jonathane1976

I phoned the Skoda dealer last week expressing an interest in ordering a Yeti with pretty much every addition coming in at nearly £30K. Still waiting on a call back.

Yes you can unplug the connector and remove the entire door from the vehicle if you wish. Both doors were rewired at the dealer in the space of one day. The DIY soldering job on the drivers side was extremely difficult with so little space between the car and the door. Hence why it doesn't look too pretty, trying to join up 7 wires with no slack and little space to get at it.

I had a disco 2 for 6 months, had so many problems I refused it and the finance company gave me all my money back!

photos, sorry about the quality. I had to chop up the rubber gaiter on the driver side to get access to solder, the passenger side gaiter is intact.

The establishment from which I bought the vehicle was taken over shortly after I purchased the vehicle in March. They gave me a landrover warranty which does not cover wiring. I had to fight for weeks to get the heated seat elements done. I would definitely NOT go back to Stratstone to buy another car.

Just a little update. The car went into the local Skoda dealer this week and had the wiring looms in both front doors replaced at a cost of £430 I had the original looms returned to me. The two thickest wires on the passenger side were close to splitting with the insulation stripped off and the wires fraying. The dealer had previously patched up one of the cables on that side which fed into the airbag system. As I mentioned previously I repaired 7 of the cables on the driver side. I don't think that the wiring on both doors should disintegrate on a 4 year old car. I feel that this is a manufacturing problem. I feel that Skoda UK should pay in full to have this fixed. I bought this car second hand from Stratstone which is not a Skoda dealer. I have raised a complaint with Skoda UK, they wanted a list of all my previous cars to demonstrate my "loyalty". Today Skoda UK said that they were asking the dealer who carried out the repair to contribute to any gesture of good will that I may receive and Skoda UK would match this. I will be honest I would be surprised if the dealer who carried out the repair would see any reason to pay out on a car they did not sell. So there will be no gesture of good will. Where to go from here? I still have the wiring looms... Trading Standards?

I see the problem you have had with the warranty. If you decide to add the warranty after they have built the car, then the car has the wrong failure date built into it and they have difficulty honoring the warranty as they car will fail before the warranty expires. lol

I "built" a yeti on the Skoda website last night just for fun, my wife wants to replace the fabia with a DSG yeti. I would like to pay off the cars and spend money on other things, but my wife knows best. I noticed you can add 4 or 5 year warranty at point of ordering a new car. Do they have 3 different production lines. Or do they build the car at a different time during the week? If you have the standard warranty it gets built on a friday afternoon? If you have the 4 year warranty it gets built on a Wednesday morning? If you have a 5 year warranty it gets built mid morning on a monday?

Sadly this is true. I just wonder how they manage to make them last precisely 3 years and 1 minute?

I have been buying Skoda's for years. I use them for my business and they have always been (relatively) reliable. I've been buying Skoda since before Skoda became fashionable. And the prices have been rising along the way. I had one of the diesel fabia vRS, which was a brilliant car, mechanically superb but the interior fell to bits after 3 years of abuse by learner drivers. I had to replace the vRS as it is not type rated for towing otherwise I would still be driving it! I replaced the vRS with the new shape fabia level 3 with the same engine as the vRS. After 3 years the window switches gave up and the interior trim was starting to fall to bits. The only notable problem with that car was the little orange clip that holds the bonnet support up. The orange clip fell off as it didn't fit properly, I got a new one and that didn't fit either. I had to replace the fabia as the DSA now require ballast in trailers for the driving test, so I needed a Yeti So my current manual car is the Yeti. Had to buy second hand as I was not expecting to be replacing my car at that point in my financial cycle. The car has a few build quality issues, the dash board creeks when I use the A/C in summer, the interior is showing signs of wear. The heated seat elements needed replaced. The door electrics need replaced both sides as the wire broke in between the A pillar and the door. Oh and the little orange clip that holds the bonnet support arm doesn't fit properly! lol I am of the opinion that Skoda's are built to last 3 years, after that they fall to bits. Hence the 3 year warranty. So why not buy a VW? Should you pay an extra £10K to ensure the little orange clip on the bonnet fits properly?

That is the same colour as mine, but I sorted it. But to be fair i didn't really notice the car, was looking at the R44 helicopter.

Mechanically the gear box is a manual gear box, it has clutch plates and operates in precisely the same way as any other manual gear box. Granted passing your driving test in a car fitted with DSG means you gain a licence restricted to automatic transmission. But it is so much more than a traditional automatic. My fabia has a gear stick which looks similar to a manual gear stick, yes there is a computer in between the gear selector and the gear box but you have precisely the same level of control as you would with the conventional manual, other than the inability to select a higher gear when stopped. So if the manual yeti has engine braking, then the DSG yeti will have the same engine braking,as it uses the same engine. Modern vehicles are driven differently to older vehicles, drivers need to learn how to use the new vehicles and adapt their driving style to suit. Modern vehicles have highly efficient brakes, with numerous driver aids integrated into the braking system such as ESP ABS etc etc. The modern engines being computer controlled know precisely how much fuel to inject at any given time. The DSG gear box used in combination with cruise control is more fuel efficient than any driver on the road. It will always be in the best gear with the correct amount of fuel being injected. Knock the cruise control off immediately when you are aware of a hazard ahead and get a free run up to the hazard.

The DSG gear box is a manual gear box, "Dual Sequential Gearboxes" It has two clutches and two gear boxes, you can do anything with a DSG that you can do with a normal manual other than block change (skip gears). If you want to over ride the computer use the hold gears, which prevent it changing up. But will allow it to change down. As you slow down it drops through the gears by itself. I stick it in drive, never use sport or the hold gears and press the gas to go faster, take my foot off the gas to slow and the brake to slow down more. Other than in the event of brake failure I would never use the gears to slow a vehicle. Brakes to slow, gears to go.

My Yeti.

Yes 7 on the drivers side, the passenger side had split wires also, which were patched up by the dealer 6 months ago. I have raised a complaint with Skoda UK.