[graaja]

Originally Posted by dkaile

Ditto. Though my car has done only 15K kms in nearly 2 years (1 year 8 months) it has been a zero error car except for a very minor battery issue due to less driving, which has since never recurred after me taking the necessary precautions. I am perhaps saved by opting for a Manual Transmission in the Superb Petrol which is 'supposedly' very very troublesome with the 7 Speed DSG. It has been a pleasure to drive till now and highly luxurious and value for money for the 17 odd lacs I invested in it.

Thank you very much for the response, dkaile!

Originally Posted by B747

Very good initiative graaja. Please publish the results as it will be useful to many.
Myself booked octavia TDI Ambition and waiting, paid only the booking amount as I am also bit skeptical esp about reliability and Skoda ASS.

Absolutely, B747. The survey is mainly intended for us confused souls who have either booked the car, or on the verge of booking, but are in a "cat on the wall" situation.

Originally Posted by Swanand Inamdar

Submitted my response too.

......

That said, I would still be vary on choosing the 7 speed DSG.
Ive been saying this for quite some time now; with Skoda's its better to know the dealer, or at least a competent mechanic, to have that peace of mind ownership.

Thank you Swanand Inamdar.

Originally Posted by Saanil

That is a very nice initiative. One question - How are you ensuring that only Skoda customers are filling it up? I mean is it possible for me (a Maruti owner) to also fill this up? Ideally I would not want to do so but what if people just fill the survey without even owning Skoda cars?

Let me know if you have already taken care of it. I am thinking of how to perform the perfect survey and will let you know if my tiny brain can come up with a solution.

Your concern is similar to an earlier concern raised by StarScream about persons giving +ve responses. I am afraid, with an anonymous survey, there is no foolproof mechanism to prevent malpractice. I can only appeal to everyone to take the survey only if they own a Skoda car and provide impartial feedback and add a disclaimer in the analysis to take it with a pinch of salt. Please do let me know if you can think of ensuring the credibility of the responses.

[aniketi]

Originally Posted by graaja

Hi TBHP'ians,

Three months back, I started my hunt for a new car. After reading many ownership reviews here in TBHP, and many test drives, I have booked the Skoda Octavia 1.8TSI.

All i can say is you have lots of courage to buy a Skoda after knowing so many horror stories. Be prepared for the worst if you eventually buy one for you so that if something wrong happens, it will be well anticipated and accepted by you in advance

I will never put my hard earned money on Skoda after reading so many stories & listening 2-3 in real world from my friends. Reliability and A.S.S. are always first on my buying list.

Finally, All the best mate, think 100 times before you really buy one for you

[VW2010]

Its not the car people are scared of. All mechanical cars will have some issues at one point or another. But its how they run their service centres and dealership that will make me never plunge my moolah on a skoda.

Are VW better. Probably not and probably they will never be. Customer service is the last thing these german brands are worried about.

A great car getting tarnished by their inability to fix customer issue. And an example of customer escalation is someone like VW who made probably the dealer to replace a forum members VW for a mistake of their dealership.

Harish case is pretty much the icing of the cake. Fix Harish case and i will start believing there is light at the end of the tunnel

But now Skoda is purely a company i would never spend a penny on. In fact i am more inclined to get those classic mercs w124's and save enough money to run them for years to come.

[graaja]

Originally Posted by aniketi

All i can say is you have lots of courage to buy a Skoda after knowing so many horror stories. Be prepared for the worst if you eventually buy one for you so that if something wrong happens, it will be well anticipated and accepted by you in advance

....

Finally, All the best mate, think 100 times before you really buy one for you

Hi aniketi, The reason for the survey is to asses the risks in buying the car. I do not expect a 100% risk free ownership, just want the risk to be reasonable. If the risk involved proves to be too high, then I will definitely call off the deal.

Either way, I will be totally responsible for any decision I make and will be prepared for all the consequences

[V12Doc]

I had a skoda Octavia 2005 1.9 tdi that caught fire after coming back from service station. No warranty and no insurance cover. Had to pay out of my pocket

[nitinbose]

I would say Skoda vehicles are pretty much reliable as long as you meet the following two conditions:

1. The car should be used the way you get it from the factory. There should not be any upgrades/modifications unless you're using the genuine accessories. I wouldn't recommend engine remaps either. The system is tightly integrated and any non-standard modifications seriously affects the other - Please see my ICE story. I had to spend a good deal of time in bringing it back to stock, replacing the relevant wiring harnesses etc. I am extremely with the stock vehicle, though installed genuine accessories.

2. Identify the Skoda dealer who specializes on services. In Bangalore, Vinayak Skoda is good for services/repairs, while Tafe Access is good for the sales part. You should never go vice-versa or the result would be catastrophic! I'm pretty sure this situation is the same for every city.

Skoda recommends the service every 15K kms and the service cost is around INR 10K, however, I would recommend a general checkup every 5000kms due the Indian driving conditions. Skoda/VW parts are on the expensive side because all the parts have to be imported from Germany but you'll be amazed by the quality!

Finally, express your love for your Skoda car while driving and it will love you back!

These are from my personal experiences.

[vb-saan]

Originally Posted by graaja

The link to the survey is below.

Appreciate your intentions around this, but I am not sure if this is really going to help you, or will give you accurate results. It’s an open survey and I assume that there is no restriction on the no. of times one can submit. A team-bhp poll should have been a better option

Originally Posted by VW2010

Its not the car people are scared of. All mechanical cars will have some issues at one point or another. But its how they run their service centres and dealership that will make me never plunge my moolah on a skoda.
Are VW better. Probably not and probably they will never be.

Good point. I think things will improve drastically if Skoda as a company bring in some uniform code of conduct for its dealers and service centers. In the current state, it looks to be on extremes. There is thread by member Catamaran on the troubles with his Yeti at a service center in Bangalore. If I remember correctly, this was the same person who got exemplary service when he purchased the car (I think from Skoda Thrissur, Kerala). Similarly we have some Skoda owners on the forum who are getting good service, while the others are left reeling with trouble.

Originally Posted by VW2010

Customer service is the last thing these german brands are worried about.

Just wondering – bad customer service is a characteristic of the brand or the dealer? For e.g.; when I first interacted with a Skoda dealer in Cochin, the responses were far from satisfactory. Then I noticed that the business house in general have a bad reputation all around. On the contrary, the Skoda dealership in my city was excellent in their interactions with me, and I believe they have Honda and Maruti dealerships as well which are normally considered on the good side.

[shashank.nk]

We have the 1st gen Octavia for the last 7 years, with close to 85k on the odo. The first service was a pain with Tafe,after which I shifted to Vinayak and now to an independent mechanic. Vinayak was good on the whole,but the independent garage/mechanic trumps these dealers any which day both in expertise and cost.

Over the last 7 years,the car has never broken down due to abrupt part failures. It broke down once when a driver hit a speed bump hard and cracked the oil sump. Skoda Assistance took 4 hrs to come.

Only the power window motor,radiator fan failed the last year. Else its been trouble free so far.

But having read so many horror stories on Skoda,I thank my stars we got a good car which is why i'm wary recommending Skoda cars to friends/relatives,since the ownership experience is not consistent like with Toyota or Maruti.

PS: My experience with VW was far worse though.

[nitinbose]

Originally Posted by vb-san

Just wondering – bad customer service is a characteristic of the brand or the dealer? For e.g.; when I first interacted with a Skoda dealer in Cochin, the responses were far from satisfactory. Then I noticed that the business house in general have a bad reputation all around. On the contrary, the Skoda dealership in my city was excellent in their interactions with me, and I believe they have Honda and Maruti dealerships as well which are normally considered on the good side.

Like I mentioned, the cities which have a Skoda presence would have two dealers, one specialized in service and the other on sales. The reverse would be catastrophic!

[swiftnfurious]

A good initiative and also a well thought out one at it. Though I do NOT own a Skoda, still browsed thru the pages till the last one (did NOT submit it ). But since this is outside of the forum, there are higher chances of tampering (I do NOT own a Skoda, but I could provide bogus information). Probably you could have added a field for getting the VIN or so to cross check how many people have added the information correctly.

I hope and pray we get reliable and accurate information from the survey.

[ramzsys]

I took the survey on behalf of my relative: he owned a Skoda Fabia and faced AC compressor failure within a few months of ownership. Had a frustrating time waiting for parts to arrive. This is in Coimbatore.

He previously owned a Swift and had done about 1.1 lakh km without any such issues.

The net result: More Swifts in the family!

[surgvij]

I owned a skoda Fabia tdi 2008 model (from the initial batch). Sold it few months back with 76k on the odo. The issues I faced with the car were more during the first 2 years later it became a pleasant experience. Infact I felt bad when I saw the car being taken away by its new owner. The car was absolutely stock. The issues were,
1. The AC compressor will not start running even after turning on the AC. This happened two to three times in the first month and everytimt the SA told it was because of some loose connection.
2. The power window switches will not work even this happened many times in the first few months few times it got rectified by turning off the engine and locking and unlocking the car. But had to take the car to the A.S.S on other occasions and same loose connection explanation given.
These two issues however settled after the first few months. Don't know how though.
3. During my 2nd service I complained about some noise from the front suspension while going over bumps/potholes. The SA said some power steering fluid leak after having the car for nearly 2 days. I never had any issues with the steering though. The power steering assembly was replaced under warranty after a lot of hassle.( my warranty had expired 10 days ago). Though was happy in the end I thought it could have been handled better. Was without my ride for nearly a month.
4. The indicator stalk had to be replaced twice in the last two years. May be a one off issue with my car. As I found the overall build quality of my car to be very good. Not many rattles in more than five and a half years.
5. The others were routine maintenance work like break pad change - once, suspension bushes changed - once.
Just a note, if you are a skoda owner in chennai and at the mercy of Gurudev motors and something goes wrong with your car then may the GOD SAVE YOU. Those guys are pathetic.

[Zappo]

Originally Posted by graaja

Your concern is similar to an earlier concern raised by StarScream about persons giving +ve responses. I am afraid, with an anonymous survey, there is no foolproof mechanism to prevent malpractice. I can only appeal to everyone to take the survey only if they own a Skoda car and provide impartial feedback and add a disclaimer in the analysis to take it with a pinch of salt. Please do let me know if you can think of ensuring the credibility of the responses.

Is there a way to track the IP Addresses of the respondents? Mass filling of the survey starts showing up in such cases.

For others, while you can't stop non-owners from filling in you can make it difficult by adding request for details that makes it too much of a labor to hunt for such details if one is a not an owner. And yet the owners will respond to the same with much ease.

[VW2010]

Probably add a poll here in Team BHP to get a feel of members response. This is far more reliable and may actually reflect what public thinks.

Actually when i openend first today, i thought it was internal poll

[Zappo]

We already have N number of those internal polls on Skoda. And we also know what our members feel. I don't see much point in starting yet another Skoda poll with response to that well known ahead. At least this one is a bit different. So let this remain different. The OP has has promised to share his findings, raw data etc that he captures from this survey.