[entropy]

Originally Posted by Sahil

The first service is at 15,000 how come you gave it in so much earlier? My Superb has done exactly the same amount of kms are yours and it says there are 5500kms or 90days to service.
5500 is not bad at all ! My Altis first service costed 3800 !

Sahil, it is 15000 or one year whichever comes earlier. Since it was almost an year so I decided to go ahead with this. Yes about 5500/- even I was surprised as it also included rotation, balancing etc.

I guess they gave a special discount since half of the work was done my driver himself .

[entropy]

Just a quick update:

This is the fastest 15K I have clocked on any of my cars. Though initially bought for city use only - the confidence built over the months has prompted me to take it to highways and thus this mileage. I know this is a low number for many of you but even my 3.5 yrs old innova has barely touched 23 K. The highway is truly where this car shines - in briskness, comfort, drive confidence and sense of security. My only grouse is if this PD engine was a bit quieter. This is the only real vice in an otherwise excellent package.

FE has now settled to about 9.0 kmpl in the city and about 12.0 kmpl on highways. Recently I did about 1720 kms roundtrip from Delhi to Varanasi and it was quite comfortable and quick (!). Covered 83 kms Allahabad bypass which is a near driver's paradise in India (mostly deserted and lots of curves) in about 27 mins [of course taking liberties only when a clean stretch of road was clearly visible without any traffic/hindrance whatsoever. Of course watch out for the diversions and reduce speeds !!].

Niggles: Mostly none. Battery went dead again after I left it in garage for about 3 weeks (monsoon rains). Airbag fault message came afterwards which had to be reset from the workshop. Total bill was about Rs 288.

Overall quite pleased and satisfied with this car and I intend to keep it at least for another one year.

[entropy]

Not much to report.

Contrary to all the skoda horror stories - this car has been running quite ok. The only constant irritant is horn (high). Have replaced 2 times in warranty so far. Apart from this no other problems to report so far. Second service would be coming up in about 4 months from now. Expenses incurred so far are the first service charge (about 6K), airbag fault reset (about 300 due to battery going dead due to prolonged non-use) and car detailing expense (about 3K).

[FlyingSpur]

Your Superb seems to be quite trouble-free. It's great to have reviews like those as well, on a car that's perfect on paper but raises doubts about reliability because of the Skoda brand. Are you still clocking kilometers on this car and ignoring your other cars? That tends to happen

[entropy]

Originally Posted by FlyingSpur

Your Superb seems to be quite trouble-free. It's great to have reviews like those as well, on a car that's perfect on paper but raises doubts about reliability because of the Skoda brand. Are you still clocking kilometers on this car and ignoring your other cars? That tends to happen

Thanks FS. Touchwood so far it has been a non-event owning this car. I keep rotating between cars so that each one gets some mileage and I can justify owning them :-)

[VW2010]

Battery went dead again after I left it in garage for about 3 weeks (monsoon rains).

Is this common in all cars or all skoda cars. I am wondering what would have happened to my Swift if i had not asked my brother to start the car once a day and learn driving once a week when i was not using the car for over a month.

Or could this be because of the security features(Anti Theft) that comes with the car. What happens to anti theft when the battery dies??

[entropy]

Just a quick update on the 2nd service for this car.

Total bill was about 10,300 INR for the second service that included changing the rear brake pads (as one of the pads was chipped and almost worn !!), usual fluids change and oil/air filter replacements. I would say price-wise this is fair. The service itself was nothing to write home about. The workshop lacked many basic tools and "jugaad" technology was the mantra followed. I seriously recommend that a responsible person follows your car when it goes for Skoda service. Chances of mess-ups are VERY high if someone from the owner is not looking (and supervising the service).

The car hasn't clocked many kms (about 21K on odo in 2 years). The ownership has been quite stress free so far except for the battery and horn issues I had reported in the past. Horn as I see is a common problem with VW group cars as my Q7 4.2 TDI horns also conked off (But a quick DIY has fixed it for now).

All in all - despite all the threats I intend to keep it for perhaps one more year as I don't find any good enough replacement in the same price-bracket plus the car has been serving well and manages to put a smile on the face whenever I do kickdowns .