Are we going to see a turnaround in Skoda/VW servicing?

[woofy]

I do that transporter, unfortunately, my dealer saw fit to jack up the prices repeatedly within a short period of timepoints. I can accept rising costs, but it sometimes has gone up 2-3 times a year for no real reason. It was originally under the cost of a GTi Golf which is on par with other countries but has since surpassed in Melbourne here. There is no excuse for that one. I suspect if VW dealers were to service all Skodas that problem of non competition that has developed here locally would go away. That was the original intention and information I was given when I first bought and seems to be for the most part a fallacy except for some sparse regional centres.

If VW Camberwell next door to me would operate as a dedicated SKoda service centre (they have the ex Bayford Skoda mechs) then Richmond would suddenly come back to earth I suspect.

[BluChris]

I have to disagree to an extent Transporter. I completely agree all brands have problem cars and I know I'm taking a risk in changing. I did check the servicing costs, but in real life they have (a) gone up significantly (b) never played out in real life. Example? This year I was up for a minor service, about $450 from Skoda here. But, I have paid $2,500 in maintenance in 2012. Part of this was optional so fair enough (preventive work), one was a window regulator mounting that gave way ($700), one a small air leak in an intake pipe ($450), plus a few other things. Even more important, $900 of these costs shouldn't have happened. One was misdiagnosis of the leak, never fixed properly and no refund, one was about the same $ for other work I explicitly told them I didn't want done but they did anyway. Refund? Don't make me laugh.

This on the back of a long history of not resolving even very simple issues is what killed it for me. God help those who've had the big issues.

The Internet also brings out the die hard loyalists who find it hard to acknowledge a genuine issue. I have never ever, across multiple brands and vehicles, received service as poor as that offered by Skoda dealers. And that was unknowable when I bought mine several years ago.

I have moved on, literally...

[BluChris]

Seeing they said 4 years to me recently, I'd love to know too. This ridiculous lack of certainty is part of the problem, as is the take it back 4 times to get it fixed (or not) deal which all goes to poor product knowledge. These guys are the busiest in the state. Why do they not know this stuff? Off warranty $189 an hour is not cheap service either.

[woofy]

Problem is that they were a niche dealer, Preston and Geelong were big dealers that were both very popular. I still don't know what happened to Bayfords, by all accounts they had it right, but did hear it was with a disagreement with VW HQ.

Richmond are where they are now, not by any merit anymore (George really was their sales and followup guru) but by default, their service area was never made to cope with the massive influx where they went from not many jobs to being swamped, so raised the prices as busy tradies do and decided they were Number 1 in Skoda and acted like they were.

Preston where the number 1 dealer in the country, had they still been around things in Melb would be very different, but so far noone has stepped up to knock Richmond into reality. I have been hoping Penfolds might, but they have a similar arrogance as well. They were great at one point, but the mighty fell some years back now.

[BluChris]

Hmmmm. Tried Bayford not long before they pulled out, in desperation. Mount Waverley to Preston - ouch.

Much better attitude than Richmond - willing to listen and try to help. Did with 1 - 2 things but not others. But they also damaged 2 pieces of trim and had to replace at their cost. I have heard of others with damage too.

From the horses mouth - Skoda insisted they build new facilities to meet VAG standards, Bayford refused because they weren't getting the volume needed to pay for the investment. Couldn't agree so Bayford pulled out. The service guys were pretty despondent about it because they liked working on Skodas.

They desperately need a competent, customer focused dealer in the Eastern suburbs. From 1 - 2 comments on this forum Lance Dixon isn't it. Also needs to be more accessible to public transport and the city than them...

[woofy]

I remember Richmond before they moved into the current premises, they had to jump through a lot of hoops with the service area setup, Skoda were more demanding than Audi in that respect. The Skoda service area still isn't technically operating though, its the back part where the used cars were lurking.

[Transporter]

Well, as I said earlier, every brand has lemons. Even I couldn't take anymore of the meaningless trips to the Jeep dealer and traded the KJ Jerokee on the Touareg in the hope that it would be a better experience and it is. It was the reliability of the automatic transmission that put me off from getting another Jeep, so it's complicated when it comes to time to replace the car you liked because you feel like everything alse is against you.
I wish you it works out for you. Sometimes the change is good.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

[wai]

It is a case of people making views known because they have problems, but that is the issue.

Perceptions are everything. If someone sees your car and asks you what it is like, you are not going to say nice things about it if you have had problems and were fobbed off. It is one thing where problems are nothing to do with the manufacturer (like tyres or brakes even if they supply rubbish to start with). It is something else when the problems relate to their design or actions.

The problems I have reported and have been acknowledged relate to the transmission and safety.

On the transmission, if you stop uphill on a hill and then move off, the transmission will not change out of 2nd, even if you take the engine to the red line. This has nothing to do with whether the car is now on a hill or level ground. It can be 10 to 15 seconds (a long time) before it decides to change up unless you do it manually.

The other is the delay in the reverse clutch engaging. Stop on a hill facing down. Press the brake to engage hill hold. Engage reverse and then try to reverse up. As soon as the system senses a change in accelerator position, hill hold is released, but the transmission takes almost 1 second before the clutch engages. You roll downhill until the clutch engages and launches you backwards. You press the brake and it all happens again. The manual says that the release of the brake is supposed to be gradual, but it is instantaneous.

Both these issues have been reported, and acknowledged by the dealer, but they will not report the matter to VW because they have been told to tell the customer that it is standard for that type of vehicle.

On the safety side, it is the cigarette lighter powered up all the time. The Polo was subject to a recall on this with the grounds cited as "Fire". The design of the area of the lighter has not changed, but now VW will not rectify this. Essentially, if the lighter element gets stuck in, you have to try and find which fuse to remove, or locate a spanner (none provided in the tool kit) and disconnect the battery. All the while, the lighter is doing what it is designed to do, and that is heat up an element to a point where it will ignite something. The requirement for the cigarette lighter to operate with the ignition key in the on or accessory positionwas removed from ADR 42 was because manufacturers had all decided to make this operation standard, only VW broke ranks.

Once again dealers have been told to tell customers that this operation is standard for their type of vehicle.

If other manufacturers are also starting to use this to deflect complaints, then this does not legitimise things. It simply means that those manufacturers will eventually also feel a backlash.

This is not a case of VW bashing, after all, I paid over $40,000 for my car. The last thing I would want is for VW to fail. What VW need to understand is that there is an equally important part to the customer relationship, and that is service. How they respond to complaints is what sets them apart. This is where VW falls down. If VW don't want to hear this, then all they are doing is reinforcing a perception about them. Customers have paid large amounts of money for VW cars, but there are those who feel like they have been taken for a ride. I actually tried to talk my brother, a niece of mine and a friend to get a VW. Fortunately they decided on other vehicles otherwise it would have caused me issues with family members and a long term friend.

It is not the money side of things, but the attitude that is what needs to change. My servicing costs for my Hiace were much higher than for my Caddy Maxi Life (more than double AND service intervals were every 5,000 km), but the thing about the service I got was that any issues I had were properly addressed and I was never given a snow job.

Every car manufacturer will have problems, but it is how they respond to these problems that the public will judge them on.

[PassatB6]

The other is the delay in the reverse clutch engaging. Stop on a hill facing down. Press the brake to engage hill hold. Engage reverse and then try to reverse up. As soon as the system senses a change in accelerator position, hill hold is released, but the transmission takes almost 1 second before the clutch engages. You roll downhill until the clutch engages and launches you backwards. You press the brake and it all happens again. The manual says that the release of the brake is supposed to be gradual, but it is instantaneous.

Handbrake?

[wai]

Handbrake?

Yes, that is what I have to do on mine, only problem is a conventional handbrake is not provided on all models in the range and so you have no way of using a handbrake to control it. When I demonstrated this to the sales rep who was told to "take care of me", he said that it should not operate that way, but then the CSR refused to pass it on to VW.

The transmission is effectively sold as an "automatic", and no automatic I know of does this. A work colleague has an Eos with a DSG, and it is so bad there that both he and his wife have to take this into consideration when they park. In one instance he said they had to leave the car where it was, take a taxi home and come back in their other car when there were no cars parked in the front or rear. It is a major problem that can be easily fixed, however the CSR's simply refuse to do anything about it. It involves altering the delay between accelerator position detection and clutch engagement to something like what happens in D rather than the 1 second it takes in reverse..

As I said, it will take something major to happen before anything is done. VW can easily avoid this, but they are either not being told about it, or choose not to do anything about it, just as with the cigarette lighter issue.