Just had a call from my Skoda dealer reminding me that my second service (2 yrs) is due and telling me the aircon is due a service as well which will cost an extra £75. Since she was a very nice lady on the phone I gently told her I thought it was an extortionate price. I wonder what other must have services they will try to tag on when I take the car in. Joe  PS Has anyone else been offered this service and at what cost.  

My aircon has always been serviced by a mobile, at work or home, but £75 is about what they charge.

It is a ridiculous price and at some point you will see an Offer for a A/C Service and Brake Fluid change, maybe not from Skoda, 

but a VW, Seat or Audi main dealer so take that at 3 years if you want.

No need to have the 'Upselling' / Rip off A/C service they are offering you.

Pretty sure that is just the standard fixed price that Skoda offer.

 

Although it's not always completely necessary it does ensure that the system is kept topped-up since there is no other way to check the coolant and lubricant level than by sucking it all out and refilling.

 

Since a certain amount of the stuff escapes the system naturally over time you don't want to run the system dry and damage it.

 

Just look out for local offers for it doing. They are all pretty much standard across the board using similar equipment that they just hook up and the machine does it all for them.

The offer i see from time to time Skoda dealers from time to time is £89 for the Brake Fluid Change and Aircon Service saving £35 from the Skoda Fixed Price servicing at participating dealerships.

That's actually not a bad price at all.

Checked with the indipendent garage that serviced my old Skoda for 8 years they would charge £45 + vat = £54 I presume the Skoda price includes VAT. Joe

I paid £54 for an air con service at my local dealer this week during its 2 year service. 

They also offered to charge the battery - the car hasn't been used much recently - for the interesting price of £27. Instead I gave the car a 10 mile run and the stop/start function began to operate, which presumably means that the battery was fully charged, for about £1 worth of petrol.

The problem, maybe, with using a cheap back street place is, they will probably recover and reload the gas, but if they have previously recovered from a vehicle that has had "hooky" or polluted or illegal crap in its system, you are now getting some of that stuff - and it does go on due to the cost of R134a coupled with the ready supply of "not very good" refrigerant on the supply market. A proper air con only place will analyse any gas they recover automatically in their recovery kit, so will dump any "hooky" stuff and hopefully charge any customer that contaminated their equipment.

By the way, if the system gets low on refrigerant, there's a pressure sensor which disables the system to prevent damage. Sometimes its just a switch but sometimes an actual sensor.

I got a text message a few weeks ago about an aircon service.. I may take it in next month before the warmer weather starts to creep in.. I don't mind paying about £70, even if it's steep to some.. over £100 is excessive in my book, but then all cars are overpriced and services are too, there's no getting away from it.  When we are all driving decent electric/non-polluting vehicles there'll be a lot less for a mechanic to service probably.. so we should see a lot less problems as drivers.  Aside from the odd exploding battery perhaps!