I'll try and keep this brief, although to say I'm a little frustrated is an under statement.

I picked up my Fabia RS on 10th October 2003. It was all lovely and new, no marks anywhere and had ZERO miles on the clock.

Drove home, problem free and was very impressed with my new car, 1000 times better to the tacky Ford Fiesta that I had part exchanged.

My car has now done 23k miles and both services, nothing was said to indicate a problem etc.

My OSR speaker was distorting, so I booked it in to my local garage (Sidcup Auto centre), I had also noticed that the paint on the "off side" part of the front bumper was starting to bubble and peel off. So I asked them to look at the for me.

Took the car in this morning, had to kill three hours wondering around Sidcup, but received a call to say "all done" and back I went.

The service administrator was all very nice and friendly as she asked me to sign for the speaker that had been covered under the warranty. She then said......"Right, the bumper......well you've obviously had an accident in the car!!"

Well, I wasn't expecting that, I mean I know with Ford I always had to fight to get anything covered under the warranty even when the airbag deployed for no reason (no feeling quite like it at 70mph!!!) or when the head gasket blew, but to be told that I'd obviously crashed the car!!??

Well, I assured her that I had never (touch wood) had a crash in the car, so she then blamed the previous owner!! I said that I bought the car brand new! The car incidently was bought from Brooklyn Skoda in Alcester, so no, not local to me, but they offered me the best part ex and finance deal at the time. She then went on to blame the supplying garage and said that the car must have been damaged on it's way to the garage or whilst it was with them.

She said that a compound had been used to fill the bumper and not the correct plastic primer. I was also advisedthat the NSR door had also benefited from an additional coat of paint!!! With that she left it to me to contact the supplying dealer and take it up with them.

Sure eneough I called Brooklyn at Alcester and spoke to Jim. Jim assured me that the car sailed through it's PDI and that there was NO record of any damage to the car. I mentioned the PDI as I wondered just how accurate the form was and if everything had been inspected properly, only my heated rear window didn't work and I took it to "Sherlodge Garage" in Gillingham and they said that the heated rear window wasn't connected up and that is one of the checked for the pre delivery inspection. A little puzzled by that, I was assured that no damager had happened to the car whilst with them. jim directed me back to Sidcup Auto Centre.

I called them back, explained the above. I was questionned again about crashing the car, I then said "I'm not stupid....if the car had been damaged I would have had the work done via the Insurance Company and an approved repairer, so any work that would have been carried out would be under gaurantee, so I wouldn't be wasting their time or mine.

I left it with Sidcup Auto Centre to contact Skoda Head Office and they will contact me on Minday. I also contacted Skoda Customer Services and spoke to Dan and advised the above. He didn't seem bothered about the complaint, but he too will get back in touch on Monday so we'll see if he does.

As for the car, well yes it has done a few thousand miles, but when I bougt the car new, I thought I was buying brand new, not just new to me. When you buy new, you would like to hope that it hasn't got a hidden history, thats the whole idea of new, otherwise you might as well just buy a used car.

Anyway, I'll try and take some pictures tomorrow.

The paint doesn't look too bad, but it hasn't started to flake off yet.

Has anyone else had a similar problem? I mean the car appeared to be perfect when I picked it up, not that I would have been going round in search of filler!!!

Anyway, thats eneough of my moan for tonight.

That's terrible :(

Actually now that you mention it I remember being told by someone (or was it in a car mag, can't remember) that these things happen a lot - brand new cars getting dinged in the dealer car park.

It's really not on, though. The least they could do is a proper repair, but if they were honestwith you, you should have been given the opportunity to reject the car.

Sad to say Matt, that this is not an unusual story. Working within the trade I regulary see new cars damaged.

Local Ford garage had 15 new cars and vans damaged recently by vandals throwing bricks over the compound fence. Some had new panels (including roofs) and glass fitted, others had liberal doses of filler and paint Was a truly dreadful sight. All caught on cctv..but the scrotes were all wearing hoods, and to make it worse were giving it fingers to the cameras!

Transporter damage is commonplace.Delvery drivers unloading cars off the transporters too quick and grounding the bumpers..suspect that's what may have happened to yours.

Cars broken into on transporters and compounds to have the radios pinched and consequent dash' damage.

Even had to repair a cig. burn in a new Fiesta once.Valeter dropped his fag whilst cleaning it prior to delivery.

Roof damage to cars on the top deck of transporters is another common one..low branches swiping them as they travel along. Saw 4 micras that needed new roofs and windows due to this. They were apparently returned to the factory for this work to be done.

Yep it's dreadful but true.A new car sometimes does have a bit of history before you collect it. Driven by approx 10 different people before you get behind the wheel..and some of them drive them like they are on a death wish..take it as true..I watch them in horror sometimes.

Sidcup auto centre is part of the group that I use (Saunders abbott being mine), keep plugging they dont unhappy customers, but you can see their point because someone here must admit how it was them to pick up the bill! My money goes on the supplying dealer who did a rush job and hence a poor quailty repair........

One well publisised way of lowering the risk of damage and having a proper pdi done is NOT to buy a car at our stupid reg plate change time of year..march/sept. What is that all about?? The compounds were all bursting to capacity 2 weeks ago,all jammed together like sardines.No wonder they get damaged!

Had to repair the dash on a '54 Meriva because the techies screwdriver slipped whilst prising out the light switch to do some extra wiring for something or other..rushing the job due to overload of work.

It always pays to have a good look round when you collect the car. A few years ago I was picking up a new car and just before I left the garage I noticed one of the alloys had a mark on it. On closer inspection the alloy had been damaged and aluminium paint had been used to cover it :( . I wonder if they would have replaced it had I left and returned a few days /weeks later complaining about a damaged wheel ?

PS - While working at a garage as a holiday job when I was at university a wall fell down in a gale. The wall was brick and it damaged ( I think ) about 8 cars. I was told by the manager not to mention this to anyone !!!!!

Just remmeber how far these cars have travelled before they reach these shores. Quite a few do pick up damage and get repaired even before they reach the dealer, so they might not know about it. But the fact that it has been repaired to a sub standard spec is wholey unacceptable. I sugest a call to Skoda customer care may be in order, if nothing else just to log a complaint and get a reference number if you need it in the future.

Having seen the car compounds, and the adjacent repair facility complete with half repaired new off the ferry cars (and vans) at Sheerness, this doesnt surprise me. Problem is, that however much you know youre telling the truth, to one side the cars done 20k, and to the original party whos guilty they got away with it.

Only sure fire way to not be stung is to go over a new car with a fine tooth comb and magnifying glass..and still hope all is well.

my brother works at a place in corby, and they often rag the cars there!

Matt, there must be some formal arrangements in place for new cars to be repaired if they have been damaged after leaving the factory but before being delivered to the customer - and someone must be paying for the repairs. Ask Skoda UK what those arrangements are and for an investigation into whether or not your car was damaged and then repaired prior to delivery.

i had this problem with my brand new Octy vRS,had it for 3 months then when waxing it i noticed a paint line on the drivers door.

at first i tried to blame my brother as i had been away working in the USA and he had been using it,i drove it for 12 days(750 miles)then went away for 11 weeks,came back and it had over 6K miles on it!!!

i will add my brother likes the car!!!!

well i complained to Customer services took it to my dealer T.A.Porter&Son,who were very good,tried to compound the line out but it was still slightly visable.

i said i wasn't happy so they put a new door on for me.

very pleased with the customer service.

my car didn't have any record of damage in transit etc either.

i hope your supplying dealer is as customer service orientated as mine.

I have a mate who used to drive a transporter for one of the larger companies who have an HQ up in this part of the world and he says its an absolute nightmare picking your way through towns etc. delivering cars especially when driving transporters with the car hanging over the top of an articulated unit. He told me that they were forever taking out road signs, traffic lights etc. but thankfully there fleet are now nearly all wagon and drags.

There yard has its own refurbishing shop and I've seen written off vehicles that they have lying about for "spares" I suppose cos it doesn't pay them to have a claim so they just buy the car at cost from the manufacturers.

I'm not talking about cowboys either this firm have guys employed full time with the F1 (McLaren and Jordan), Ralliart etc.

18 months ago i bought a pre-registered octavia 2.0 elegance from skoda in luton. When i test drove it i noticed that the front passenger seat belt was inoperable. i liked the car and skoda agreed to fix the belt ready for when i collected it. It was a frosty morning when i collected it and my wife noticed that although the salesman had run the engine to defrost all the windows/mirrors etc, the passenger mirror was still iced up. Later, when she picked up our son and his mates from school, one of them asked why the two wing mirrors were different colour glass. Then we noticed that the rear passenger door didn't lock with the rest of the doors and all this was on the same side of the car. Alarm bells began to ring and i contacted the garage who agreed to check over the car. They assured me it hadn't had an accident but that someone had probably bumped the mirror -as it was pre-registered to skoda someone may have taken it home - and forgotten to re-connect the electrics down that side. It was all fixed and i forgot about it for a while. Then after washing the car one day i noticed that the paint on the bumper was blistering. i phoned Luton again and he said to take it to any local skoda dealer to save taking it over to luton. I took it to northampton who pointed out more faults -blistering paint on the door sill and mis-aligned bonnet catch and inside the bonnet a badly fitted light. He told me he thought the car had been involved in an accident. I loaded all my guns and prepared to have a fight with the man from luton. He immediately suggested i took it to an independent coachworks local to me and his main concern was for our safety. I put the guns away and went off to Abbey Coachworks where the chap said it had been in a small accident and no worse. Luton paid for all the work to be done and Abbey made a very good repair job. However we never felt the same about the car after that and a couple of months later we went back to luton and they agreed to take back the car for the money we paid for it. Thats when I got the vRS bug and things have never been the same since then! i think the elegance had been a press car tested for a magazine or something similar.

Thanks for all the replies. I've just read through them (been a very busy day) and I am shocked (maybe I'm just naive!!??) at some of the replies. When you buy a washing machine you expect perfection, hence if they do have damaged stock they normally sell it off cheaper, so why can't it be the same with a car?

The paint on the front bumper (skirt bit) never looked the best of finishes, but (perhaps wrongly) never really thought much about it, thought well, for the money I'm happy. How foolish was I!!!???

I was very happy and even if the peeling paint (it's not huge, but I know it's there and a dealer will see it straight away when I come to part ex) hadn't been corrected wouldn't have caused a fuss. It was the initial attitude that got my back up, instantly assuming that I'd crashed the car!! Then saying that it has been accident damaged and that they couldn't carry out the work.

Well I will just have to wait and see what joy's Monday brings for me. To be honest I can well do without a fight, I mean when I had my Fiesta, I was asked by two different garages never to darken their doors again!!! I am all very nice until they say "NO" or blame something on me etc.

If they won't correct the bumper and NSR door (for which I can now see where it's been sprayed) I wonder how I'll stand if I write a letter to Skoda Finance and say that I won't pay anymore until the work is carried out? I've got about

I wonder how I'll stand if I write a letter to Skoda Finance and say that I won't pay anymore until the work is carried out?

Ah ha - you may well have an ally here. You see *you* don't actually own the car, *they* do, and they won't be too happy with the damage either, so definitely speak to them!

Ah ha - you may well have an ally here. You see *you* don't actually own the car, *they* do, and they won't be too happy with the damage either, so definitely speak to them!

But SkodaAuto Finance is a trading style of Volkswagen Financial Services (UK) Limited - whatever that means....

I'll wait for Sidcup Autocentre and Skoda Customer Services to come back to me tomorrow and depending on what they say, I will contact SkodaAuto Finance.

I am dissapointed with the initial response that I've received from Skoda (dealer's and customer services) after being told that I had crashed the car!!! or if not me then the previous owner! and then being told (on Friday) at 15:30 that Skoda head office had finished for the day!!?? (I find that hard to believe, surely that would be there till 17:00?).

I'll leave it till 12:00 and if I haven't heard anything then I will call them.

I wonder how I'll stand if I write a letter to Skoda Finance and say that I won't pay anymore until the work is carried out? I've got about

Well all good fun. As I thought, didn't hear anything so at 12:00 I called Sidcup Auto Centre. The Service line was engaged but they would call me back!! Well I did get a call back to be advised that Head Office were looking into it and that I shouldn't expect to hear back today, but within a few days, and they would call me when they heard back fro Head Office.

Well, I'm not a person who likes waiting around, I want things done straight away. I wouldn't say that I was demanding, but I like things to be in order.

So with that, I called Skoda Customer Services. The representative that I spoke to on Friday was in a meeting, but he would call me back. Which he did, just after 16:00. He left a message to advise me that he had been in contact with Head Office and that they had agreed to submit an "ECA" to warranty, if they had any problems in paying for it, then they would arrange for a paint expert to look at my car.

I also had a message then a minute later by Sidcup Auto Centre to call them back, which I haven't yet done as haven't stopped all day.

So I'll have to wait and see what comes from the "ECA"??

With my previous car, the dreaded Fiesta!!! That car must have been re-built with the amount of things that needed to be replaced, from the front suspension to the back seat, horrible car and it was only because it was nearing 3 years old and going to run out of warranty that tempted me into buying a new car. I am very pleased with my car, just a shame about this business as it has put a bit of a cloud over the car.

My vRS was delivered to the dealer yesterday, but won't be ready until Friday. Reading all this has got me worried - I think I'll have a VERY good look all over before I sign on the dotted line...

Dont think that this saga only applies to Skoda.

I have since noticed a taped paint line on my VW Transporter, suggesting the rear door may have had remedial work before we took delivery. Its too old now to do anything about it, but I know it has had no accidents or bodywork stuff done whilst we have had it..from new.

I think the lesson for the rest of us is to inspect your new car very carefully before you accept it. New cars do get damaged in transit and is it really a problem if a scratched door is repainted or damaged bumper replaced? No, as long as it's repaired to as newstandards.

In short if you can spot the repair, it's not been done properly.

I had a call from Skoda Customer Services earlier today. They have advised that Skoda will cover the cost of a new bumper and the paint. So that was god news. the bumper will be sent back to Skoda to see if they can investigate what happened, although at present no one is admitting anything. I then had a call from Sidcup Auto Centre to arrange the car to go in. The car will be taken to the bodyshop in Bexhill where the bumper will be sprayed and the paint blended into the front panels, so I hope they do a good job, as I didn't really want the car resprayed, but if it means it looks good, I'll just go with it.

One thing to watch out for is the "zero miles" which indicates that the odometer has been dealer reset. A delivery mileage car should have a few miles on it - mine had 7 miles which is about right for the loading/unloading/parking and transport to first dealer.

(Although funnily enough I recall the dealer hastily reset the tripmeter :confused: when handing over the car to my daughter)

Up to 30 miles may be normal if its shuffled around dealers for a while.

I believe the odometer can be reset twice only and only if under 1000km. So if it shows "zero" (and I seen a couple of pre-registered Fabia with all zeros) you can bet your bottom dollar that the car had an embarrasing amount of mileage - maybe someone's been using them as demonstrators...I believe it may be possible through diagnostics to read the true mileage...

I believe the odometer can be reset twice only and only if under 1000km. So if it shows "zero" (and I seen a couple of pre-registered Fabia with all zeros) you can bet your bottom dollar that the car had an embarrasing amount of mileage - maybe someone's been using them as demonstrators...I believe it may be possible through diagnostics to read the true mileage...

Once, and only up to 100 miles.