maybe next time you will buy from a UK dealer rather than a backdoor EU import.

why should your local dealer give a toss if your car is not right you didnt buy it from them?

try buying a TV on ebay then take it to dixons for warranty work.........

I agree, I would never have a Renault again! I had a Mk 1 Phase 2 Laguna and my dad had a Mk2 Laguna, both were complete wastes of time (and money unfortunately). They seem to have well over the average of 'common' faults, dont take my word for it, check any online reviews for faults and you will find so many of them have 'oh yes its a common thing' on them, or even still check the parkers forum. The laguna, megane and clio all have their own sections and your not allowed to post anywhere else because the Renault posts would flood the board!

It was completely ridculous the amount of faults we both had (and the fact that after 6 months and over £3000 not even the main dealer could find out what was wrong with my dads) so he got rid part ex for a jag, thankfully he got a good price because it was behaving on the day.

The front wheel bearings (among other things) were in need of doing (again another common fault), but because Renault do a bearing that has a special magnetic strip in for the ABS, only a specialist or main dealer would touch it, and it wasnt a quick job, I was looking at 300+ not including parts, the car wasnt worth that much! So I got rid for £225 with 11 months MOT :S, that same day I drove out of the showroom with the Skoda

Im just hoping this one doesnt have any specialist only common problems.

So boo to Renault:thumbdwn:

maybe next time you will buy from a UK dealer rather than a backdoor EU import.

why should your local dealer give a toss if your car is not right you didnt buy it from them?

try buying a TV on ebay then take it to dixons for warranty work.........

huh? Why do you think he bought a grey import? Did I miss that somewhere in the thread?

I echo the trying other dealers - at least call he service dept and speak to them. It seems odd that they wouldn't jump at the chance of doing warranty work (unless it's really not covered).

BTW I bought 2 Subaru Imprezas from Belgium - (yes, "evil greys" redbaron ), and one needed an engine rebuild under warranty (actually it was a timing tensioner, but the service guy missed it. That's another story). They had no problem doing the warranty work and claimed it back from the Belgian dealer. Totally transparent to me. Cost them a fortune because they could only claim for a tensioner and belt - but he told me it was a lesson learned.

Oh, and of course they hated me paying for the servicing (on the car that I'd dared not buy from the dealer ). Do you not realise that franchised dealers are separate from each other. If I buy a car in Manchester (which I did) and get it serviced in Letchworth (which I do), it's the same logic as buying abroad and using in the UK (if it is built to UK spec obviously). "why should the dealer care, you didn't buy from him" makes no sense to me. The parent company make the cars and sell them to dealers. Unless it's Merc, where they are the dealers too.

-Have Dixons do warranty work? You have lost it there. The horror.:eek:

And all French cars are awful. We know that really.:P Actually I have a 307 "something" '08 hire car on my drive (still not been collected, thanks Avis.). It is one of the worst cars I have ever driven - no particular aspect, just the whole package of "awfulness".

Edited 22 November, 200817 yr by scoobynut

Having had many problems with my car, I honestly believe skoda dealers do there best to avoid warranty work, probably because skoda UK pay them a crap labour rate.

Skoda's dealers are pretty awful it seems.

One of the reasons I stuck with Vauxhall - the cars aren't nessecarily fault free, but the dealers fix them without fuss even towards the end of warranty. They put a new rear screen in my Astra 2 days before the warranty expired, just for 2 faulty heater strips, for example.

As for the brakes, crappy quality discs seem to be a common issue with the work Octavias. There's a good proportion of them (all below 1 yr old) are running new discs before they get new tyres.

Having bought from three different Skoda dealers in the past few years I have found they all had one thing in common: when I phoned them with a concern or problem with the car, they checked the car & fixed it without any fuss. I had a turbo fail when one car was out of warranty and because I had a full Skoda service history Skoda UK and the dealer went half price on the parts & labour.

huh? Why do you think he bought a grey import? Did I miss that somewhere in the thread?

no its in his other thread where his grey import is discussed

no its in his other thread where his grey import is discussed

OK; so Hauptman will not have a supplying dealer to go back to for 'best' service.

However, it doesn't alter the fact that he is being fobbed of when he should not be.

A few years ago I bought 6 Fabias from one of the car supermarkets that were imports from Eire. My local dealer looked after them admirably for as long I had them.

Lets face it - all cars are sh!te, there are good and bad with all of them.

The main point here is all manufacturers have good & bad dealers, along with good & bad cars.

I had 3 Skodas, & my local dealer was brilliant, all 3 cars were brilliant, however, I had a service done on 1 of my Octavias in the early days & the dealer was not good.

I currently own a FIAT and have just had to have an inside panel replaced due to a holding lug failing, got it sorted no problem. I have an irritating rattle in the drivers door, they will be fixing this on tuesday, again they will take this work on without argument.

This can happen to any car, and as long as the work is done without arguement, then I have no problems.

agreed.

I've had warranty work done at Progress in letchworth - no problem at all. And they gave me a nice courtesy car.

Ask my neighbour about Vauhall and he'll stab you in the eye. His 1.5 year old Vectra which he suffered from new, is clearly a dangerous lemon. The service department cannot fix it and it's been in probably 20 times in the last 10 months.....Vauxhall UK don't give a fig and the lease company seem unable to get shot of it...

Oh, I'd go with "girl bag".

Irrespective of where it was bought, Skoda somewhere have been paid for it - so they should take the issues on board and help sort it out.

My 07 vRS has 28k on it now and is so far good but not outstanding. There has been the odd known fault such as airbag light coming on because of a ****y plug under the seat, and now the suspension is creaking a bit.

The delear has been ok but not superb tbh, and they charged me £80 labour to regrease the suspension when it was knocking the first time after only 12k.

I'll be taking issue with this at next service time.

Being a company driver and having had a lot of different experiances with various main dealers, I'd say Skoda are around average in customer care.

VW were terrible and looked down on me at all occasions, despite having one of there most expensive cars at the time. BMW were very good, even with me having a 318 (728 as a curtousy car was nice)

The best by far though was Mazda. They went the extra mile and beyond to help sort any problems out that I had with a Mazda6. Not that there were many.

Other people in my company have Civics and Avensis'. They are both shocking in regards to warranty work. Toyotas in particular all failed around 80k in a expensive manner.

Not all makes are excellent, but I wouldn't say Skoda are the worst.

Also, as said before, on a forum like this you mostly hear the gripes. How many Skodas are out there on the roads? You don't get many owners bother to join up in order to say their car is great and hasn't given a minute's trouble. Same for the dealers.

You wanna try dealing with Audi, then you'll realise what poor customer service is like!!

i second that

The quality of local dealers is also one reason why I will never buy a Seat, unless of course the dealer changes and then I will give them another chance to impress me!

Off topic i know but FRF are losing the FIAT franchise

No thanks, I would never buy a Renault. As a general rule its wise to avoid French and Italian cars if you want hassle-free motoring.

Had a pug 206 for 4 years, did 92,000 "enthusiastically-driven" trouble-free miles. Not even a creaking dashboard.

I don't think it's fair to generalise like that; The whole national car-stereotype thing isn't true any more. Some dealers are good, some are bad. Some individual cars are good, some are bad.

My dad had a Primera with panel gaps literally big enough to post a letter through. The whole body was rhombus-shaped (in plan view) from the factory. Drove ok, it was a bit crab-like though...