Tony_Stachnicki

My car is an Octavia Hatch vRS 2.0 TSI 230PS. The DSG transmission service cost £215 and took place at 39,449 miles. Now at 47,658 miles.

The tyres were not replaced by the dealer garage. The service plus the replacement of brake discs, pads and a calliper came to almost £800. The individual items don't look that expensive, but when you add them up and add VAT the cost is a bit of a shock. If it had just been a service plus brake discs and pads, the cost would have been about £585. Having to add do all those extra jobs at the same time is a bit unlucky. Thank heaven for a credit card with a long interest-free period to spread the cost.

The mechanic said that they had tried to free the brake calliper, but couldn't. I accepted this, but couldn't verify it myself. What worried me though was that the brake calliper was OK at the beginning of November, but since seized up. I had travelled almost 4,000 miles in that time without be aware of when the brake calliper had failed. If I needed to brake hard, I could have been in trouble. The basic oil change service would have been about £240. I also needed to replace the front tyres! This bill was always going to be high because several things needed attention at the same time. I owned my previous car, an Octavia 2, for almost twelve years. You lose a lot of money due to depreciation over the first years, but that slows down. You have to accept the regular replacement of tyres, brake pads, and brake discs. The old car was so reliable there was no real reason to change it. In the end a careless parker damaged the front wing. It wasn't seriously damaged, but it needed an expert repair, which was beyond me. The cost of getting a body shop to repair the wing would have been more than the residual value of the car. I ended up selling it to a mechanic at the garage that I used for MOT tests. I received more money than I could otherwise have expected, he got a car that he could repair himself. Every few months I see the old car, it must be sixteen years old now! Maybe I should have had repaired! But I am glad that I replaced it with an Octavia 3 with DSG transmission and a few electronic assists.

I should have added some background to the question. I took the car in for a scheduled service at the beginning of February 2022. They recommended changing the brake fluid and refilling the air conditioning. I agreed to this work being carried out. As soon as I ended the call I had doubts. I had the car's service documents with me, and saw that both these tasks had been performed at the end of June 2021, when the DSG transmission fluid was changed. I rang them back and asked for the work not to be done. They said that they had recommended this work because they did not a service history for the car. Strange, because they had performed the work last year. The rear disks and pads needed to be replaced, I was expecting this from the remarks on an MOT at the beginning of November 2021. They also found that a rear brake calliper had seized up, and needed to be replaced. I believe they had to order the part from Czechoslovakia, so it was 8 days before the car was ready to collect. I expected a large bill (£1000.24), so I just paid it, and went home. That evening I decided to read through the invoice to understand why the bill was so large. They had charged me for changing the brake fluid and refilling the air conditioning. They agreed to refund the cost of refilling the air conditioning, but two weeks later, I am still waiting. They claimed that the brake fluid had to be changed, as a consequence of the rear brake calliper being replaced. It may have been my "fault" for agreeing to the work being done and then (within ten minutes) asking them not to do it.

Should the brake fluid be replaced when a rear brake calliper is replaced by a Skoda dealer?