Mk3 103tsi - Almost 1 year on and first service due

[sillyboy]

The car's first service took place yesterday.
Early drop off and I asked them to look for faults related to the cold start hesitancy I occasionally experience (I was not optimistic and they did not find anything).
I noticed the paperwork referenced the $269 capped price figure so the young lady who took my booking over the phone did the right thing.
Went to pick it up in the evening and of course forgot my glasses so I was not sure I believed my eyes when I saw the $450(ish) pricing on the invoice (so they had ignored the note).
The guy serving me was pleasant enough and said he had just priced it off the Skoda website and even showed me a printout which was of similar appearance to my one I had got off the web just with much higher prices.
I told him to wait while I went to my car and picked up MY printed quote which was then viewed with some surprise by him and the colleague he shared it with.
To be fair he did not quibble at all but just asked me to help myself to a coffee while he re-priced the invoice to match my quote.

Afterwards we went out to the car and to his horror it had not been washed, but I said that was ok because I had forgot to ask them NOT to wash it.
He had a little difficulty understanding that, so he got the 'dangers of using sponges to wash cars' lecture (poor bugger). I did add it was more of a problem for Asian built cars as they had softer paint. He understood that as he said he did a short stint at Suzuki and while they were generally reliable vehicles they had all sorts of problems with their water based paintwork.

Once I got home and got my glasses on I could see that the price included injector cleaner, a top up of genuine 'special' VAG/Skoda window washer (It smells good and is a bit of a standing joke between my wife and I). Only other work done was top up of coolant (250cc?), adjustment of windscreen sprayers and tyre pressures.

The car felt very skittish on the way home, with vague light steering. I checked the tyre pressures and they were at 42psi on the back and 39psi on the front.
For me the correct pressure with these tyres for general use is 36psi all around. It just gives a better ride, better straight line stability and a slightly heavier feel to the steering.
If I were putting a heavy load in the back then I would increase pressures accordingly but otherwise I really do not know why they do this.
They test drove it for 7 km to achieve 20kph and 10 l/100 averages. So that was quite reasonable.

Tyre wear for 17 inch Dunlop Maxx Sports is even but seems fairly heavy considering I have done only 11k km. I should get to 25k km if I rotate them front/rear.
This is considering my general driving makes Miss Daisy's chauffeur look like a hoon and someone in the UK with a vRS has got 80k km on the same brand????

So the lessons for others who might use the dealers for their servicing is:
a) Go to the website and get the true capped price for your car printed off.
b) Confirm the price when booking (apparently not all dealers are part of the capped price scheme?)
c) Leave a copy of your expected service pricing with them when you leave the car.
d) Clarify whether you want them to clean the car or not when you leave it.
e) DO NOT PRESS the cappuccino option on the fully automated Saeco machine in the waiting room, it does not use real milk just some sweet powdery abomination of a substitute.


Just when I thought I had done ok pricewise, I received a call from Skoda Australia this morning offering me a free service which I was now unable to take up. Doh!
Now going to ring Skoda Service and tell them they might want to tidy up their web sites and make the dealers aware of Skoda capped price servicing policy and rates.

Apart from the pricing fiasco I have no real complaints (unless you count the fortuitous non-cleaning and I was offered a 'make-up' clean at my convenience).

UPDATE:
Spoke to Skoda Assist and advise them of my experience and they said it was more probable that it was not a web site issue but just people putting in the wrong parameters. Despite them having the car details in front of them. Mk 2 service is $384, so goodness knows what model or service was chosen to get well over $450?
Capped price servicing costs are updated every 6 months as well, apparently.
My details were taken and will be passed on.

I am so sorry for your experience, considering Octavia is such a good car, the dealership/servicing centre support is such a big led down in Australia. For a capped price servicing that is so high and they can change it every half year, it's pretty meaningless I found, I might consider using a VW specialist as there is a reputable one in my area (European Autotech in Mona Vale, I have not yet used them but several people on this forum had recommend them).

[Gerrycan]

I am so sorry for your experience, considering Octavia is such a good car, the dealership/servicing centre support is such a big led down in Australia. For a capped price servicing that is so high and they can change it every half year, it's pretty meaningless I found, I might consider using a VW specialist as there is a reputable one in my area (European Autotech in Mona Vale, I have not yet used them but several people on this forum had recommend them).

I appreciate the empathy but what I experienced does not really warrant it (except the coffee, that was really bad)
The eventual price I paid was reasonable for a large dealership. If the spanner man did his work according to the schedule then I reckon it would take at least an hour and a half. Just checking the spare tyre pressure would take 5 minutes (valve face down so he has to undo the securing tape and nut and remove the tool kit, remove my packing around the tyre, inflate and reverse procedure. From what I can see he was very thorough and picked and corrected a couple of things I did not notice.
The oil used is very high grade so that and a VW filter would probably cost me $80 if I did it myself.
When I had a Hyundai SUV diesel under a lease arrangement I thought the Hyundai dealership service charges were eye-wateringly high for a so called 'budget brand' (as were their spare parts by the way).
I got the impression that it was not the normal job for the guys who served me, I think a couple of regulars were off sick so I'll cut them some slack and they did not raise any fuss my contesting their pricing.

What will be less justifiable for other more expensive Skoda models, VW, Audis and Bentleys are the higher charges that apply to those. In most cases the oil is no higher grade and not much more used, and I suspect take an equivalent time to execute. Actually I take part of that back, anyone who can afford to buy and run a Bentley/JAG/Land Rover deserves to be charged more

South Australia does not have road compliance test for older cars and sometimes when I drive at night I reckon that 1 in 3 cars have some sort of lighting problem.
Headlight burnt out or out of adjustment, or failure of side, rear, stop or indicator lights.
Now I'll take a guess that most of those cars with issues, if they have a service at all then it would be one of the $99 specials and at that price they just would not be able to check things like lights.
Yes I know it is the responsibility of the driver/owner to check the lights but most of the dip-stick drivers in Adelaide could not give a monkeys. And it seems the police and the authorities do not either. It may not be a direct cause of the high death rate in crashes that South Australia are experiencing at the moment but it symptomatic of the general casualness that seems to be applied to car maintenance here.

[vEnOm_oz]

I will be using the equivalent grade and compliant oil from Fuchs. Just from your experience is a 5L bottle of the oil enough or would you require a bit more?

Re using your own oil, you can do that, they will just drop that cost from the service components. Just make sure you get the right compliant one though so they take note of that.

Dealers use whatever they get a good deal on. My local guy was on Valvoline for ages. It's just spares that sell the Castrol in containers.

[woofy]

5L has been enough in the past. There is usually some left over for top ups.

[brad]

I will be using the equivalent grade and compliant oil from Fuchs. Just from your experience is a 5L bottle of the oil enough or would you require a bit more?

Around 4.6L with filter . Gives you enough to change the mower oil & do a small top up. I bet the mechanic tries to keep it - mine always did.

[vEnOm_oz]

Thanks guys!

[KWICKS]

Mine is in today at Richmond Skoda for 1st service . Website indicates $423 for MY15 RS. Price quoted is that. Seems a bit high for 5L oil and an hour of labour.

[brad]

You can't accuse them of under-cutting the market.

[woofy]

Richmond used to actually be one of the cheapest, but they must love the fixed price servicing as they can now charge more. The timing belt change on my 2008 MkII which is in Nov this year is about $500 cheaper than it used to be so can't complain too much.

[hobbie2k]

My wife just set up an appt at Solitaire for the first service and just like Gerry, she was quoted $386. I showed her the Capped Price quote and had her call back. They acknowledged the error and issued a new quote at $286.