[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by volkman10

I am not sure how many will subscribe to the above statement and buy a car, unless it is a pure fan following for the brand.

IMHO - this contrast of opinion (not referring to anyone in particular - generalisation based on various chats in these review threads) just shows two broad userbase who could look at a product like the Kushaq.

1. A minority of users with multiple expensive luxury cars in his garage, looking to add a small one which is still fun, well-built and not from a brand that feels like the odd one out compared to other brands in their garage. Unlikely to use the small machine in a way that puts them in tricky long distance outstation situations and with resources at their disposal to deal with a failure as nothing more than a slight inconvenience (probably dealt through a driver or contacts at highest levels of the dealership). A zippy drive to the coffee shop or Sunday club doesn't hurt while being the elegant beater it was meant to be!

2. A majority of users who upgrade from smaller cars into something 'aspirational' and considers this machine as the (possibly only!) partner-in-crime/ midlife-crisis solution for the next half / full decade. Likely dreaming of heading out far and wide in this car once the Corona is over, with their family safe and cocooned by the typical VW attributes for which they compromised on many other things - echoeing the pride in this selection while joining in with the fun that the car provides over their earlier lower-priced benchmarks.

Obviously - there will be some people who fall somewhere in between these categories too! But pretty sure these two major categories won't see each other eye to eye on major issues such as a getting either "inconvenienced" or "stranded" due to these failures. We have seen that in the earlier pages! Of course both groups are right through their own lenses.

PS: I fall in the second group obviously!

Originally Posted by Nalin1

And if I decide this is going to be the car, I will hit the pause button for now and wait for more updates .

Same here! I cancelled my Taigun booking and decided to re-evaluate in Feb just to give the 1.5 TSi DSG a second chance.

Meanwhile, one more Kushaq reports failure to start, 3 days after getting the pump replaced. It's a video shared on twitter where the car can be heard cranking hard, but to no avail.

[venkyhere]

Simple Qs :
(1) Is the ECU programming in the Kushaq done by a different team (india team) compared to other iterations of TSI motors sold before ?
(2) Was there any india-specific 'maps' to increase power/FE/fuel-sensitivity particularly for Kushaq ?

Asking these because, that's where the breadcrumbs point to :
- other 'not as much localized' TSI powertrain avatars are not reporting issue
- even after Zac Hollis announced 'robust fuel pumps' in twitter, people are getting the same EPC-error (fuel related or not) post robust-fuel-pump install.

I get the feeling that Skoda/VAG are hiding a programming/algorithm bug and are desperately trying to sweep it under the 'fuel quality' carpet.

[SN88]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Zac Hollis' reaction to the Team Bhp article on BHPian Rahul9229 ordeal - He maintains the stand that the new "robust fuel pumps" are not failing and the EPC issue could mean something else for the dealer to trouble shoot.

The new trend - it looks like you ask him about the car and he replies about the new fuel pump (not just this example, can see multiple such replies in the last two days). Frankly, I don't see why a customer should care!

Customers bought the car for 20 lakhs, not the fuel pump!

Attachment 2213520

I am sure there is going to be a meme fest soon with Zac Hollis and his robust fuel pump!!

[Altocumulus]

Originally Posted by Rahul9229

Yesterday evening there was another strange issue, the car was Going straight to D2 from N. Made a video and sent it to ASC (this car has made me an expert videographer behind the wheels ). This has happened a few times even before my first EPC failure, But yesterday, there was significant power loss at a certain point of time. I switched to sport mode , car was slotting in S1 like normal business and power delivery improved but was still sluggish, thankfully enabling me to reach home safely without any further embarrassment. Other Owners can keep a note of this as it may help them in future.

Assuming you have the 1.0 Tsi AT, were you in bumper to bumper traffic at that time ?

If yes its a feature of the car. If you are on level ground and in bumper to bumper traffic, after 2-3 minutes the car slots to D2 automatically to prevent the aggressive creep. Its the same in my Rapid Tsi AT. Don't worry about it.

[ChandraSekarMN]

Originally Posted by Akshay6988

Quoting your post for the sake of it. First owners of Kushaq are facing issues with their new car since first week of the ownership. Here's my advice no one asked for - sell off your kushaq at the first opportunity you get. You'll suffer monetary loss sure, but it'll be nothing compared to the agony your "new car" is giving you. A new car is supposed to bring smile to your face, not frown.
Off topic - it's about time kushaq should be branded as a lemon car.

I am sure some of the owners must be thinking of this already. But from cost point of view, that (sale so soon) would be a huge hit to wallet. If in my case, I would feel more pain from that financial loss, than such disappointing issues at 20 lacs bracket. Hopeful to see such issues being sorted out by SKODA with long term solutions, to retain the remains of their brand-value.

[84.monsoon]

I think it is time Skoda made some "signature" changes. The current team is completely overwhelmed as can be seen from Zac's recent tweets where he is arguing with a customer on whether RSA service arrived in time or not that too on social media He is even wanting to personally verify call records to disprove the customer's claims on whether RSA worked as expected or not!

Zac and the team are getting extremely defensive and panicky. I can imagine the pressure from group headquarters is intense, having invested billions of dollars in MQB-A0-IN project, which is off to one of the worst starts imaginable.

Sometimes leadership team that is embroiled in the middle of a crisis develops group-think that is hard to break. They get sucked down a vortex made of their own hard positions taken previously which they find hard to reverse.

The German precision which is unrelenting on using facts and data to analyse situations gets spooked when they cannot find the exact root cause and solve a problem in a 100% clean way. Headquarters is probably hopping mad that the analysis and remediation presented to them on the fuel pump replacement is still not solving the issue.

Sadly, here are two very competent products, that can bring a smile to every India customer who loves driving, that are probably the safest in the segment and have the best backseat room and comfort in the segment. And a number of products such as the sedans based on the platform that will be even more fun to drive.These lovely products that are the result of a lot of hard and thoughtful work are at the risk of being sacrificed and nearly destined to be premature market outcasts in the cacophony that is happening right now.

In such crisis situations, it is sometimes better to make a complete fresh start with new leadership from outside who can be free of baggage of the egos and past positions taken, sit down and look at the whole longitudinal progression of events and data and take some hard decisions immediately. Otherwise the group risks a huge loss of momentum on thia crucial set of launches. As it is, timing and competition could not have been more severe. Chip shortages and aggressive competitors like MG Astor and Mahindra XUV700 are big headwinds that were not expected by the slow and steady product/market planners at Skoda.

So, I would recommend:

• Zac to be immediately recalled to HQ
• VW take over the MQB-A0-IN project and the entire launch schedule ownership for India back from Skoda
• Put a halt on VW Taigun launch and move it to next year
• Pause deliveries of Kushaq for 12 weeks until comprehensive root cause analysis, resolution and extensive testing of fixes are complete.
• Buy back any Kushaq which shows an EPC error at full market price as these will be the best test units for replicating and fixing the problem
• Provide Ron 95 fuel cards to make up for fuel price difference to all existing Kushaq owners and strongly advise them to only use this fuel.
• Provide some form of goodwill compensation even after the problem is fully fixed, to all existing owners
• Set up a command center to make sure any person calling into RSA on EOX problems gets service within a guaranteed period (say 1 hour). The command center should also be able to capture all environmental variables around each breakdown, such as last fuel pump used, temperature, humidity and other conditions at the point of breakdowns, etc. (The whole aspect of many more failures in North versus South intrigues me, could it be factors other than fuel quality?).
• Obtain fuel samples immediately from the last pump used to analyse fuel quality rapidly to see if this indeed is an issue

.

This situation is going to be a business school case study and will be discussed and remembered for a long time to come.VW and Skoda have to act decisively and aggressively if they have to emerge from this tunnel intact. Otherwise, the group will have to bow out of India like their other Western competitors have done as the last chance of capturing decent market share and being a viable player slips out of their grasp. And that will be a sad day for the Indian consumer.

[Kosfactor]

Originally Posted by Rahul9229

I
It's unethical to sell a car that is only designed to run on a fuel that is not available at even 1% of pumps across the country. FYI, Speed and power are regular 91 octane fuels with additives, which again are not skoda approved additives if you are a person who goes by the book and strictly follow the manual. I have seen speed95 at just a handful of pumps in my city and Its illogical to go 10 kms and waste an hour for refueling a car . Even electric fast chargers are more common here than 95 octane pumps.

Does this account for cheating?

Although it is mentioned in the manual, I'm assuming customers were not informed of this needing premium petrol at the time of booking.

Nobody in their right mind would purchase a normal everyday car / crossover that needs premium fuel.

[PrasunBannerjee]

Originally Posted by 84.monsoon

So, I would recommend:

• Zac to be immediately recalled to HQ
• VW take over the MQB-A0-IN project and the entire launch schedule ownership for India back from Skoda
• Put a halt on VW Taigun launch and move it to next year
• Pause deliveries of Kushaq for 12 weeks until comprehensive root cause analysis, resolution and extensive testing of fixes are complete.
• Buy back any Kushaq which shows an EPC error at full market price as these will be the best test units for replicating and fixing the problem
• Provide Ron 95 fuel cards to make up for fuel price difference to all existing Kushaq owners and strongly advise them to only use this fuel.
• Provide some form of goodwill compensation even after the problem is fully fixed, to all existing owners
• Set up a command center to make sure any person calling into RSA on EOX problems gets service within a guaranteed period (say 1 hour). The command center should also be able to capture all environmental variables around each breakdown, such as last fuel pump used, temperature, humidity and other conditions at the point of breakdowns, etc. (The whole aspect of many more failures in North versus South intrigues me, could it be factors other than fuel quality?).
• Obtain fuel samples immediately from the last pump used to analyse fuel quality rapidly to see if this indeed is an issue

.

All of this sounds good but is extremely expensive from operations, management, engineering, and execution/implementation point of view. VAG despite being so big, has already faced a huge setback via dieselgate globally. This step will be a big blow to entire VAG-India and not just Skoda (No fresh/exciting Audi models in more volume segments, Taigun was supposed to ramp up sales from the decade old Polo-Vento twins, Offering so much back on the Kushaq), and who knows one fine day the top management abroad decides that the India team doesn't know India that well, so let's go the Ford-Chevy way.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by 84.monsoon

So, I would recommend:

• Zac to be immediately recalled to HQ
• VW take over the MQB-A0-IN project and the entire launch schedule ownership for India back from Skoda

.

While Zac Hollis is the public face of Skoda - being the Brand Director and extremely active on social media (which had it's own positives earlier and now negatives for his image) - he is not running the show for Skoda Auto Volkswagen India Private Limited, and hence not fully responsible for the India 2.0 project.

That would be Mr. Gurpratap Boparai, Managing Director, SAVWIPL.

Zac Hollis is the Brand Director only for Skoda, while Ashish Gupta is the Brand Director for Volkswagen.

[gururajrv]

This would be the most troubling modern-day car recall in the history isn’t it, for both Skoda and customers? Is it the bad vendor or is it the insufficient testing on the condition of the parts used that has to be blamed? I hope Skoda finds some peace for the troubled customers soon enough.

[Bibendum90949]

I guess I have become a dyslexic by following this thread closely. Why am I reading EPC error as EPIC error

Jokes apart, I really would like to see Skoda coming out of the rut which they've dug for themselves. I'm extremely saddened to see such a dynamically competent car like Kushaq drawing brickbats, deservingly though.

[Kosfactor]

Can Skoda deny warranty if there is any damage after using 'normal' petrol?

Video for reference.

https://youtu.be/kJyd6C99_3g

[kaustubhp]

I have been looking for a good AT car in the 16L budget and wanted to test drive Kushaq Ambition for my satisfaction or rather, elimination. I spoke to the service advisor who told me that the last 30 Kushaq's they have sold have not reported any EPC failure. However, he fairly conceded that the problem cannot be denied as if it does not exist. He underreported the numbers to my wife saying hardly 5-10 cases all over the country, which is obviously not true.
His claim:
1. The new cars being sold already have the new fuel pump.
2. All old cars which faced EPC failure have been fitted with the new fuel pump, so therefore, should be no problem.

I liked the drive, build quality and the Ambition variant was VFM for me but cannot convince myself to buy Kushaq because I am highly dependant on my car all 7 days a week and it will be devastating if my car stops in the middle of the road my way to office.

[shancz]

Originally Posted by kaustubhp

1. I spoke to the service advisor who told me that the last 30 Kushaq's they have sold have not reported any EPC failure.

2. His claim:
- The new cars being sold already have the new fuel pump.
- All old cars which faced EPC failure have been fitted with the new fuel pump, so therefore, should be no problem.

3. I am highly dependant on my car all 7 days a week and it will be devastating if my car stops in the middle of the road my way to office.

1. Why would the service advisor tell you that the car has issues ? IMO its a waste if time to talk about issues with the very people who are selling you the car.

2. This thread has already proved that both his claims are incorrect, please don't waste time in talking to them, rather read through this thread, you'll know a lot more than them in an hour

3. Precisely the reason you should read this (The Indian Car Buyer | Struggling with problems in brand new cars) too, apart from this thread.

I understand what void the Kushaq fills and with the sorted dynamics it was supposed to be a much needed and excellent alternative to the existing cars. But reality is different. Let them sort it out, meaning at least 1-2 years from now to regain the trust and reevaluate how they perform, then take a call.

[shibujp]

This may have already been answered but why is this problem occurring only in the 1.0 TSI of the Kushaq and not on the same engine in the Polo, Vento or Rapid?

Given there is a difference in tune 113 to the Polo's 109 bhp and 178Nm to the Polo's 175Nm. But surely they have enough experience with the engine in the other VW group cars for them to engineer a solution. Heck can't they at least return the car to some basic tune rather than continue this fiasco.

Drive on,
Shibu