I found a letter from 2 years ago on a website ....despite its age, the reply might have relevance.

 

Quote : "Basically when VAG sees demand rise in countries like China and Russia, and indeed even mainland Europe, it builds cars for those more profitable markets before it builds them for less profitable, small markets like the UK. You are faced with a fed up dealer who is being harangued by disgruntled customers but can do nothing about it"

 

Link to article: http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/askhj/answer/18647/long-delayed-skoda-ordered

I guess us being RHD doesn't help although other makes seem to cope.

A couple of points, the UK is not alone in being RHD, there are over 50 countries that are RHD, some of the larger car markets being India and Japan.

Also don't always equate volume with profits. In China, like all foreign car manufacturers, it has to be a joint venture for VAG and margins are naturally not as high as other markets. The UK has typically been one of the highest margin markets in the world let alone in Europe and this more than offsets the cost of RHD. Over the last 3 years it has also been the highest growing new car market in Western Europe. So it's unlikely to be the fact that Skoda give lower priority to the UK.

More likely to be that Skoda is orientated to just in time manufacturing, and the VRS is proving to be a very popular choice. At launch Skoda stated that they were predicting 20% of all Octavia's sold in UK being VRS, so maybe volume is higher or they just haven't ramped up production to cope with demand. That coupled with known issues on some options that's affected all Octavia's is likely to be reason.

Cheers

Steve

Unfortunately all this is nothing new. I had exactly the same when I ordered my current Octavia Scout in 2010.

 

It supposedly mysteriously arrived at the dealers unannounced the day I telephoned to cancel my order. I strongly suspect I had someone else's car.

My understanding is that SUK and the dealers get a weekly status update each Thursday.  I will be checking with the dealer tomorrow pm to see if I have a provional bw again.  If re planning takes more then a week and I've still no new bw.... plan b will get some active investigation at the Mazda dealer on Saturday.

Had a email from dealer saying that there was a "sli error " sonthey could nkt look at my car on system but will update me tomorrow. ?

not holding my breath for any +news.

Got the second phone call of the week from my dealer ( at least he is phoning now), unfortunately he still could not give me any indication of when my car might appear, still nothing other than order accepted on their / skodas' system - exactly as was shown on 18th December.

 

The salesman is caught between a rock and a hard place, however he simply appears to fail to grasp that I will not just sit around indefinitely waiting for a new car. By his reckoning it could suddenly appear but admitted more likely I may not take delivery until June / July / August , the feedback from Skoda UK being so vague. So as I have day off tomorrow, I'm away to firm up on some plan B alternatives.

I ordered mine mid November, I spoke to my dealer about my build date which should have been week 4 but was delayed and is being built this week. My dealer told me I ordered just in time because any orders after I'd ordered there is a 6/ 7 month waiting list for one...