Recently washing bugs off my left hand headlight when I noticed slight movement in the headlight glass. My Skoda dealer discovered that one fastening bracket (plastic of course & there are only two) was broken. The dealer immediately suggested my car had been in an accident which was not the case and eventually agreed to replace under warranty (which runs out next Monday). Fitted today. If you have to pay, the unit is $1600 plus labour!! The headlight unit contains heaps of gear including the headlight washer. NO conclusion reached as to how the fastening bracket failed. Could be combination of quality of bracket and quality of our roads!!

Exactly the same happened to me. Went to clean the headlamp unit only to find the bracket had snapped. Taken to dealer who immediatly stated that I had been in an accident or someone else had bumped into me. Despite strong arguments against this and contact with Skoda UK I had to pay £650 for a new unit. NOT IMPRESSED.

Bird strike at 50mph. Found N/S front headlamp unit moving. Dealer thought it would need new unit and suggested claiming on insurance. Insurance were happy for dealer to do the job but preffered their own repairers to do the job. Good job I went with the Insurers prefered repairer. The plastic brackets were found to be broken as above vdehicles, only difference was that one was going to fit a new headlamp at over £500, the other fitted the repair kit for £84. Needless to say cancelled claim with insurers, which would have cost me my £50 excess and a claim registered.

Any member who has a loose headlamp with possible broken brackets ask for the repair kit, if it is just the brackets it will save you a lot of money.

Needless to say cancelled claim with insurers, which would have cost me my £50 excess and a claim registered.

You'll have to watch out at renewal. Most insurers now ask about "accidents or claims in the last X years". Many people complain they were penalised for simply phoning their insurer to ask about the impact on their NCB, having not decided whether they wanted to put in a claim. It all goes into their risk modelling system and adjusts the factoring.

I have heard such stories, I had a builder back their lorry into my first MkII, my insurance company had to be informed of course, it made no difference to my next renewal, in the latest headlamp incident the insurers have confirmed that as no claim has been made it will make no difference at the next renewal. You are only asked about accidents or claims in the last X years if you are changing to another insurer, if renewing with your present insurer they have all such details on file.

The accident with the lorry is noted on the policy renewals as a non claim incident.

Anyone who is penalised for contacting their insurer and not making a claim should change to another company.

Anyone who is penalised for contacting their insurer and not making a claim should change to another company.

By which point it will be logged in the Motors Insurers' Bureau database and the other company would have visibility of it. But yes there will be some out there that don't factor it in or the "new customer" discount outweighs the increase they apply.

Edited 15 November, 201213 yr by artichoke273

Interesting subject... what if you had two cars with two separate insurance policies and you had an accident in one car and claimed on the damage whether your fault or not, do you when renewing the insurance on your other car inform that cars insurance company about the claim on the other car?

Steve

I guess it could be argued that by introducing a 'fix kit' Skoda are admitting that the design of the headlight is an issue and a potential weak point.

It should make any warranty claims easier for those preparred to stand their ground!

Bird strike at 50mph. Found N/S front headlamp unit moving. Dealer thought it would need new unit and suggested claiming on insurance. Insurance were happy for dealer to do the job but preffered their own repairers to do the job. Good job I went with the Insurers prefered repairer. The plastic brackets were found to be broken as above vdehicles, only difference was that one was going to fit a new headlamp at over £500, the other fitted the repair kit for £84. Needless to say cancelled claim with insurers, which would have cost me my £50 excess and a claim registered.

Any member who has a loose headlamp with possible broken brackets ask for the repair kit, if it is just the brackets it will save you a lot of money.

Just found this thread.

I found out my brackets had snapped last week although it was my fault. I was given a link to get the repair brackets on a Ukrainian website but they are not responding to my emails and i can't read/write ukrainian! Can find nothing in the UK. Where did you get the repair kit brackets for your car? 

 

someone has suggested a couple of L Brackets from B&Q and some self tapping screws (will never snap again!)

Skoda do a repair kit for the headlight see Superb Headlight Unit thread on page 2 as I have posted the part numbers, sorry I have just seen that you are the same person, don't the part number mean anything to Skoda UK

Edited 4 July, 201312 yr by rabmurray121

Ha ha we keep meeting. Your help is much appreciated though.

To be honest I didn't try with skoda uk as they didn't suggest it when I explained the problem. Will try those numbers on the German link you gave me.

Hi Folks

 

I just bought a second hand Skoda Superb. When i bought it, the AFS error indicator was on. Assumed it was a faulty bulb. When i took it to the service centre, I was told that the front right headlight bracket was broken. But this is not of concern because the headlight washers were intact and there was no damage to the headlight itself. So i could continue to use it as it is. When i asked for a warranty replacement, they said it was a damage and not covered under extended warranty.

 

For the AFS error they were still investigating. Finally after 2 days of investigating they concluded that the Headlight Control Unit was not working and needed to be replaced. Again i asked them to do it as part of the extended warranty. They said they cannot as the Control Unit was damaged because the Headlight bracket was broken which in turn caused rain water to leak in and short/damage the control unit, further he said that replacing the control unit will not help as water will continue to come in because of the damaged bracket and again cause the control unit to fail. So the entire headlight will have to be replaced.

 

Total cost of replacement is about GBP 600 Unfortuantely here in India,

 

Skoda has a horrible reputation with respect to their service centres and will never offer an option of repair. Its always a replace and they will do their best to deny any claims on warranty.

 

Does what the service centre say about the bracket damage leading to control unit failure sound logical/feasible? Thanks

Edited 7 July, 201312 yr by [email protected]