Bye bye Jetta, hello Sportage, Skoda - fix your Yeti pricing

[Jake02]

It is sad to see many unhappy Skoda owners. Perhaps bradm you can share with us your unhappy story that steer you away from ever owning a Skoda again. I am certainly very happy with my dealer and my car, I will certainly consider owning another one.

I agree, it's a direct contrast to a lot of current UK owners (which is why their satisfaction levels are so high after they fixed their situation - imagine is Skoda Aus did the same) and I doubt it's the cars themselves, rather the dealers, the head company, etc. If my parents went out and bought a car tomorrow I think they'd buy another Skoda, probably a Yeti. The only negative we have with ours is the crap air-con but otherwise we absolutely love our Skoda to bits and couldn't ask much more of it. Skoda offers a manual on almost all models, a big plus for my parents, who will not drive anything automatic at all (they love driving too much they say, I'm of a similar position even with my huge 2 years experience). If Skoda wasn't in Australia, we'd have a Golf 118/GTI or a Mazda3 SP25.

Another question I ask, is do Skoda Australia know about all of this or are their heads too far up where the sun don't shine to notice?

[brad]

Service cost for Honda, Citroen and Renault will be as expensive, if not more, as the Skoda.

I would have thought so but every Skoda review in the paper points it out. I've found my service/repair/maintenance costs to be quite cheap $1600 in 75,000km/3yrs which is an average of $320 per service. I've had 2 sets of tyres as well - but that's only been $550 net.

It is sad to see many unhappy Skoda owners. Perhaps bradm you can share with us your unhappy story that steer you away from ever owning a Skoda again.

Fine product let down by a small & under-informed dealer network & more particularly, Head Office.

[bluey]

Street prices for Yeti's seem a bit variable. Carsales shows a few TDI manuals for around $36k. The competition is hotting up with recently released Subaru XV and Mazda CX-5. Prices may be more competitive if they have Yeti stock sitting around to move. Lower prices may not last....

[woofy]

We were wanting a car that was the same capacity as the Mazda 6 we owned and the SKoda RS. It came down to a Superb wagon, A honda Odyssey, the Mazda 6 touring wagon and the Hyundai Santa Fe. It was a mental fight to look at the Hyundai, I wasn't really interested in the Sorrento, I've been hearing good things about Hyundai and not so much Kia, so left them alone. Despite knowing the new model was coming this year, we got the current model late last year. To be honest if Toyota had the Kluger in diesel, that would have been the winner, but a V6 is a joke these days. The Santa Fe is good in a lot of ways, only gripe is the suspension despite being much improved in it is very thumpy at times, and then dead smooth in others. Also for some reason in this update it can't use load levellers which might have been something we want in the future. Mechanics in Nunawading though are great, and the new manager there has sorted any issues I had very promptly. No rattles and the engine and gearbox are fantastic. Not even Mazda have got a diesel that touches this, although the CX5 might come close, hard to say without the diesel out yet. The overall everyday feel of the car is not the same as the Skoda though, there are little things I miss.

I'm still likely to get another RS, probably in Wagon form next time around, by then Skoda will have either died or there will be an awesome new Octy out by then.

[UK Yeti]

Living in the UK this is a very interesting read this thread. Amazing how wrong Škoda Australia is getting things! Yikes. They should go and speak to Volkswagen South Africa about launching a brand. Over there VWSA launched the SEAT brand a few years ago and priced them ABOVE VW. Yes, the low cost Spanish arm of the VAG empire got priced above VW. Did the buying public fall for this? Not in a million years and after less than two years the brand is no more in SA. They killed it. And don't forget in SA VW is one of the two biggest, most popular brands there (next to Toyota). You are either a VW-man or a Toyota-man. Full stop. So VWA getting things so wrong in Oz is painful to see. At least they did not give up after 2 years, but to price a product that everyone and his pet monkey knows is a lower cost brand to VW at nearly the same price point?! Eh?! Daft and won't help resale values, brand perception or anyone in the future. Škodas are good honest cars and should be priced as such to build on that reputation. I hope they see the light of day soon in terms of Yeti pricing at the very least.