Jardine motors the Skoda main dealer in Milton Keynes charged me £407.16 to fix a fault indicated by coil warning light a few months ago but now the light has come on again and they say they will charge £130 per hour to look at the fault again plus any charge for fixing the fault on the skoda octavia 1.6 diesel. 

I used to have a lot of confidence in this garage but things have changed there and now I have no confidence in them at all, I wonder whether they fixed it properly in the first place and whether they will just say its a different problem this time to rip me off with another small sensor needing to be changed for another £400.

The question is do I trust them or cut my losses and go to another garage a lot further away but which I do have confidence in.

I'd invest in a fault code reader, here's an example:

 

http://www.gendan.co.uk/product_VAGT55.html

 

Even if you can't fix the car yourself, if you post the fault code(s) here you should get good advice and have some confidence your not being ripped of by a garage.

Unfortunately this particular warning light can have several different causes although mostly associated with a similar part of the system.  It seems you just have to trust that they have properly tested each part of this system since the item they actually replaced was not the one that people on the web normally say is associated with this warning light (but it can be occasionally).

The much wider issue is trust and the very high cost of labour to find out what is wrong.  I had nievely assumed that going to main dealer would mean they could read more info from the diagnostic system and they would have more experience in finding out what was wrong but clearly that was not the case if you believe the hours it took them to find and fix it.

 

The issue now is whether there is a standard skoda UK policy on this kind of thing to keep their dealers in line and not show them as rip off merchants that damage the overall brand.  I would have thought that going back to them with the same fault just a few months down the line would immediately mean that they would investigate the issue for free rather than just saying it would cost another £130 per hour, probably with a minimum cost of £130 for diagnosis and who knows what upper limit of cost.

First things first, check your brake lights work. Coil light can come on if the brake light switch has become faulty.

Yes brake lights do work.

 

The coil warning light flashes, its not flashing all the time at the moment.  This time it started after driving about 100miles on A-roads av speed about 50mph but with some faster parts, then left the car for a few hours and did a local drive of a couple of miles and this is when it started flashing and the engine seemed to loose some power.  This was particularly dangerous as it happened just as I was trying to pull out across a dual carridgeway so needed full power to avoid being hit by the crossing high speed traffic.

Edited 15 September, 201411 yr by mike1691

"Unfortunately this particular warning light can have several different causes"

 

Precisely, the code reader will tell you the reason the light is on at half the cost of one hour in the garage.

No what I meant was that this light can have several different causes AND the code reader does not say which is which (according to the main dealer garage who used it).  I put exactly this question to them and this was their response which is why they said they had to spend so much time trying to find out what was wrong.  So buying a code reader would not help unless it says something different to what the garage told me.

 

I am not saying they are not telling the truth about this as I have seen elsewhere that this particular warning light can be difficult to decipher but this is precisely why I took it to a main dealer who I naively thought would have some experience and so be able to find the cause quickly.  Alarm bells started ringing when they said it took them a very long time to find out what was wrong and their explanation was different to most other references to this warning light.  It is of course possible that they got it right eventually and that this now is a different problem but this is exactly the kind of thing that a reputable garage would deal with for free rather than immediately saying they are going to charge large amounts to look at again.  If it is a completely different problem then of course I would have to pay for that to be fixed.

Sorry I was trying to help.

I thought you wanted some advice about getting a diagnostics done on your car.

I'm not sure what response you're looking for.

No what I meant was that this light can have several different causes AND the code reader does not say which is which (according to the main dealer garage who used it).  I put exactly this question to them and this was their response which is why they said they had to spend so much time trying to find out what was wrong.  So buying a code reader would not help unless it says something different to what the garage told me.

 

I am not saying they are not telling the truth about this as I have seen elsewhere that this particular warning light can be difficult to decipher but this is precisely why I took it to a main dealer who I naively thought would have some experience and so be able to find the cause quickly.  Alarm bells started ringing when they said it took them a very long time to find out what was wrong and their explanation was different to most other references to this warning light.  It is of course possible that they got it right eventually and that this now is a different problem but this is exactly the kind of thing that a reputable garage would deal with for free rather than immediately saying they are going to charge large amounts to look at again.  If it is a completely different problem then of course I would have to pay for that to be fixed.

 

 

The dealer is talking complete wotsit.  The light is a generic warning light, but specific fault codes should be stored which give a relatively short list of potential sources for the problem.

 

Typically the glow plug light is used to denote an electrical issue, but this is not certain.

 

See if there is anyone on here near you with VCDS who could scan the car for you, I'm sure that will prove more enlightening than another trip to the dealer.

I work at a dealership and have for 22 year's.I can assure you we spend way more time on your car than you are ever charged in 90% of all cases in my opinion. Getting back to your coil light ... get it looked at fast and don't keep driving it or it can potentially cost a fortune.

Thanks for the comment flapperjack7 presumably you are trying to frighten me into going back to the main dealer at £130 per hour which is 15x my income as a pensioner.  Do you have any idea what the coil warning light means, presumably you do as you say it could cost a fortune, any chance of sharing that information with me in the spirit of the Briskoda forums?

Thanks for the comment flapperjack7 presumably you are trying to frighten me into going back to the main dealer at £130 per hour which is 15x my income as a pensioner. Do you have any idea what the coil warning light means, presumably you do as you say it could cost a fortune, any chance of sharing that information with me in the spirit of the Briskoda forums?

It could be something very simple (brake lights just as an example) or something more expensive. There are well over a thousand potential fault codes a car could log, but only a handful of warning lights. Without a complete fault scan people will just be guessing.

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What did they replace last time?

 

Find someone with VCDS local to you to do a scan as others have said.

What age is the car have you not got skoda assit or rac or aa or any break down service.

If you have i would call them out and they at the very least could put it on there computer and tell you a fault code.

Might even know what part it is that needs fixed this way you can take the car to the garage and say whats wrong with it and save some money. Even try and find a garage which is cheaper. Good luck

In reply to andyvee, they replaced the dpf sensor which cost £51.80 and the remainder of the £407.16 was labour.  Looking through the paperwork in more detail now I see that it was a p2454 fault if that means anything to someone with the list of codes.

 

Will try to find someone local with VCDS and see if it is the same fault or something related and if so take it back to the main dealer and ask them to fix it properly.

Do you know how much it should cost just to get a readout of the fault codes from a 'normal' garage?

In reply to andyvee, they replaced the dpf sensor which cost £51.80 and the remainder of the £407.16 was labour. Looking through the paperwork in more detail now I see that it was a p2454 fault if that means anything to someone with the list of codes.

Will try to find someone local with VCDS and see if it is the same fault or something related and if so take it back to the main dealer and ask them to fix it properly.

Do you know how much it should cost just to get a readout of the fault codes from a 'normal' garage?

Dealers seem to charge between 0.5 and 1 hour labour for diagnostics.

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Take your car to Unit 18 in Wolverton for further diagnosis.

In reply to andyvee, they replaced the dpf sensor which cost £51.80 and the remainder of the £407.16 was labour.  Looking through the paperwork in more detail now I see that it was a p2454 fault if that means anything to someone with the list of codes.

 

Will try to find someone local with VCDS and see if it is the same fault or something related and if so take it back to the main dealer and ask them to fix it properly.

Do you know how much it should cost just to get a readout of the fault codes from a 'normal' garage?

 P2454 - Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) Pressure Sensor A - Circuit Low

 

Should not have taken the garage more than an hour to fix this well known fault.

I had that error on my VRS... it was the throttle pedal, it was dirty inside. I took it out and cleaned it and no flashing light or loss of power. Same symptoms anyway....

£ 130 an hour wow , there are other dealers charging much less . The coil light is likely to be anything from the throttle to any of the sensors on the engine. I suspect your problem is indeed not your exhaust gas pressure sensor that you had previously and is likely to be a duff signal from another sensor. I think you will end up paying a very similar bill to your last visit. If you continue to drive it .. you will soon find the engine warning light comes on as well as the coil light and if you still continue to drive it the dpf regeneration light will come on and if that dpf fills up with ash mass and it certainly will not regenerate with eml faults then you may have to replace that dpf plus fix the original problem. A new dpf is around the 4 figure sum. I'm not trying to scare you but I do think you should take it to a skoda dealer asap before it escalates. Also on the other hand it may just require a software update and if so an independent garage won't be any help. Good luck with it Mike

In reply to andyvee, they replaced the dpf sensor which cost £51.80 and the remainder of the £407.16 was labour.  Looking through the paperwork in more detail now I see that it was a p2454 fault if that means anything to someone with the list of codes.

 

Will try to find someone local with VCDS and see if it is the same fault or something related and if so take it back to the main dealer and ask them to fix it properly.

Do you know how much it should cost just to get a readout of the fault codes from a 'normal' garage?

£407.16 labour - I know a mechanic who charges £45 to change the DPF sensor! I would be back on to the garage to query that as it is less than an hour book time to change that sensor, so what are the other 2 hours for?

 

A decent indie with the right kit will charge £20-£40 for a fault diagnosis - find a VW specialist who has VCDS close to you, or a local VCDS owner

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/224376-vcds-owners-map/

 

If it is the sensor again you can go back to the original garage, tell them it is the sensor and is covered under the warranty of the original repair and tell them to sort it out for free.

Well it all gets tricky now as I've had the code read by an inde and it is a related fault but not exactly the same one, some people also suggest code is somewhat non specific according to the few references I've found so it may well require further investigation.  The garage suggested going back to the original main dealer garage and getting them to do the fault diagnosis and sort it out properly this time. 

 

However when I then spoke to original garage they said they would charge the £138 per hour (its gone up over the past few months) and only refund this if they think its the original fault that was not fixed properly.  However when I actually tried to book it in with them they asked if the light was on now but it has stopped flashing so they said it would be more difficult to diagnose and said it was safe to drive and wait till/if it happens again.  I've done a variety of local driving and it has not come on again and it has not entered the reduced power mode.  The light came on twice in one day, each time for for a short (3 mile) drive and has not shown since then.

Is there not another dealer you can go to?

 

What fault code did you get this time and what did they use to read the code? If it isn't specialist equipment for the VAG range it might only pick up a generic OBDII code rather than the specific VAG code. Most VAG fault codes are pretty prescriptive.