Gdcobra

Well it's time to say goodbye again, just like to say how much I've enjoyed visiting this site and the helpful and friendly place its been during my ownership of my MK2 Superb (4.5 years) and my MK3 (Just shy of 1.5 years), thanks to all contributors. I've recently sold my red Mk3 2.0 Superb saloon, I was never very happy with this car due almost completely to the behaviour or the dealer, Simpson's Skoda Preston, who made ownership a miserable experience. This is really unfortunate, although I did have some 'issues' with the car it was/is fundamentally a nice example just that they were badly handled. There were a few issues which the dealer would just not accept but wouldn't have been deal breakers just that they handled badly (the Start/Stop which wouldn't) and other issues which they claimed were not present but actually came back fixed (leaking window washer reservoir). I'd already made the decision to sell when they tried to scam be at the recent service but if not that would have been the final straw. Anyway, what's the "interesting" part? I didn't want to try and sell the car privately with all the grief that can entail, plus I don't think there's a great private market for cars in the £20k region so I initially got a price via webuyanycar and then had a punt on Carwow which was suggesting £1k or so more so decided to try that way. For those unaware of how Carwow work (I was at the time), they take on you car at a suggested price and then effectively auction it out to dealers where that sugggested price effectively becomes the reserve. Decided to give it a go and just after the time of the auction got a mail to indicate a dealer had bought the car at £50 over the suggested price. All good. The only issue I had is that the car then has to be collected which I thought would happen within a day or two but in fact too around 3 weeks, partly due to rail strikes and partly due to a poorly thought out challenge on the mileage. Not sure if this is due to dealer or Carwow. Let me know if you want more details, it's an 'interesting' story in itself. Anyway pickup was eventlyally made and cash paid up, including settlement of finance and off the car goes. A short while later I'm looking through ebay (just out of interest) and see an advert for a similar car, in fact it was more than similar it was 'my' car. At that point it was up for £1100 more than I got for it. Now I know many people may think this is the dealer making a quick grand flipping the car but given that they've had costs such as transport, possibly some preparation (although I did supply the car very clean) and probably have to put some form of warrany on it, I actually thought it was quite reasonable and I'd done quite well. But it gets stranger. The car is still for sale (must be around 2 months in now) and the price has dropped £300, so now I really do think I did well. Why am I telling this story? Well I know we often hear of how dealerships fleece us poor customers but I think this highlights that they (in some cases at least) manage on very slim margins. I also find it surprising that the car is still for sale, I thought it would fly 'off the shelf'. It's a well spec'd car (Sportline with the addition of a sunroof) with low, genuine miles. The previous owner only managed around 7000 as he owned it during the COVID days or possibly just wasn't a high mileage user (I got the impression he was possibly a retired gent who looks after his cars well, as do I), I put another 10,000 or so on and it was always serviced correctly, in fact given the mileage the car had been over serviced. I know I started by saying the car had some problems but most of these were simply glitches with the way these cars work rather than anything broken, I was actually sorry to see the car go. So I can only imagine that car sales are not too brisk at the moment, I'm glad I'm not still sitting on it. The only thing I would say is that the advert is not very good, reads more like it's selling the dealer rather than the car which is a shame as the car has a lot of good selling points, pictures are not the best either. Maybe there's some detail I'm not seeing here, any thoughts?

Sorry not to have been back for a while, been in hospital for the past 7 weeks with other things on my mind! That's a really good on, European Guidance, guess all that Brexit lark passed them by? Sounds a bit like "Space Corp Direcitve xxx" for those who remember Red Dwarf. Car has been sold now which is quite interesting in itself but I'll open a new thread on that.

Sorry not to have been back sooner (been an busy time) and thanks for all the responses. Seems I'm far from the only one getting this. Funny thing is I've generally done my own maintenance, only have this one to the dealer as servicing was part of the deal when I bought the car. Many people look at me strangely when I tell them I do my own work, I guess that's just not fashionable these days, or maybe because I'm poor! My main reason for doing this is not to save money but because I have "trust issues" with garages (actually with all trades people), at least when I do it I know it's done properly. I don't know how anyone runs a car at that rate.

You're obviously one of the good guys and it's only fair to say that there are many about, unfortunately I think most people think main dealers with their polished image are above this kind of behaviour but it's not the case.

I think you are correct, I'll do that as soon as I get a minute

Just had my Superb Sportline in for a service on Monday at Simpson's Skoda Preston, left the car with the dealer early morning to pick up late afternoon. A couple of hours in I got an SMS with a link to a vehicle health check, one item they were advising me about was "Visual check of brake pads rear" which I could choose to have corrected at a price of only £442.44 by simply ticking a check box and returning to them. Not exactly the bargain of the century so I didn't bother, I was also somewhat surprised that my 18,000 mile car should need this kind of attention. A little later on they called me to discuss (AKA twist my arm, it's brakes after all so safety related!), I asked how worn the pads were, "About 15% sir", obviously my response was that this hardly constituted need for change. "Ah yes, but the problem is the disks, they are pitted" "Really, they looked OK to me" "Well its on the inner face, not the face you see from outside, we do a visual check on it" "OK, well thanks for letting me know, the car's being sold soon so I'm not looking to spend money on it. Leave it" As I'm selling the car I decided to change my wheels over last night from my winters to the proper set, while doing this I decided to have a proper look at the discs. This was quite difficult as the shroud and the caliper obscure most of the inner disk face but I could just about see up between these and the disk (with the wheels off) and as far as I'm concerned both disks were A1, I'd be really surprised if they could see better as it's my understanding that they don't even remove the roadwheels during a service these days. Now call me a cynical old git if you want (hey, less of the 'old') but I can't help thinking that this was based more on something on their checklist than any assessment of my vehicle and I suspect they trot this out to most if not all customers as a money making scheme. They are obviously not going to catch me out with this as I'm quite savvy with automotive related issues but I do wonder how many poor customers do get caught out who are not mechanically oriented and of course being brakes they panic and immediately sign the work off. Why should owning a car be such a minefield? Has anyone else had similar experience? I'm also struggling to come to terms with a price of thick end of £450 for a couple of disks and a set of pads even top quality items would come it way below that and even if I did it myself taking way more care than they would I'd struggle to take more than an hour, I wouldn't even bother putting the car on the lift for that, easy enough to do on a jack and axle stand. I must also add that it is mainly the behaviour of Simpson's Skoda Preston which is responsible for me selling this car now after only 18months of ownership, they have made owning this an absolute nightmare, obviously I'll not deal with them again but it also means I'm done with Skoda now, at least from the point of view of owning a car where I have to deal with a dealer. My previous, much older, car was a much better ownership experience (and what lead me to look at Skoda when wanting a newer car) as I only ever had to deal with a specialist not main dealer.

Hi Toot, thanks for the feedback. Not checkted that yet, don't think I have cover but even if I did I may prefer to use a different supplier than they want to use if they don't have a decent reputation. I'll keep you posted when I've looked into the details

Hi all. Just noticed today that I have a crack in my windscreen although there does not appear to be any damage such as a chip which this could have propagated from, almost as though could be caused by deflection of the glass or similar and just wondering how typical this is. Crack is on passenger side about 4" from the centre of the screen and seems to extend from the outer edge downwards though the black area around the mirror then turns left for about 4" (for now). Anybody seen anything simlar. I'm assuming that as this is a crack there is no possibility of a repair? Does anyone have any recommendations of who to use to repair it (or recommendation on who not to use probably more important)? Thanks in advance for all help.

Just thought I'd close the loop on this. I have eventually found a solution. As I was only supposed to have this car for a week I didn't bother too much at first but when it became evident I'd have it for at least 3 I started thinking about it again. Thinking about it on the way home from work a few nights ago I was thinking that I know the phone is OK with inductive charging becase it works with a little charging pad I have at home. Unfortunately I can't test it on this as it broke down a month or two back. Then I started thinking straight! Did the charging pad break down or is the problem with the phone? Re-booted the phone and dropped it onto the pad and as if by magic it now charges. OK, I know you are supposed to re-boot your phone every so often and obviously I haven't for many weeks/months but time sometimes gets the better of you. As does straight thinking apparently.

Thanks, that makes sense, very similar to the Golf I originally had this camera in.

I have a dash cam from my previous car and would like to get it fitted, I know I should look this up but can someone tell me where that fuse panel is located, in my MKII it was on the drivers side on the end of the dash, not sure about MKIII Also I should probably look at upgraging my dashcam, it's about 5 years old now (ancient) and would also like the possibilty of integrating a rear with it, any recommendations?

Cheers Simon I did try moving the phone around yesterday and also took the case off but nothing seemed to work. I had an Enyaq a couple of weeks ago and that didn't work either, it's strange as my phone does work on an inductive charger I have at home. I don't think it's a major problem, I can work around it for a week but I agree that I should get hold of some of the USB A-> C converters.

It's a new car so I'm assuming the latest version. I only have it for a week so I'm sure I'll get by, unfortuantely I only have the regular USB cable and this car only has the new standard (USB 3?) so I can't power it from that either. Would have been a good idea to have had one of each standard rather than 2 of the new but I guess it's my fault for being lost in the past with all my old fashioned kit.

Thanks for the information, possibly my older phone doesn’t support the type of charger in the car, don’t know much about this capability but seems odd not to have only one standard but that doesn’t mean it’s not the case.

Thanks Yogi I just don't seem to be getting any "hit" at the moment. From your description though it seems there is nothing to "turn on" it's a case of it either works or it doesn't. Based on all the gripes have with my own car I shouldn't be too surprised that Skoda haven't done a good job with this 'feature'!