2.5 years with my Skoda Kodiaq: Love the car but pathetic after sales

Dealer got a shipment and the sensor was not present in the shipment. Now this was really shocking.

BHPian athray9 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Skoda makes amazing cars but are backed by a poor management team. I would like to share the experiences we went through with the entire ownership of our car since the booking.

Jan 2022 - Booked the car and we were told it would get delivered in about 3 months.

April 2022 - Did not get the allocation yet.

August 2022 - Got an allocation and got it delivered in the same month.

September 2022 - Passenger Airbag was always turned off, then we came to know that it comes turned off from factory and that the technicians need to turn it on during PDI and they failed to do so, now this could've been fatal had my dad not discovered it.

23rd November 2022 - The car had been amazing during the first 3 months of ownership with about 3000 kms on the odo with a trip -> Chennai-Trichy-Namakkal-Karur-Chennai. Just when we reached home, the check engine light turns on.

24th November 2022 - The car goes to the Service center in Guindy Industrial Estate.

27th November 2022 - Technicians had run the diagnosis and sent it to Skoda India. Skoda India came back with a response that the fuel pump sensor had failed which was the reason for the check engine light. But it was a sensor failure, so Skoda India had advised the technicians to re-calibrate the sensor and that would fix the problem. The technician told me that the problem would be fixed tomorrow and that I can pick the car tomorrow morning.

28th November 2022 - I reached the showroom at about 9:30AM, the technician says they test drove the car and the check engine light came up again. Now this happened at about 11AM. So this infuriated us since they made us come all the way to pick the car up and then inform us this issue. Then they told us they can give us a loaner car which is a 1.0 Kushaq M/T. But in-order to get the approval for the loaner, I had to wait for another 4 hours. After all the wait, I finally got a Kushaq as the loaner. We were informed that the sensor would arrive in another two weeks.

14th December 2022 - Sensor was supposed to arrive today. Dealer got a shipment and the sensor was not present in the shipment. Now this was really shocking. Not sure if it was really missing or if it was some made up story.

24th December 2022 - It's been one month without a car that was just 3 months old with 3000kms and no signs of the sensor being delivered. My dad escalated the issue and the response from Skoda India was this " Sir we have provided you a with a Skoda Kushaq loaner". Really disappointed with their reply and they sensed it, so they offered us extended warranty at free of cost for what we were going through. But what is the point of having extended warranty is the car is not going to be with us, since we can't even see the sensor arriving even after a month?

27th December 2022 - Got a call from the dealer that the sensors have been delivered and then they will only come and deliver the car to our house.

28th December 2022- We got the car delivered in our house with a bill of about Rs.500 for fuel. We had given the car with about 1/4th of fuel but they had to do many test runs with the car which emptied the fuel and the person delivering the car had fueled the car and gave us the receipt. After making us go through everything for a month, they give us a recipe of Rs.500? But at least we were happy that the problem was resolved.

So we learnt a lot from this:

• Skoda cars (not the PQ or MQB AO-IN platform ones, but more of MQB and MQB EVO) are amazing and are very comparable to the big 3 luxury germans.
• If your Skoda car runs without any problems, it would be such an amazing buy without any issues and you can literally shame the big 3 luxury germans interns of equipment, performance and comfort for a lot less money, I used to find it really comparable to my X3 in many ways.
• The problem is with Skoda India management and with some Skoda dealers (not all of them).

The car is now 2.5 years old with about 15000 kms and touch wood we have not faced any issues and has been a wonderful ownership experience. I really hope your issues are fixed and you also enjoy the cars like us. Kindly demand Skoda India for extended warranty since they put you through this ordeal on a brand new car.

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