Team-BHP - Skoda Octavia vRS : Official Review

And 2 weeks later Skoda is still at it. No mention of the refund - no calls being received, no reply from the customer care, nothing at all. So I shot them another mail today, - and below is the exact message I've sent them.

"
And again- it's been 15 days since I've registered my complaint with Skoda Customer care - and cancelled my booking with Skoda JMD due their abysmal response and continuous lies about the delivery date of my vehicle. The only reply I received from Skoda Customer care is "Kindly share your contact details to address your concern immediately. I shared my details - and 2 weeks later there's not a single word from Skoda.

I have tried calling on both the numbers of the Salesperson by the name of Nikhil from Skoda JMD (Vashi), and on the number of Rupesh (one of the senior managers of Skoda JMD Thane).

I have also posted my grievience publicly online on Team BHP - and have already got many people who have read read the post to reconsider their Skoda bookings.

This is exactly what I feared when I booked a Skoda vehicle - and this is exactly what happened.

I am attaching proof of my message which was read by Rupesh and has still not bothered calling me back.

Now I am going to be forced to start posting links to the thread on Social Media - something I never wanted to do, and never thought I would have to.

It's shameful that Skoda takes this long just to process a simple refund, and even more shameful that the official customer care of Skoda India did not do anything after I posted my complaint and shared my contact details. And this is for a customer Skoda had not even aquired yet - so I dread to think about what happens to existing customers.

I have paid Rs 50,000 to book the vehicle with 100% assurance of a delivery date and a guarantee of refund if that date was exceeded. And I am currently being forced to beg for the money back.

Well done Skoda. Well done JMD. And thank you Mr Rupesh and Mr Nikhil for not receiving my calls or returning them.
"

I've also attached a picture of the WhatsApp messages being ignored by the JMD Manager at Thane at the end of the mail. So yeah - fingers crossed still. I'm probably going to have to drive the actual showroom and find out what's happening then.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashish0485 (Post 4468954)

2) Suspension is stiff. I've driven a 1.8 tsi as well. Within 5 mins, you can start feeling the difference. It will take sometime getting use to it.

P.S. Within 2 days of bringing the vRS home, the automatic start-stop system has stopped responding. The warning sign says: 'Operating temperature not maintained'.

Suspension: Are you sure the suspension blocks have been removed?

Automatic Start Stop ---- It works only when engine temperature has been reached and the Climate Control has achieved the target temp.

The message you are seeing is normal. It was probably soon after you had started your car after a long time parked.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ahmadnaik (Post 4469725)

And 2 weeks later Skoda is still at it. No mention of the refund - no calls being received, no reply from the customer care, nothing at all. So I shot them another mail today, - and below is the exact message I've sent them.

Well done Skoda. Well done JMD. And thank you Mr Rupesh and Mr Nikhil for not receiving my calls or returning them.
"

Absolutely pathetic experience. I think this is the difference between Skoda and other companies. I cant think of any company who would take this so casually.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nikhilb2008 (Post 4470714)

Not sure about suspension blocks. Although, I read your ownership review, this just skipped my mind. Thanks for the reminder.

Automatic Start Stop started working again. I’ve realised that around 12 conditions need to be met for it to work. So, most probably something would not be ticking the box that day.:Frustrati

And finally - some good news. I got a call back from the regional manager of Skoda the instant I shot a mail to Mr Ashutosh Dixit, CEO Skoda India.

The Regional manager was a thorough gentleman and called the manager of the dealer who was not answering my calls while I was on call - and politely but firmly made him confirm on a fixed date for the refund. It's now promised on the 5th of October.

He then went on to give me some good news, and some bad news. The bad news was that Skoda has stopped bookings for the RS for this year - and "may resume" it in 2019. A couple of dealers have informed me that the Superb Sportline could be the reason for this halt - since it's supposed to share it's powertrain with the Octavia RS. There's also word of the L&K variant of the Octavia being launched with the Virtual Cockpit soon in India as well - and I'm assuming that will come with a rise in price also - so for those about to purchase one, or might make sense to hold on for a bit. I've used the Virtual Cockpit in the Audi A4, and it is genuinely the most brilliant thing I've used - functional, readable, focused and precisely customisable to show all the information you'll ever need.

The Skoda regional manager then went ahead and said he would personally try to see if there were any extra vehicles with any dealers other than JMD (since I insisted and was hell bent on not purchasing the vehicle from someone who doesn't care about customer satisfaction) that were available in or around Mumbai - there seems to be one opportunity that looks like it might work out. So fingers crossed for this one - because it's seemingly too good to be true. That was the good news.

Which leads me to the final take-away from this entire episode. I can't believe I'm actually saying this - but I think Skoda India has gotten better than what I've read they used to be like. The moment I sent a mail higher up - I got a call back within an hour - and they ensured I got word from the dealer and apologised profusely for the inconvenience caused. They also went out of the way to keep me in the loop about their internal discussion with the dealer - which goes to show that the Skoda experience could very well be relative to the individual dealer. But more importantly, it seems like Skoda's keeping upto its promise of escalating complaints when contacted by a customer directly. So I'm hoping they continue on this streak.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ahmadnaik (Post 4470893)

The Skoda regional manager then went ahead and said he would personally try to see if there were any extra vehicles with any dealers other than JMD (since I insisted and was hell bent on not purchasing the vehicle from someone who doesn't care about customer satisfaction) that were available in or around Mumbai - there seems to be one opportunity that looks like it might work out. So fingers crossed for this one - because it's seemingly too good to be true. That was the good news.

My friend took delivery of a vRS last week. They took him for a ride for few months and after he escalated the issue with Skoda Europe, things went quickly. This was after multiple interactions with the local Skoda dealer that went nowhere.

Okay - here's some troubling news - it seems like the Skoda Octavia RS Indian website page has been removed. I have it bookmarked, so it was strange that it redirected me to the regular octavia page when I checked today. The listing for the car from the Skoda India website in the models section has also been removed. It's been replaced with the Skoda Superb Sportline, with a "coming soon" under it - which is probably in tune with what the Skoda representative I'd spoken to told me - that there is a possibility the Octavia RS was only a limited run, and might or might not resume sales in India. Maybe they think the Superb with the same 2.0 litre engine might fill in that gap.

I’ve filled 4 full tanks of fuel in my Skoda Octavia vRS till now. Twice with Speed 97 Octane petrol and twice with Indian Oil extra premium. Here’s a comparison:
In city conditions: The performance of Speed 97 over normal petrol is incremental at best. It’s hard to understand the difference especially below 2000 rpm and one would seldom cross this range in a city like Bangalore. In terms of fuel consumption, the improvement is not more an extra km to a litre.
2) On highways: There is a drastic and exponential change in performance. For instance: When filled with 97 Octane furl, even at a speed of 90 kmph, if you push the pedal, there is an acceleration pushback that you get. This vanishes when filled with normal petrol.

Net/net: When on the highway and if you get a chance use a 97 or 99 octane petrol, whereas, within city limits a normal 91 octane petrol will work just fine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by antardaksh (Post 4467309)

Hi,

Has anyone managed to get a new booking done for next lot. I was casually talking to a service advisor in one of the demo stalls hosted by Skoda and he told following

1. Booking is still on and booking amount has been increased to 3 lacs.
2. Next lot with come with more power 245ps, an increase from existing 230ps.

Since I was not serious I did not drill further. Skoda customer care however told that they are not taking fresh bookings and this variant was "Limited edition".

I am not sure who is telling the truth.

Regards.

Dealers won't mind keeping your 3 lacs for a few months & then return it without any interest. Heck, most of them even take loans with 10%+ interest. I think it's a sham.

Skoda Octavia RS sold out for 2018 .

Octavia RS may be re-introduced to Skoda’s India line-up next year.

Quote:

The company had an initial allocation of 300 cars for our market, all of which were sold out relatively quickly. Additionally, 200 cars were imported in a second lot due to high demand for the model, which have now sold out as well. Skoda India has sold all 500 models and has no more allocations for this year. Dealers have been instructed by the company to not accept bookings for the sedan

Link

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashish0485 (Post 4473306)

I am going to hit the highway on Monday. Could you please direct me to the petrol pump in Bangalore where you managed to get 97 0r 99 octane grade petrol. Also, what was the price/liter?