What price customer service and goodwill?

In February 2012 we purchased our third Skoda car - the first time we have purchased a used vehicle. We loved getting used to the Skoda Superb, however when we had very cold winter weather we found the car wouldn't start due to a drained battery, on numerous occasions we had to call out Skoda Assist to get the car started but after around 48 hours the battery was once again flat.

We took the vehicle to our local Skoda approved service agent MON Motors in Chippenham, who did a diagnostic and found nothing wrong with the car, but said they would replace the battery, under the warranty (the car had 4 months left of it's 3 year term). This was great and Spring progressed, the weather warmed up and we had no further trouble ...... until the cold winter weather in 2013 when the same problem occurred.

On looking at the battery, we found a paper label on the top with JA/09 - now we got suspicious that for this same thing to happen, perhaps MON Motors hadn't in fact replaced the battery (or at least not with a new one) - we contacted them and they said the battery warranty only ran until the end of the vehicle warranty. Skoda was contacted and they suggested we had a diagnostic check done on the car and buy a new battery ... at our expense of course!

We skipped the diagnostic and instead bought a battery from ATS with a four year warranty - then we had no further problems starting the car despite the last cold snap of winter which put night temperatures down to around minus 7C.

Skoda - who in the past have always shown exemplary customer service - said they wouldn't consider a customer goodwill payment for the battery and inconvenience because we went outside the Skoda network to buy our battery - indeed they questioned our "customer loyalty" and we had to give them details of the three vehicle purchases over the past 11 years. BUT tell me this - why should we trust the service agent appointed by Skoda in our town when we believe they have cheated both us and Skoda themselves - now obviously we can't prove that - but the evidence as far as we see points to this.

Without hesitation in the past we have gone back to Skoda - because of quality of service and the cars themselves - however when it comes time to change the vehicle we won't automatically look at something from the Skoda range and will also now look at the likes of Kia and Hyundai. It appears that now Skoda are selling more cars than ever before they can afford to forget about those who have stuck by the brand.