I wanted to add a recent issue we are having with the Skoda Superb (my father in law's car). If you look at the mail thread, you will understand thier poor service attitude. In the end, we had put a court case against them for the delay / service & from that day we didnt get any call or effort to close the issue.
We clearly understood they are used to legal cases and nor were they going to return the car till the case was over. Since we didnt want to let the car value depreciate, we picked up the car one week (we gave the car on Jan 3rd and we picked it only on March 1) back but with a legal notice that we are holding rights to proceed with the case.
We are taking them head-on and will not let them go. My uncle is a lawyer in Chennai and he has taken it personally to ensure that they pay for thier folly. His view is that as a lawyer if he does not make Skoda pay for its follies what can the general Public do since they do not have the time to go legal.
----- Original Message -----
From: Rajkumar U <mailto:urajkumar@hotmail.com>
To: auto car india <mailto:editorial@autocarindia.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 10:10 AM
Subject: RE: Skoda Superb - Service woes
Hi,
Another feather in Skoda's cap!
After we called and reminded on the one week delay, they delivered the Skoda from service yesterday stating "Nothing wrong with the car. We have test driven it". Nor did they give any reason for the error.
So when we tried starting the car, the flash message was "ENGINE FAULT: WORKSHOP" - Picture attached for your reference!
Hope someone is reading my email from Skoda and they do something to put our misery to an end.
Warm regards,
U Rajkumar
From:
urajkumar@hotmail.com <mailto:urajkumar@hotmail.com>
To:
editorial@autocarindia.com <mailto:editorial@autocarindia.com>
CC:
thomas.kuehl@skoda-auto.co.in <mailto:thomas.kuehl@skoda-auto.co.in> ;
thomas.kuehl@skoda-auto.com <mailto:thomas.kuehl@skoda-auto.com> ;
kuehl.thomas@skoda-auto.co.in <mailto:kuehl.thomas@skoda-auto.co.in> ;
kuehl.thomas@skoda-auto.com <mailto:kuehl.thomas@skoda-auto.com> ;
recruitment@skoda-auto.co.in <mailto:recruitment@skoda-auto.co.in> ;
kamal.basu@skoda-auto.co.in <mailto:kamal.basu@skoda-auto.co.in> ;
basu.kamal@skoda-auto.co.in <mailto:basu.kamal@skoda-auto.co.in>
Subject: Skoda Superb - Service woes
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:09:22 +0000
Hi,
I am an autocar subscriber for past 2 years and love your magazine. I am writing to you regarding our experience with Skoda which your readers should know.
Car: Skoda Superb
Purchased on: March 2010
Mielage: 18700 KM
Registration number: TN06 A 9595
We had bought a Skoda superb based on your test drives and absolutely loved it. It is tremendous value for money and awesome to drive. However last 2 months has been troublesome. 2 weeks back the battery was dead (it is 2 years old and run for 19000 KM only) which we found weird considering how less we used the car but we changed it on our cost. Last week on Jan 3 suddenly the car stalled in middle of a peak traffic road with multiple failures signals (brake failure, engine failure etc) & with great difficulty we had it towed it to the service center (Chennai).
To our shock, we had lot of customer waiting for the one lonely service advisor who was struggling to manage all of them. Lot of them were shouting due to the long wait and one mechanic had to stepin & pacify the customer. They then told that there is a scan which will tell us the problem but since there were many cars it will take 1 day to even plug & findout. Now it has been more than a week & we are yet to even receive even a single call from them on the status of our vehicle. Without the car, we are spending money on taxi and having a tuff time at home managing our work. With maruti (i have a swift too), i would now have got 10 calls from the service advisor.
When we spend so much & buy a skoda luxury car we expect the same luxury in the service expereince as well. We had the same doubt since we heard a lot of service issues in Skoda but the sales man told us do not worry at all since the SUPERB requires only one maintenance every 15000 KM and based on our usage we will maximum get it serviced only twice in the lifespan we own it. So based on your fantastic review and the sales guy promise we bought the car and i honestly accept that we had a trouble free run for last 2 years till now.
Finally after we went yesterday to showroom they are saying the car is absolutely fine and is running well. After all the warning signals, one week delay we were confused since they didnt give any reason and we wonder if they took the pain to check the root cause of the car engine failure before handing it over to us. they said they will deliver the car today but my uncle is already thinking of selling the car since he is worried if the car will suddenly stall in the middle of the road again.
With this experience we are worried that if this is the kind of service we get for buying a 20+ luxury lakh car, what will happen to the owners of Fabia, Rapid? There is no use of skoda planning multiple launches, increasing number of cars sold in India without doing improving service as a customer either becomes a lifelong customer (or) becomes someone who will never come back to the skoda brand based on the service experience. I became a huge fan of skoda after using the superb but now have my doubts if I will purchase another car from them.
Please inform the Autocar subscribers to think twice before buying a skoda since Skoda service issues are continuing as usual
Warm regards,
U Rajkumar