greetings from Derry, N.Ireland

Hello everyone,

My name is Peter.  I live in Derry, Northern Ireland and I have owned a Skoda Octavia 1.2Tsi for almost 3 years.

My car is  2011 and it will be 4 next March.  Out of warranty from March this year

I have only registerd on this forum but must admit that I have found some very helpful information on here over the last number of weeks while exploring as a guest.

Anyway I have been having the old timing chain issues with my Octavia that has been so widely documented on here.

It is currently with the local dealer, John Mulholland cars in Derry.  They have been absolutly usless and have actually made the issue worse by delaying the actual diagnosis which has now resulted in the car loosing compression and potentialy needs a new engine.

The reason for the delay is because they wanted £420 to diagnose the problem in the first place.  Simply to tell me what even the dogs in the streets already knew.

If it was not for Skoda customer services and a wonderful lady called Steff then I would have gotten absolutly nowhere.

I am delighted with the Octavia overall but will never own another one simply because of the dealings I have had with John Mulholland cars and their "company man" maintenance manager.  He is about to cost me a lot more money than necessary simply because he wanted to screw £420 out of me for a diagnosis that Skoda Customer Services initially believed could be done in an hour and at a cost of £72.

The next nearest Skoda dealer is over 75 miles away which is fine if you are buying a car but not ideal each time you need something done.

I hope to get a final diagnosis on Monday and a final cost.  All the time I have been without a car and have had to hire one for a trip to Dublin on sunday.  Mulholland have 3 x courtesy cars and they are all with customers - arnt they just wonderful people in Mulhollands.

Anyway glad to be here and have been educated a lot in the last couple of weeks.