My tale of woe

[fool]

I bought a late 2012 Skoda Superb Elegance Estate 1.8 TSI earlier this year. It's a beautiful car, steel grey with tan leather (the best combination IMHO), one lady owner and completely unmarked. A pleasure to drive and the most refined car I have ever owned. I was looking forward to years of trouble-free motoring.

 

My first problem was the daylight driving lights. They would not turn on, and the dealer couldn't get them to either. A new ECU was ordered and fitted under warranty, and I'm glad I didn't have to cover that cost.

 

The next problem happened when a careless driver scraped the passenger side front bumper when my car was parked, and drove off without leaving a note. The bumper damage was superficial and easily re-sprayed, but the headlamp was damaged and had filled with rainwater, requiring replacement. As the price of a new Bi-Xenon headlamp is eye-wateringly expensive, I was forced to claim on my insurance, losing my no-claims bonus. 

 

Just bad luck I thought.

 

My latest problem happened at the very end of a two week holiday in the South of France, the day before we were due to drive back to Dieppe to catch the ferry home. After two weeks of wonderfully smooth cruising on the lovely French motorways the car suddenly started to judder and misfire, and the exhaust warning light came on. I pulled over and the car refused to start again. I called Skoda Assist and they dispatched a tow truck to take us to the house we were renting over there. The following day an AA van arrived and diagnosed a misfire on the first and second cylinders, which would require 4 new ignition coils and a new set of spark plugs. None of which Dave the AA man had in his van. 

 

So Skoda Assist arranged to fly my family and myself home, although what that actually involved was an hour long taxi ride to the nearest car-hire location, a 3 hours drive in a hire car to the airport, then a train at the other end. All arranged and paid for by Skoda Assist - except for the hire car petrol and tolls - but more than a bit of a hassle with 2 young kids and masses of luggage (how I regretted filling that massive estate boot...).

 

The car was towed to a French Skoda dealer and last weekend Skoda Assist arranged for me to fly back to pick it up. When I eventually got to the AA depot (not the Skoda dealer, which is not open Saturdays) they would not let me leave without paying the repair bill. I protested that the car was under 2 years old and therefore covered by Skoda's European-wide warranty, but they would have none of it. I would have to claim it back from Skoda UK. Fine I thought, and stumped up.

 

I got in the car and it was evident that it was NOT fixed. The idle was strangely lumpy. Any gentle acceleration caused the same kind of juddering / slight misfiring that I'd experienced just prior to the car breaking down. Only above 2000 revs did the car seem to become smoother. The garage gates had shut behind me and no one could be seen, and no warning lights were coming on, so **** this I thought and resolved to drive the car as far as I could before it broke down again. 

 

To my surprise over the next 600 miles the car became smoother and almost back to it's old self. I made it to a motel in Dieppe without incident, and caught the ferry the next morning.

 

Now I'm home, the car feels relatively smooth except for a slight juddering while accelerating under 2000 revs, and at idle where occasionally it goes through rough periods. I took it to my local dealer this morning and they called just now to say that the French dealer had done nothing more than delete the fault codes! No parts were replaced at all. This sounds very dodgy to me, why wouldn't they replace the parts that failed?

 

Anyway, they are doing more diagnostics and I hope to find out the conclusion tomorrow. I hope it's just the ignition coils but at this point I feel the car may be cursed so wouldn't be surprised if it was something more sinister like the timing chain.

 

So there you go, my tale of woe. Any insights you might have would be much appreciated

Edited 11 September, 2014 by fool

[StuartTunstall]

Not a good tale at all.... I am impressed that Skoda Assist flew you home and back, that sounds good, what does not sound right is the paying for the repair.... 

 

This is taken from the warranty book...

 

 

I would complain to Skoda UK and ask for there comments and if you did pay, you want your money back ASAP!

 

 

 

 

[silver1011]

You paid for something that wasn't replaced.

 

I'm mightly impressed with how calm you come across despite what must have been a traumatic experience.

 

I would be fuming, spitting feathers. God help the poor guy on the other end of the phone at Skoda UK, they'd have got both barrels!

[numskull]

Oh dear... a tale of woe indeed...

 

Demand for payment for breakdown repairs in other countries before releasing the car is not unusual I'm afraid, because I know for a fact, that it takes months for the dealers to get paid for the work by the domicile business holding the warranty and, of course, it’s a "distress" situation, so you pay up. Please don’t get me wrong here; I am not condoning the dealers action as it’s outrageous, especially as they did not replace any parts (did they actually charge you for parts BTW?) but this is the reason it happens.  

 

Demand LOTS of compensation from SUK for this.

[Raptor]

Very impressed with Skoda assist, pleased I signed up for it, I was not aware they went to so much trouble.

[fool]

I don't think they charged me for any parts, but Google Translate isn't very helpful translating the invoice:

 

GFS/FONCTION GUIDEE (?)

RECERCHE DE PANNE CONTROLLE ET (research study and..)

NETTOYAGE DES BOUGIES (..clean the candles - spark plugs?)

DOSSIER ARC4233 (doesn't seem to be a part number)

 

I'd been travelling since 4am, and when I picked up the car it was then mid afternoon with 8 hours of driving to do - and I just wanted to get home! So I reluctantly paid up after asking the Skoda Assist people to translate what the guy at the depot was saying. I've asked my local dealer to seek a refund from Skoda for me, so will see how that goes before putting my shouting head on.

 

Skoda Assist were brilliant actually. I was very impressed with how helpful they were in getting us home and then me back, even down to booking my choice of airline. It's the same service offered for all VAG group cars apparently, and provided by the AA who operate their own vans in various European countries during the Summer holidays.

Edited 12 September, 2014 by fool

[fool]

So my local dealer thinks dodgy petrol might have been the cause. The car will apparently 'adapt' itself and try to continue to run in a degraded state, which would explain the rough running.

 

They have 'properly reset' the car so that it returns to it's normal state, whatever that means. They tell me it is now running completely smoothly.

 

It looks like the French invoice had to be paid by me because no warranty parts were replaced. He's unsure if that means I won't get the money back, and I'll have to take it up with Skoda myself :(

 

I filled up with SP95 (from about 1/4 tank) at least 4 days before the car broke down at the Carrefour supermarket near where we were staying, and was down to half when the car broke down. Wouldn't bad fuel cause an immediate problem?

Edited 12 September, 2014 by fool

[100andthirty]

 

 

I filled up with SP95 (from about 1/4 tank) at least 4 days before the car broke down at the Carrefour supermarket near where we were staying, and was down to half when the car broke down. Wouldn't bad fuel cause an immediate problem?

It was certainly an immediate problem when I put petrol in the diesel tank, but that's another story. Very impressed with your calm approach to this; good luck with your claim. How much did the French dealer take from you?

[JakeBlade]

You can get away with (some) petrol in a diesel tank.

Sounds like good service from Skoda Assist.