Hi All,

 

Could someone just confirm or correct me on the following:

 

You can have your car serviced (including 1st service) at any garage (including non Skoda garage) as long as they use Skoda approved parts and follow the service plan and this will not affect your warranty rights.

 

Is this correct ??

I thought so but guess you've run into a problem following this regime?

They will honour the warranty but you would have to show that the VAT registered garage carried out the service to the letter. Also don't expect any help whatsoever outside the 3 years.

With the fixed price servicing, I think you are hard pressed to beat the dealerships. I take our 5 year old Seat back to the main dealers as the price is there or thereabouts but they give free breakdown cover with the service and are more than helpful with minor issues.

I found my local VAG Indy was more pricey than MD, so for me again its not worth it.

As above is there a reason given suks national pricing plan is competative that theres a need to go elsewhere. not worth the risk IMO especially given suk normally help with common issues outside of the warrenty period if the car has a full sukmdh

The issue is not cost but unfortunately the bad experience I have suffered from a main dealer. For the last couple of years I had been taking my Fab vRS to a VW specialist who initially had to rectify some poor work from a main dealer. My Fab was out of warranty but I do 100% trust this independent garage.

The issue is now I have an Octy and it is coming up for its 1st service and want to make sure I am not invalidating the Skoda warranty !!

A copy of the New Vehicle Warranty can be downloaded via the following link.

http://www.skoda.co.uk/SiteCollectionDocuments/Brochures/Warranty-Booklet-single.pdf

The relevant information about servicing in it is below.

The warranty commences on the date of delivery to the first owner and is transferable to the second and subsequent owners. To obtain the full benefit of this warranty it is essential that the vehicle is properly serviced in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions.

Servicing.

Your vehicle should be serviced in accordance with the manufacturer’s technical guidelines. Any damage to, or defect in, the vehicle caused by poor or insufficient servicing will not be remedied under the vehicle’s warranty. Please ensure that you maintain sufficient records to enable the SKODA authorised network to confirm that the vehicle has been appropriately serviced. In any event, please ensure that the Service schedule book in your vehicle is stamped by the retailer/authorised repairer carrying out the service work.

Try a different dealer.

As above after your warranty expires skoda will only help if full dealer servicing.

Most finance deals with VW finance come with servicing anyway, and beyond that there's the fix priced services skoda offer

The parts don't need to be Skoda approved, they need to be of equivalent quality and it will be up to you to prove this in the event of a warranty claim, so using genuine parts will be easier.  Your car won't get checked for any product updates/enhancements at a non Skoda dealer and Skoda UK will be reluctant to give any goodwill for problems outside the warranty.  Resale value of the car may be affected.

I can only echo the goodwill gestures outside of the three year warranty of all of our Skoda's over the years.

 

Skoda UK have been very generous, although these two questions were often asked...

 

1) Can you please email us a list of all the service dates, locations and mileage.

2) List all of your previous Skoda ownership.

 

As I have had all my Skoda's main dealer serviced and have owned one Skoda before this one as well as the one the wife owns then this has helped.

 

I've roughly worked out the contributions I've had from Skoda UK on all three Skoda's we've owned (out of warranty) and it equates to almost £3,000!

Edited 22 September, 201312 yr by silver1011

If you have a Skoda free servicing deal, you can't have it done at an indy and send the bill to Skoda. This happens more than you might think :(

The legal position is explained in this AA page - http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/general-advice/right-to-repair-campaign.html

 

There are pros and cons to both main dealer and indy. Main dealer stamps in the service book are more attractive to most buyers, with the exception of enthusiasts who will often rate a good specialist indy garage higher. As has been mentioned, 'goodwill' from SUK may be useful but will likely only come with main dealer history. If you are planning on taking out an extended warranty through companies like Warranty Direct they are also normally very keen to insist on main dealer servicing.

 

In many ways it could come down to local availability and reputation. It would be interesting for SUK to have a problem if you used an Audi, VW or Seat dealer for servicing and with access to identical parts because they were 20 miles closer for example. On the other hand a specialist indy garage has to work harder to build up custom and reputation - if they have done so then they are almost certainly going to be better than main dealers for the actual work they do.

I did that with a Clio. Warranty was honored without question for the 3yr. Never tried for any goodwill after it.

If you have a Skoda free servicing deal, you can't have it done at an indy and send the bill to Skoda. This happens more than you might think :(

 

I guess that shouldn't come as too much of a suprise.

 

The whole purpose of the 'free' servicing deal is to keep you and the car within their dealer network.

I guess that shouldn't come as too much of a suprise.

The whole purpose of the 'free' servicing deal is to keep you and the car within their dealer network.

It's to help with the guaranteed value so the vehicle can be sold as approved.

Most vag dealers no longer stock anything that doesn't have full dealer history, and naturally will value trade ins lower as they'll be shipped off to auction