DavidF1

Interesting but also depressing that they don't seem to have learned anything from the mistakes they made last July, in our case. Our Skoda continues very well - a great little vehicle but Vantage Skoda Morecambe are still best avoided in my opinion.

Well, eventually after a lot of letter writing (signed for delivery to high levels!) the garage settled our out of pocket expenses before having to go to court. So much fuss for a wrongly diagnosed fault (The anti-roll bars (£50 to replace) were the culprits NOT the steering rack (£1000 + to replace.)) The only thing to come out of this well is the Skoda Fabia itself. (Tough little vehicles) Thanks for the information and support from the members of this Forum.

A bit of an update on my experiences of claiming under warranty. Well, in the end, Skoda Head Office and their Roadside Assistance were very good in pointing out that the steering rack (£1000+ to fix) was not the problem but the anti roll bar links (£50 to fix) was. Skoda Fabias are turning out to be tougher than the garage suggested. (And thanks to the people on here for pointing this out too.) The problem rests squarely with Vantage Skoda Morecambe and their original wrong diagnosis. No apology from them, of course. (Arrogant bunch) and no response yet to my claim for expenses incurred. Small claims court is next.

Well, no reply from Skoda Head Office and it is well past the promised "middle of the week"! Now very annoyed with Skoda AND the original dealer. Is Skoda becoming a joke once again?

I have just had a helpful initial response from Skoda UK Head office so maybe we will see a resolution to this issue with the dealer. I will report back on what happens.

Thanks Carlston & Toot. Very helpful! I've just been told by an independent garage that broken steering racks are very rare, worn ones a bit less so. The Warranty is with Skoda - 3 year. The issue was a underfloor rattle. I took it in to have it looked at under warranty. Had a four hour wait to then be told that they had charged me £114 for a " Vehicle Health Check Report" (This included 50 checks on things , even though the car had been fully serviced in January. Oh and they even washed the car - presumably also at £95 per hour labour!) (Nice if I could get that job!) They also said that the steering rack would need to be replaced and this would cost ,yes, £1000. I never got to find out if that included labour. Our conversation had become rather limited by that stage!

My third Fabia bought from this location. Very unhappy with Vantage. (David Ian were much nicer to deal with.) Purchase of our third Fabia went very well. The problems came when we tried to claim on the warranty. Vantage charged us £114 for a "Vehicle Health Check" which then had a negative impact on our warranty claim. They say we need a new steering rack for £1000 and the repair will not be covered by the warranty because the car has been "kerbed" (Whatever that means. They took photos of a wheel rim scuffed by the kerb while parking.) Just whose side are Vantage on? Certainly not the customer. This attitude was exposed in an article in "The Guardian"(20 April 2022) 'Skoda’s refusal to honour warranty staggers legal experts.' A pity since we were very loyal Skoda customers.