I have mentioned in the past that my towbar with single electrics option was not fitted correctly by the dealer when I bought my new Superb last year - the rear parking sensors will not deactivate when a device is connected to the electrics socket. Both Skoda HQ and members of this forum confirm that the sensors should deactivate (and a picture of a fitted trailer appear in the console screen).

The dealer is unwilling to fix this issue, despite it being their mistake - and they simply state I should live with it and turn off the sensors manually. I realise that this is little effort. However, I use a bike rack every weekend, and this will annoy me (heck, it does currently) - especially as I know it should have been fitted correctly originally.

I am now wondering what my next course of action should be, to force the dealer to fix this (or to get them to pay for it to be fixed). I assume I can either approach Skoda and seek redress from them, or I can go down the small claims route. I am just wondering if anyone has any experience of this? For example, I assume I will need an independant report stating that the option is not working correctly - would I get this from another Skoda dealer?

I consider myself a very reasonable and passive person, and I realise that this is probably a small fix. However, after months of toing and froing, I am really hacked off and willing to go the distance with this one.

Thanks for your advice.

I would Contact Skoda UK first to see if they can put any pressure on (mostly furitless but worth a try and another paper trail of evidence in your pocket)

I would contact Trading Standards and log it with them and this will usually be enough to make them give in.

Did you pay for the towbar by credit card? If so contact the CC company and arrange for the money to be charged back and held until the fault is rectified. If the dealer fitted it they must get it working as per the spec of the system and you shouldn't 'just live with it'.

Failing that Trading Standards will advise you how to pursue small claims court which can be actioned for around £30. You will of course get this back plus all expenses (phone calls, letters, time off work etc) if you win, which i can't see why you wouldn't as they haven't supplied you with a fully working system.

I would be pushing for a partial refund as they have not coded the car (either correctly or at all) then get someone with VCDS to do the job correctly - it is not a hard job to do (I have done a couple)

As you have already tried reasoning with the dealer I would try Skoda UK Customer Services. It is in their interests to maintain Skoda's image and they should be able to apply pressure to dealers within their network. For what this will cost to put right I can't see why the dealer is being so difficult.

For what this will cost to put right I can't see why the dealer is being so difficult.

It seems that many dealers are unable to code the cars correctly, due to them not knowing how to.

if you asked the dealer to supply you with the towbar and single electrics then he has taken aboard a contract with you the customer. if you have issues with your order then he should rectify the problem to your satisfaction. Failure to rectify the problem will look favourably on you when you say that you are not satisfied with the part supplied. It could be faulty, but as you state the dealer is unwilling to do the fix then you have the law on your side. Dont let them fob you off with switching sensors off manually. If they are meant to do so automatically then it is down to the dealer to sort it out. A few strong words and a mention of trading standards might get them to sort it. All the best

Consumer direct are always a good place to start, you'll need to ring the office and they'll give good advice as to what and how you can progress this to make the dealer play fair.

Consumer direct contacts

Edited 2 August, 201114 yr by HarryP

From a thread in the Yeti section, it seems quite common for some dealers to be unable to code cars correctly for the full towing spec. Certainly some of our members have ended up having them done by someone with a VAGCOM system.

EDIT

See: http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/206384-towbar-coding-problem/

Get some money back off the crooks, then go buy your own VCDS cable and finish the job yourself

I took Ford Retail UK to court a few years ago and my case was settled in court without any help from trading standards or a solicitor.

The first advice I can give is avoid trading standards/consumer direct, they will not act on your behalf and will only offer advice.

The first thing to do is give them, in writing the opportunity to fix the electrics. Write them a letter giving them reasonable time ie 14 days to fix the fault, explain that you are not happy with the electrics and that you will take legal action if they have not fixed the problem within the 14 days.

Send it recorded delivery, date & time etc.

If you do go to a small claims court this letter will be your LBA 'letter before action'. All judges and courts will have expected you to take all steps possible to avoid going to court. Your copy of the LBA will be proof of this.

If, after the 14 days have passed and the have not fixed the fault then you can start proceedings using 'moneyclaimonline' (search google).

The money claim form is really easy and will, from memory cost £68 for claims of upto £500. You will just explain on the form that you are not happy with the fitting/product and you want a refund. The claim will also include the the cost of listing the case (£68).

The courts will issue the other party with papers. The will be given 3 options:

1) admit liabilty and pay you the full amount claimed for.

2) admit part liabilty and explain their liabilty

3) defend their side of the case

They will then have 28 or 30 ? days to file a response from the above. You will receive a copy of their response by post.

The court will then write to both parties with an 'allocation questionaire'. This is the courts way of assesing how serious the case is.

They will ask you if you would like to call and expert witness or use an experts report, also if you would be willing to mediate through the court system with the other party. Mediation has to be agreed by both parties for the court to use it. You will find that once the other side have reffered it to their solicitors then mediation will not happen.

Mediation in court has to take place between a none legal person from each side of the case. Their solicitors will not like the idea of mediation for this reason.

I have taken Ford Retail UK to the SCC and settled in court for only a few hundred quid less than my claim.

I took Elddis Caravan (Explorer Caravan Group) to court (not small claims) 2 years ago and they settled out of court for full cost of caravan £14,250.00 + they had to pay £3,000 in solicitors fees as I had used a solicitor in part. I was told by the owner of the caravan dealer that 'I would never get my money back' !! I sent him a thank you email once his cheque had cleared.

I'm just mid case with o2 Telefonica UK - more later !

I'm a taxi driver and after having my time wasted, blood pressure increased and patienced tested I took action.

Just a tip though if you pay for an experts report you can not claim this back. Mine cost £120 + vat for a report on my leaking caravan.

Also, if you loose a case in the small claims court the other party still have to pay their own costs, you will not be liable for them.

In reality - are the dealer really going to spend £1000-£1500 on solicitors before getting to court and then sit in front of a judge knowing they have done everything possible to avoid arriving in court.

The whole court process can be stressful and over welming for the first time. Please make sure you are prepared to wait months for things to be resolved. Don't have frustrating summer manually switching your sensors off just to make a point in court, for the sake of an hours labour.

I missed a great summer with my brand new caravan because I could not use it as it was eventually to be returned.

10 years ago I worked at a main dealer. An unhappy customer after being frustrated by after sales & service department parked his car outside the front door of the dealers on a saturday morning. He left a big sign in the window explaining his frustrations. It was there for maybe an hour before our after sales manager was called in on his day off to sort his problems.

My point is don't let frustration get in the way of controlled commomn sense.

Try the letter before action and see how you go. PM me if you need any more help.

Good Luck

cts1975 ... Interesting stuff!

You keep the courts busy 

The problem I can see is the issue you have does not stop you using the car or the towbar. Yes it is annoying but not to the extent you do not use it and this will probably be part of the defence the garage uses.

If this was/is such a major issue for you from day one then you should have notified the garage and left the car with them until they had fixed the issue. Then you could claim the car had spent more time being fixed than being used.

You will need to present evidence that shows the towbar has been fitted incorrectly (get a full spec from Skoda UK) and how many chances you have given the garage to rectify the fault. If you have a Skoda garage incorrectly fitting a Skoda part (or not fitting it to Skoda specs) then you probably have a stronger case. The garage may claim they have fitted it to Skoda specs and say that Skoda have given them incorrect fitting instructions but your contract is with the garage first and the garage should then fight this with Skoda.

Edited 3 August, 201114 yr by hertsnminds

I would not expect the use of the car to be an issue, assuming the use of the car is not making the problem worse.

A recorded delivery letter with a time frame will/should get a positive reaction from any retail dealer.

They have franchise obligatons with the manufacturer which they need to uphold.

I've also found using email and copying people in on the email gets good results.

Keep us all informed.

All this talk about small claims court etc is more trouble than it is worth - at the moment.

Get a quote for towbar coding (in writing) from another Skoda dealer local to you

Add the cost of return fuel to said dealer and give the original dealer an ultimatum ... do the FULL work you have paid them for or refund the cost that the next dealer is willing to do the job for (including fuel to and from them).

Then cut out ALL of the hassle and get someone on here with VCDS to code it correctly!

If they are unwilling to either do the work or to refund you the cost of the undone work THEN is the time to take legal action, but as has been pointed out it will be a long drawn out load of stress and hassle that you could ideally do without.

Yep I agree with Gizmo - court is a last resort. I complained & kept taking me caravan back for 18 months ( 6 times in total) before I went down the legal route. Bearing in mind I had to keep taking the caravan out of storage, then to the dealer then back to storage each time. I thought I was pretty patient!

Have you spoken to the sales manager?

Thanks everyone for your replies, very helpful and sensible.

I bought the car online (who then ordered through the Skoda dealer), so I am currently communicating through the middleman. Basically, they simply forward e-mails back and forth - and the last e-mail from the dealer had said I should just live with the problem. However, the dealer now eventually says that there could be an issue (i.e. what I am telling them may be correct), and they promise to get back to me within a week with a solution (they think getting a local dealer to do the fix and they will reimburse them) - as the dealer who supplied the car (and fitted the options) is quite some distance from me (I would happily drive there though if that was required). Anyway, good news. :yes: It looks like it should get resolved without going down the legal route.

I only purchased my new bike rack a few months ago, which is why I had never noticed the problem previously.

I shall post again once it's resolved!

An update on this:

The dealer who supplied the car (in Oxford) has still not admitted any mistake, and so I have decided to progress this this Skoda HQ. I have booked the car in for a diagnostic test with my local dealer next weekend, which will then be passed to Skoda. Skoda will then phone me to discuss the next steps.

The one issue is the length of time it has taken me to discover the problem (10 months after delivery). However, I am hoping that this will not influence their decision to do the right thing and offer to fix the problem free of charge (or at the original dealer's expense).

Just to give you a further update:

My Superb went into local Scottish dealer today (as arranged by Skoda) to have the towbar electrics problem looked at. Skoda called to say the towbar and electrics were not fitted correctly by the original dealer (in Oxford), the likelihood being that they outsourced the job to a 3rd party. The botch job had resulted in the electrics being cut in places, resulting in the RPS not deactivating. Anyway, Skoda said that new parts had been ordered, and they would foot the costly repair bill (I would hope getting the Oxford dealer to take some of the hit). I should be able to collect in a few days.

I have nothing but praise for the Skoda Customer Service team (John Good in particular) - regular updates, and very efficient. I have also found the local dealer (Henrys in Glasgow) to be excellent in the years I have been a customer (we bought my wife's Octavia from them last year - would have bought my Superb from them too, but the additional £2.5k online saving was too great to ignore, despite this hassle). Just a pity that there's one bad apple (i.e. the original dealer who simply refused to admit any problem).

Anyway, hopefully a happy result at the end of the day, and further ensures that I'll stay with Skoda for years to come.

Very nearly bought a VRS Fabia from that Oxford dealer , glad i didnt

Nice to hear its all sorted

Final update: picked up car during the week and took my bikes out on the trailer today. It all now works as it should - trailer showing in dash display and rear parking sensors not issuing a single beep when trailer electrics attached. Very pleased, and delighted with the service from Skoda Customer Services and Henrys Skoda in Glasgow (who did the repair). Skoda are picking up the tab (which is seemingly very costly).

The Oxford dealer has finally issued a response (after the repair work has been authorised by Skoda HQ and carried out by Henrys), giving their reasons for why unbranded (non-Skoda) wiring was used for the towbar electrics, including why it was fitted by a 3rd party offsite (who fitted it so poorly that Skoda have deemed it a fire hazard). Anyway, the response was: "this option was sold as an aftermarket towbar and not the manufacturer bar due to the cost. If the towbar prep and Skoda parts were asked for, the customer would have spent a further £1031 on the towbar and not £595." Looking at the brochure from the date I ordered the car, this inflated £1000+ price seems utter drivel, so I have no idea where the dealer gets this logic from. Needless to say, Skoda will be in touch with the Oxford dealer to discuss the poor work carried out, and they will be footing at least some of the bill.

So, I suppose the moral of the story is: be careful which Skoda dealer you use, as they do not all adhere to the same (normally high Skoda) standards.

Final update: picked up car during the week and took my bikes out on the trailer today. It all now works as it should - trailer showing in dash display and rear parking sensors not issuing a single beep when trailer electrics attached. Very pleased, and delighted with the service from Skoda Customer Services and Henrys Skoda in Glasgow (who did the repair). Skoda are picking up the tab (which is seemingly very costly).

The Oxford dealer has finally issued a response (after the repair work has been authorised by Skoda HQ and carried out by Henrys), giving their reasons for why unbranded (non-Skoda) wiring was used for the towbar electrics, including why it was fitted by a 3rd party offsite (who fitted it so poorly that Skoda have deemed it a fire hazard). Anyway, the response was: "this option was sold as an aftermarket towbar and not the manufacturer bar due to the cost. If the towbar prep and Skoda parts were asked for, the customer would have spent a further £1031 on the towbar and not £595." Looking at the brochure from the date I ordered the car, this inflated £1000+ price seems utter drivel, so I have no idea where the dealer gets this logic from. Needless to say, Skoda will be in touch with the Oxford dealer to discuss the poor work carried out, and they will be footing at least some of the bill.

So, I suppose the moral of the story is: be careful which Skoda dealer you use, as they do not all adhere to the same (normally high Skoda) standards.

Good result - proves that perseverance is the key with situations like this.