inside out. Looks absolutely wonderful and almost new like i said before.

1. AC not being powerful in Laura seems similar to my Cruze. That has been the only complaint till date with my Cruze, AC not being powerful. It does its job but, i can never call it chilling cold as thats how i like the temperature to be in car. My i10 used to get colder and faster. Besides, the AC throw is also not as powerful as in i10.

2. Not sure about other cars, but even Cruze trip meter resets at 1000kms (err....is it 2000kms?) I think its 1000kms.