My skoda octavia recently had the esp abs warning light come on and also the warning icon on the dash came on I took it to my local skoda garage where I bought the car from and was told that the ABS /ESP unit needed replacing, the car was 5 months out of warranity but my garage was hopefull of some help from Skoda towards the quoted repair cost of £1400 as yet skoda have said no but as I need the car I have told the garage to go ahead and do the repair and I will try to sort out some assistance from Skoda later I got a phone call yesterday from my garage saying that they cannot get hold of a replacement abs pump bit as there was none available in the UK and they did not know when they are getting some more units sent over to the UK this I feel means that this fault is more common than I first thought of and after looking on the net found that this was the case with a lot of irate skoda owners:so if your esp/abs warning light comes on be prepared for a long wait for areplacement and a large repair bill,my thoughts of another skoda to replace my wifes failing Ford now seem very doubtfull

Maybe you should get the job done and then put in a Small Claims Court summons for the full amount. Under Sale of Goods Act a product is supposed to be durable & last a 'reasonable time' - how long this is will be for the SCC to decide, but there is a track record of these failing after 2-4 years - so I would think you have a strong chance of success since this implies a design or manufacturing fault. Remember - your warranty is in ADDITION to your statutory rights. As long as people keep paying £1000+ for new units VAG (UK) are unlikely to instigate a recall.

I had a fridge-freezer that failed after 3 years and the supplier would not repair it (out of warranty). I took them to SCC and was offered a new replacement a week before the court date (which I accepted!).