Once upon a time there was a proud owner of a Red Mk1 Skoda Octavia VRS. It had served him well with trouble free motoring for more than three years.

One day, along came a new Mk2 Octavia VRS. Next to his old Mk1 it looked a much better car. The owner thought it was time to upgrade so he popped along to his friendly Skoda dealer in Bradford. They offered him a good part exchange deal on the old one and a week later he drove away with a shiny new silver Mk2 VRS. The car was a big improvement on the previous model and the driver was very happy.

Time went by, the car was serviced regularly and nothing went wrong, until.

Well until the warranty ran out. Half way into its fourth year the Engine emissions and the EPC warning lights came. “OH NO”, thought the driver “that doesn't look good”.

He popped down to his friendly Skoda dealer for a spot of advice. For £66.95 they offered to put it on their nice shiny diagnostic unit and let the driver know what was wrong.

“Have yourself a coffee” said the nice lady on service desk. “We'll let you know when we have some news for you”.

After about half an hour the lady came back. “I think we have some bad news for you” she said. “It looks like you have a faulty ECU”. “How much will it cost to fix it” said the owner. “You can’t fix it” said the lady, “you'll need a new one”. “Ok, how much will it cost to replace it” said the owner. “Well, its not cheep” said the lady. “How much will it cost to replace it” said the owner again. “Well. It will cost you £1657.01p including fitting, but we will knock the cost of the diagnostic test off if you have it done with us”.

Not knowing much about the technical side of things, the owner wanted some more information on what they had found wrong. The lady brought out the service engineer and he explained what the ECU was and how it worked and that it had two processing units inside. If the main one failed it would automatically run from the second one. “That's what’s happened to yours and that’s why it’s still running”, he told the owner. He then went on to say that he had reset it and it looked to be ok, but it's possible the fault might come back again. “Even if the fault comes back you might still be able to run it, but if the back up fails it'll never move again until you get it sorted”.

“Pew”, thought the owner, “this sounds bad”. Well at least the service engineer has reset it, so it might be ok.

He never did get a proper answer as to what was wrong with it, but the printed report mentioned a P0601 fault code. The owner later found out it was something to do with a programming check sum error within the ECU.

He got back into his car and turned the ignition key. You guessed it. The warning lights came back on.

“OH NO”, he said again. Well, he couldn’t afford to get it fixed at the moment and the car had seemed to be running ok, so perhaps he could run it as it was for a while longer.

Time went by and the car ran mostly ok. The owner’s friends kept asking him "when are you going to get it fixed". The owner replied “that it was running ok, so there wasn't much point at the moment”.

More time went by and the owner thought it was time for a new car. If he was ever going to use his VRS for part exchange, he was going to have to sort out that ECU.

Instead of buying a new one, he thought there must be some second hand units around. Perhaps it would be as easy as exchanging it. No such luck. They are individually coded and need to be specially set up. A few companies did refurbished units but no one seemed to do one for the VRS.

Still saddened the owner turned to Briskoda for some advice.

He found a post that had said, early model Octavia VRS’s had been recalled for an upgrade to the ECU and another for potentially faulty ignition coils. The recall had been some time around Oct 2011. “That's odd” thought the owner, as he had never got any recall notice from his Skoda dealer.

Thinking that the recall notice might be the answer to his dreams he rang them up. “I'm enquiring about the recall notice for my Octavia VRS. Apparently there might be something wrong with the ECU that requires a re-flash and a problem with the ignition coils”. The owner went on to explain that the warning lights were on and talked about the history of the fault.

“Well” said the service engineer, “your coil pack was done last month during a service so that's sorted”. “What about the ECU fault” said the owner. “Well, there's nothing we can do about that, it will need replacing”. “Can't it be re-flashed, said the owner” referring to the recall notice. “That won't fix it” said the service engineer. “It has already been re-flashed in 2007 so doing it again won't fix it. It will need to be replaced”. Deflated, the owner said "OK, thanks anyway" and hung up the phone.

Still feeling despondent the owner returned to Briskoda for some more advice. He found it in a post from Ben at Shark Performance.

Following a phone conversation with Ben the owners mind was soon put to rest. Apparently this could be a case where the ECU was supposed to have been re-flashed but never got done. I'll leave you to figure out why that might happen, He advised the owner that he didn't need a new ECU. He would do a re-flash on it and it would be as good as new.

The following day the owner took his car to Shark Performance, just outside Mansfield. Half an hour later, some friendly conversation with Ben and £100 for the re-flash it was time to see if it had been money well spent. Ben had explained that the re-flash had never been done since the car was new but it should be ok now.

The owner put the key in the ignition unit and turned it. No warning lights came on. “Thank god” he said to himself as he dabbed the throttle. Vroom, Vroom went the engine. The owner thought to himself, “I haven't heard that noise for a while”. As he drove away, the car seemed to spring into life, something he hadn't experienced for a long time.

The car was now a pleasure to drive, but the owners mouth had been soured by the whole experience. It seemed to him that his dealer was all too ready to take his money, when perhaps they should have been helping him a bit more.

As for Ben at Shark Performance, this man is a life saver. The owner couldn't thank him enough. He had just saved him £1557.01p. If you are ever in doubt regarding any similar problems or need your car servicing, don’t hesitate in giving him a call. http://www.sharkperformance.co.uk/

Any way, the story doesn't end there. The owner decided to try and re-coupe some of his losses from his local Skoda dealer. Did he get any satisfaction? Well not really. The manager did investigate the issue and did offer to re-coupe the cost of the original diagnostic test as a good will gesture, but wouldn’t reimburse the cost of the re-flash.

Did the ECU actually get a re-flash in 2007 or did they just say they had done it. I'll leave you to decide.

Is there a moral to this story, well yes there is. Don’t believe everything your dealership tells you and don’t be too ready to hand over your well earned cash.

From my time on this website I can tell you there are far more helpful people here than can be found at your Skoda dealer. By the way. did I tell you the name of the owner’s friendly Skoda dealer? D.M. Keith in Bradford.

Personally I’d stay well clear of them.

Edited 30 May, 201214 yr by mitchec

Dam that has to be the longest post in history

Edited 30 May, 201214 yr by Davidsr20

Nice story/write up with a happy ending.

Hear so much about that D M Keith place on here.

My experience of mains dealers over the years is that they are simply not willing to stray outside the "protocol" and have too much faith in their diagnostic system (suits them of course). I remember I had my ABS light on my Merc ML and after several months of visiting the dealers and several expensive repairs, I finally sorted out the problem myself by buying a £10 relay and replacing the faulty one.

The second my Skoda warranty runs out I will find a good independent garage - the less I have to do with the main dealer the better as far as I am concerned.

Edited 30 May, 201214 yr by amii21

Me too...I know a local member with VCDS and a local independant garage who had diagnostic equipment too

I had a poor experience recently at servicing time, but the last time to replace my badges under warranty, was a good one

May i also suggest, if you have a bad experience, that you contact the Chairman, Angus Keith..Hes a top guy and will help you

If my car has run out of manufactures warranty, I stay as far away from the dealers as possible, always have and always will.

Although saying that skoda haven't been to bad with me once I put my point over to them in a gentle persuasive manner....( you know what I mean..) this has since got me a new turbo and a new stereo and not forgetting the injector recall, not bad as I didn't buy the car from skoda or had it serviced at skoda and it was also out of there mileage for there warranty as my car had done over 60k.

So yes I have used their ' goodwill gesture ' to maximum effect and its saved me about 3.5k in cash !

Everytime I walk into Farmers Skoda at Leicester, they must think, ' how much is this going to cost us ' !

So yes I love the dealers as long as I am not paying.....

Hate Skoda main dealers especially Newmarket Bannockburn and Chathams Sighthill absolute conmen!! so this story sounds about right for Skoda

As for Skoda UK, worst customer experience i have ever come accross, they top Samsung after a £1200 tv went on the blink 2 days after the warranty despite having a reciept.

Dam that has to be the longest post in history

Good technique there - turning a 4 letter word into 3.

A pleasure to read, and a good outcome. Shame there was no payback, but at least people know who the good gus and the villains are here.

Send Mr Keith an email, you may be surprised at the results. I had a problem with the parts guy refusing to give me a part number for a bit that I neeeded the next day and he didn't have in stock. I emailed Mr Keith who sent me an email back, he disciplined the parts guy (haven't seen him since) and offered me a full valet free. Seems Mr Keith expects proper customer service from his staff.

Sent from my GT-I9100. Not a Crapple!

Beat this one: I took my imported MkII Golf G60 into the VW dealership in Reading (just handy, cos I work there despite living 20 miles away) with the ABS light on. After having had it for a day, I collected it for them to tell me they couldn't find a diagnostic plug-in and in any case that my car didn't have ABS! I was a bit taken aback by this, and the guy was really insistant that no MkII had them apart from the Rallye, until I asked him if he noticed mine was an limited edition import of a model that was never officially actually sold in this country, and if it wasn't fitted, why was there a light on the dash? He kinda shut up after that point. I could have shown them the ECU brain strapped in the boot or the sensors, but having little faith that they were no more than a bunch of monkeys by then.

I took it to what was Barnett & Small (now Martin's) in Farnham, where I normally went but decided a diagnostic would be the same at any dealer (WRONG!). Anyway, after asking them if they had any advice I could try, one of the many old school mechanics who had worked there since the MkI asked if I had two minutes to whip it into the garage. Drove it in, where he promptly lifter the gaiter cover revealing a two pin plug. Stuck it in and away you go! Turned out it was just a fuse buried away somewhere.

That day, I discovered the problem with garages who have no experienced mechanics that day and only work from the manual with little real hands on knowledge of certain things!

Happy ending cos I got it fixed very cheaply when I was sh1tting myself it would be an expensive ECU replacement. On top of that, for wasting my day, I phoned the Reading dealership up and said that my nearside foglight wasn't working! They apologised and said they might have just done something while they were looking round the car so booked it in to be sorted, found a snapped connection, and that was that.

Hadn't worked for about a month, but they didn't know that.

I had the same on my MKII. Took it to JKM performance in Pompey and they did the reflash for £40. Problem sorted and sold the car.

Decent main dealers are few and far between that's for sure.

Glad both the above stories had a happy outcome

Good write up!

Remember most main dealers have lots of kit and shiny new tools, but the mechanic is the same as any mechanic, the more experience they have the better they will be. You will find most experienced mechanics don't like working for main dealers!

Remember most main dealers have lots of kit and shiny new tools, but the mechanic is the same as any mechanic, the more experience they have the better they will be. You will find most experienced mechanics don't like working for main dealers!

Think that's a fair comment.

Dealers are all nice and friendly until you part with your hard earned money and once you drive away... they could not give a flying one!

I personally I take my chances privately or independent, saving a few quid in the first place and if there is a problem then at least you have some spare cash to sort it.

Full Main dealer service history, what does that mean?....

It appears at best a quick oil change, a cursory glance underneath, filters blown out or even left in place and a barely legible scribble in your nice shiny service book....

`so sound like it was never reflashed , normally if it was flashed in 2007 it wont allow another reflash and will say it has the latest software so in your case it wasnt reflashed when they said it was.

Glad you got is sorted, however I would have contacted Skoda UK as soon as I left the dealership.

I can only echo a comment from earlier in this thread, I've had well over £3,000 of repairs on my vRS. I didn't buy it from Skoda and it was well out of warranty! Skoda UK even paid for my boot lid to be repaired and repainted in 2011 to repair some damage hidden by the number plate that was done in 2007!

I've found everyone I've spoken to at Skoda very helpful. As long as you don't go in 'all guns blazing' then they are willing to get things sorted at their expense. Loyalty goes a long way too. As you previously owned a Skoda and had your MkII fully serviced at a Skoda dealer I'm almost certain they'd have sorted this for you.

I've had my fair share of issues with DM Keith in York. When I said I'd had enough of them Skoda UK said don't worry, we'll pay for another dealer to take a look at it for you.

Either way at least the bad experience is down to one particular dealer and not the car!

Great story, but for an additional £300 you would have had something to really laugh about!

Great story...personally I would have liked to have seen more characterisation, perhaps along the lines of a folk tale, you know the dealer being the big bad wolf, the ECU being the poisoned apple etc etc. Spelling and grammar good, use of punctuation well placed. Not a bad effort A-.

Next week, visit to the dealer parts department (Robin Hood?)

And that's why I'll continue to take my car to my trusted independent!

Be thankful you are not in Barbados. Skoda vehicles don't suffer fools under the hood, but unfortunately, the only dealer (who by the way doesn't import them any more) has many fools working there. Thankfully there are a few competent independents that you can go to. There are a few persons in the know at the dealership, but its difficult to get them to look at it