[M00M]

Originally Posted by manpreetsj

Are there any discounts currently being offered on Octavia?

Chipset issue means that discounts are low as cars are not in stock and demand is there. I was offered a lac off but maybe you can try to get 2 in my opinion. Hope this helps.

[rsk]

Originally Posted by manpreetsj

Are there any discounts currently being offered on Octavia? Or is there any intel on upcoming discounts to be offered in December?

I just got back from the showroom to collect my number plate and the sales advisor mentioned that they are not offering any discounts now as there is vehicle shortage.

[CircleOfLife]

Originally Posted by Floyd de Souza

Thank you for responding CircleOfLife.

What I am looking for is mostly the driving experience, mileage etc.

Sorry wasn’t able to get back early on this. Have seen on the ODO anywhere between 6-12 KMPL on light foot & AC. Today got 12.1 on city run with medium traffic. Actual measure should be on tank to tank basis. If you push it hard then avg 6-7 KMPL. Yes the mileage is directly proportional to on how heavy your right foot is and the traffic on road.



Drive experience depends on what are you looking out for. Some folks like stiff suspension and heavy steering for outright control in previous generation Octavia. In this generation Octavia it has tried to suffice folks who would like to drive in city and have a decent plush ride along with steering that is lighter to chuck around in city and weigh up on highway. Overtaking is a breeze. In Terms of quality it is far above India manufactured cars by the group. You can evidently notice the step motherly treatment.

Take it on a highway and then only you can realise its true capability.

Overall experience from skoda stand point? I rather won’t visit that section. Others who might have better experience can pitch in.

[Floyd de Souza]

Many thanks CircleOfLife for this update.

[CircleOfLife]

On ground reality of ownership is far different and hasn't improved by leaps and bounds. Link

[Vid6639]

Originally Posted by CircleOfLife

On ground reality of ownership is far different and hasn't improved by leaps and bounds. Link

Attachment 2236823

I'm sure you know this already but in India the parent company is now Skoda Auto and VW is the subsidiary.

The CEO of Skoda India has been appointed the CEO of VW India as well from 2018.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/india...rm-coming.html (Skoda in control of VW's product development for India; car based on MQB-A0-IN platform coming)

If you are thinking they are operating as 2 different brands with different teams and different operations, you are highly mistaken. The office in Mumbai is common for both and after 2018 the teams have been consolidated as a single common team for both.

https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news...e_Limited.html

ŠKODA AUTO Volkswagen India Private Limited is the overall group name and you will get the same invoice whether you buy a Skoda or a VW.

Skoda has the say in everything, which is why you see the Slavia launched before the Virtus.

Heck during the service for moderator Ajmat's Jetta, the VW dealership ordered a set of VW alloys for the car and VW by mistake sent Skoda rims with Skoda badges. Reason was sir, backend is same and order got mixed.

You are only giving yourself a false sense of security if you think buying a VW is better than buying a Skoda.

[CircleOfLife]

Originally Posted by Vid6639

If you are thinking they are operating as 2 different brands with different teams and different operations, you are highly mistaken. The office in Mumbai is common for both and after 2018 the teams have been consolidated as a single common team for both.

Let me put it this way they could be operating under single entity and these complex corporate structures are beyond my understanding, but my recent experience even on getting refund between Skoda and VW with customer care has been poles apart. 2 refunds from VW and 2 refunds from Skoda.

Skoda: Call customer care, got a ticket on
Mail and daily follow up with customer care things never moved a inch until man on twitter was marked. Still took forever.

VW: Call customer care, logger ticket & just 1 follow up and VW folks from 2 different showrooms got it done on time and shared updates. No twitter boss was needed to be marked.

Why such vast difference? Our experience is how we perceive and build an perspective. A decade of good experience can’t be just luck or May be it is.

[ajmat]

Originally Posted by Vid6639

Heck during the service for moderator Ajmat's Jetta, the VW dealership ordered a set of VW alloys for the car and VW by mistake sent Skoda rims with Skoda badges. Reason was sir, backend is same and order got mixed.

Even more Heck - My VW Jetta is registered as a Skoda Jetta as it is made in the Skoda factory. Ditto - some Tata Jaguars and Skoda A6's!

[Pancham]

Originally Posted by CircleOfLife

Let me put it this way they could be operating under single entity and these complex corporate structures are beyond my understanding, but my recent experience even on getting refund between Skoda and VW with customer care has been poles apart. 2 refunds from VW and 2 refunds from Skoda.

Hi COL, can you list down the issues you faced with Skoda in one post. It will help a lot of people to understand the current scenario.

I wanted to share my 2 cents here. You getting a good experience out of any brand operating in India is pure luck. Let me share a few recent experiences:

1. Mahindra: I waited 12 months for the Thar. My dream Thar. How I planned numerous trips in Himachal and Ladakh only to have them cancelled because my dealership kept pushing my delivery date. I got so frustrated - I reached out Mahindra (tweeted Anand Mahindra too) and guess what the response was? NOTHING. A bid NOTHING. There is no support from Mahindra if you buy a Mahindra. That, I felt, was the biggest joke. On top of that, when I cancelled my booking after waiting for 12 months, they refunded my booking amount (i) after deducting a % and (ii) after 9-10 follow ups. Yes 9-10. Can I conclude that Mahindra does not care about their customers? May be. (There were numerous other issues which I cant start writing here in the interest of time).

2. Hyundai: I loved my 2011 i20. It was a great car, but then it had some inherent issues - especially related to the steering. And these were known issues to the company. And it was bloody dangerous because the steering would lose power right in the middle of a highway or city. So when the steering module gave up for the 3rd time, Hyundai quoted me 30K for the same. I reached out to them - what was the response do you think? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And this was a known issue in almost all Hyundai cars. The steering module/motor would break in a few years and the replacements would last for around 1-2 years. I decided I will never buy a Hyundai. Again, any support from Hyundai given that steering losing power and becoming really hard is a serious issue? Nope.

3. Jeep: I recently got a Compass. Not too many grievances. But they are selling a 30L car without floor and boot mats (as in they will sell it to you but they are not in stock and you will only get to know about this on the day of delivery). End result: My brand new car's carpet is fully soiled. Repeated follow ups and they still have no clue if they can deliver the mats. And by the way, they have already charged me INR 13.5K for the same.

Now you may say, Skoda is 'premium' brand and they should do better than Hyundai and Mahindra. NO. A friend of mine buying a BMW never considered Skoda because he thought it was not at all 'premium'. So 'premium'-ness is relative. A car is a big purchase so ideally anyone putting in their hard earned money should get an out of the world experience. But it does not work that way.

So you may have had a bad experience with the Amex CC and a good one with VW. But consider yourself lucky when you get a good experience. Also, OEMs are rarely responsive to customers. So, I would suggest two things:

1. Immediately sell off your Octavia. Incur a huge loss and forget about the incident. End loser: I think it will be you - financial, time and effort. Not much will change for Skoda really.

2. Forget about the issue, retain the car and go for a long drive or maybe a weekend trip in your Octavia. Keep a tab on the service and keep updating the thread with good/bad experiences.

[Vid6639]

Originally Posted by CircleOfLife

Let me put it this way they could be operating under single entity and these complex corporate structures are beyond my understanding, but my recent experience even on getting refund between Skoda and VW with customer care has been poles apart. 2 refunds from VW and 2 refunds from Skoda.

Skoda: Call customer care, got a ticket on
Mail and daily follow up with customer care things never moved a inch until man on twitter was marked. Still took forever.

VW: Call customer care, logger ticket & just 1 follow up and VW folks from 2 different showrooms got it done on time and shared updates. No twitter boss was needed to be marked.

Why such vast difference? Our experience is how we perceive and build an perspective. A decade of good experience can’t be just luck or May be it is.

Not really sure about what the refund was about and why it was online as I never do any car related transactions with dealer or OEM online.

Just wanted to point out that Hyderabad dealer of Skoda, Mahavir does not have a great reputation.

There is one more dealer PPS who owns both VW and Skoda dealership so if you go to them things are even more identical as even they are owned by same company.

My Skoda ownership has been short with only 2 years till now so not an expert and never faced any issues. But from all friends and other moderators who own Skoda and VW, in Bangalore the Skoda dealers are far better and more responsive than the VW dealers. Infact my neighbours keep asking me where to service their Vento's and Jetta's to avoid being fleeced by the VW dealer here but the Octavia's still go to Skoda dealer and they have no complaints.

This is an old thread but as you can see VW dealer harrowed him enough:

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/india...ir-job-10.html (VW Downtown Bangalore take 60 days for a 2 day repair job)

[rsk]

Originally Posted by Vid6639

But from all friends and other moderators who own Skoda and VW, in Bangalore the Skoda dealers are far better and more responsive than the VW dealers. Infact my neighbours keep asking me where to service their Vento's and Jetta's to avoid being fleeced by the VW dealer here but the Octavia's still go to Skoda dealer and they have no complaints.

Totally resonate with what you have said. I owned a Vento for 10 years. For the first 3 years, I diligently took it for service to the company service center. I had always come back with frustration. From lack of proper responses to not fixing the problems mentioned to taking 2-3 days for general service despite booking an appointment beforehand, I had had enough. In the first year of owning a car, I had a significant accident and the car ended up being in the service center for around 50 days or so, with no clear updates/timelines. This was the time, there was only one active service center for all of Bangalore (I guess).

During the next 7 years, I had predominantly given to Bosch COCO. I found the advisors to be fairly professional, knowledgeable, and more importantly honest. Same with the technicians too. While I'm yet to experience Skoda service center experience, I happened to speak to the Service manager to confirm on the engine oil grade. While he strongly advised against any topping up if the oil levels go down and suggested that if at all a warning comes I take it to them rather than trying to do myself, he was extremely courteous. While this may be nothing at all, you get a good vibe in general. He closed the conversation by saying "Happy motoring..." which personally I haven't heard this from one of the service providers in my ownership experience in India.

[CircleOfLife]

For the kitna deti hein crowd. Yes it is possible to extract these figures on a highway run.

Average at end of 366 KM trip. This included lot of time stuck in city B2B traffic on return journey.



Best was 18.3 KMPL

[Floyd de Souza]

This is awesome mileage even if you account for a 1 kmpl error vs tank full

[CircleOfLife]

For those who are interested in understanding T&C of SMP.

One that caught the attention is " Customers are responsible for topping up of various fluids in between services" very few do these topping religiously.



Entire document can be found here SMP_Terms_Conditions.pdf

[kedar_GT]

Originally Posted by Vid6639

Infact my neighbours keep asking me where to service their Vento's and Jetta's to avoid being fleeced by the VW dealer here but the Octavia's still go to Skoda dealer and they have no complaints.

Any specific recommendations for dealers in South BLR, Vid? (Closest to ECity) - this is both for purchase and service (more importantly for the latter)