Hi, i'm looking at a fabia (2nd hand) 61 plate and wondering if the extended warranty with skoda is worth it? In the event of say something catastrophic - engine replacement, would the warranty be helpfull anyway?

I used to think so but after reading some of the stories on here...

 

Unless it’s a vRS I certainly wouldn’t bother. 

Edited 20 March, 20188 yr by Brian69

Thats my gut feeling also.  It isn't a vrs.

 

thanks for the reply.

More detail required

Petrol / Diesel?

Manual or DSG

this info would be helpful.

Extended warranty is NOT the best value, and the dealers/Skoda are seemingly trying to escape from liability on most occasions OR delaying a decision on your claim.

keep in mind when you purchase the extended warranty most of the money you pay it goes to the sales person. You're actually purchasing a low premium insurance/warranty call it whatever. And be ready to read through all the T&C's for what are you actually covered and the hoops you have to jump to make a claim. In my personal opinion it will only add up to the stress when your car breaks down as you think you're covered but...surprise surprise.

The VAG one you buy online, so there’s no salesperson involved. 

 

I agree it may give a false sense of security. 

Oh crikey.

 

If it's a vRS, then at least the Skoda all components you can buy online would enable you to go down fighting so to speak, another weapon in your armoury. Not saying it would actually be successful but it would be something else to batter them with.

 

Rough idea of costs if things go wrong? Our engine change was estimated at around £4500. Currently we have to replace gearbox and mechatronic unit on DSG, costing over £7000.

 

So measured against those two major failings, an all component warranty costing around £300 appears worth it on paper, but experiences tell you that in practice it can be difficult to enforce.

BUYER BEWARE.

Now especially of a Skoda Warranty.

They will sell you one say, Know Issues, and these are Known by Skoda / VW yet they will sell you a Warranty for 12 months.

I will link an example.   There are more than this engine one though, same with DSG's can happen.

 

NIGHTMARE. 

You do the right thing. SKODA Shaft you. take and keep the Policy Money.  Just blow you off, not in a nice way.

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/440772-nightmare-fabia-vrs-engine-replacement-needed 

Edited 26 March, 20188 yr by AwaoffSki

I bought an extended Skoda warranty to cover my wife 2011 fabia dog 1.2 tsi. I bought the warranty when the car was 6yrs old Following a problem the car had at 5 yrs old when it was out of warranty. (with the cam chain tensioner and cam chain failing, the repair cost £800 however as the car had a full Skoda service history and had covered 42000 miles Skoda kindly contributed £700 towards the bill).

 

About 5 month after taking out the warranty with 52 000 miles on the car the DSG box exploded, a loud bang and it locked up solid. 

 

The fun begins. Skoda garage and technicians said new gearbox was needed as it was a mechanical failure of the gearbox,

 

Warranty company only authorised a new mechatronics to keep cost down. Garage argued the case that this was not the solution but this was all the warranty would authorise. new mechatronics ordered and whilst trying to remove the old one a bolt snapped.

 

Garage said this was consequential damage as the gearbox / car was old and the bolt had seized. Warranty company refused a claim to have this bolt removed as they stated it was due to corrosion (and as such excluded under the warranty terms) I was offered an alternative repair at my cost it required the whole gearbox to be removed and the gearbox taken out of network to have the bolt drilled out.  I was told I would have to pay £650 but the gearbox nor any work would no longer be warrantied as it had gone out of network.

 

I quoted the fact that the warranty booklet states WE HAVE GOT YOU COVERED, and that all work under the warranty would be CARRIED OUT IN HOUSE BY SKODA TRAINED TECHNICIANS USING SKODA PARTS. So such a repair is a contravention of the warranty terms.

 

Warranty company refused. (Garage was on my side and trying best to stand my case) I contacted executive team at Skoda Uk who took on the case and told me not to worry they would sort this matter.

 

In the end the warranty company still continued to refuse, I contacted the financial ombudsman who put pressure on them so this seemed to get things moving along again a bit. 

 

So the gearbox was removed on authority of SKODA UK and the Warranty company for removal of the snapped bolt  however this allowed also a full inspection of the gearbox and this revealed the 2nd and reverse gear main bearings had collapsed so the mechanics at Cramlington Silbury Skoda had been correct from the outset it needed a new gearbox. , the gears could not be selected and this was backed up by Skoda technical UK and CZ tech dept. 

 

Skoda UK and the garage informed the warranty company irrelevant of the snapped bolt the gearbox was Kaput they gave them video and photo evidence as well as reports from tech dept. 

 

Warranty did not accept this and sent a man out from there dept to look at the gearbox, he looked and agreed it was buggered, so they sent another more senior man out ( 6 weeks have passed by now) he disagreed and said the gearbox was ok to drill out the bolt fit mechatronics and refit the gearbox. It would be fine.

 

My Skoda garage workshop manager was unable to understand nor explain how this man came to this conclusion. 

 

The garage Silbury Skoda refused to do this knowing it would not work (it had failed bearings, swarf in oil etc it was Kaput. )

 

Skoda UK who had repeatedly told me not to worry it would all be sorted came to grinding halt with the warranty company. I was told sorry your car is a write off or you need to pay £4000 for the gearbox and remaining work as they already had a new mechatronics from the warranty claim.

 

I again put together a letter carefully outlining the terms of the warranty from there own warranty wording informing them also that I would no matter what take them to court at whatever cost for breach of contract and failing to carry out repairs in line with the warranty terms and sent this to the warranty company and also informed the financial ombudsman of the ongoing matters.

 

After 48 hrs the warranty company backed down and paid to have the work completed in two separate jobs (claims) 1 the mechatronics and 2 the gearbox. The total time taken was almost 9 weeks to reach this stage.

 

I would like to thank firstly Silbury Skoda at Cramlington Northumberland who stood by me at every stage and never backed down to the warranty company and kept me informed of all the details of their findings throughout the process.

 

They have been better than  anyone could ask a dealer to be  even though I did not buy the car from them in the first place.. 

 

It was nice to have the backing of Skoda Uk who tried but however failed to fight against the Skoda warranty group on this matter. I do feel they were on my side all the way but words were not followed up by strong action and they if anyone should have been able to achieve the result that I managed with the ombudsman and some legal wording in my letters, but feel they were weak when it came to the crunch of forcing the hand of the warranty company but it was still nice that they tried, but I should not have had all this hassle in the first instance.

 

I am so pleased with Skoda at Cramlington I have just bought a nearly new Skoda Yet 1.2 tsi dsg SE - L from them as my main car . My wife is still running the Fabia which incidentally is smoother and better than it had ever been from new.  

 

I hope to have more luck with the new Yeti. 

 

I may even risk taking another extended warranty as i feel I have recourse to this example of the course taken to achieve a repair that should stand well if a court case was required in the future. 

 

Cheers Brian. 

 

 

 

 

 

Had your DQ200 DSG had the Service Campaign '34F7' carried out any time after Skoda UK started it in early 2014?

 

Skoda UK know of the issues with the DSG's and the engines, 1.2 TSI, 1.4TSI & 1.6TDI CR and sell people warranties and then they or after market warranty companies are knocking back claims due to known issues.

Skoda / VW know about the issues, after all they are because of their Fundamental, Design, Manufacturing, Material / Component or workmanship failings and of having not done anything other than some Skoda Secret Service Campaigns. 

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/315115-service-campaign-dq-200-dsg-oil-campaign-changeecu-update-fabias-in-uk/?page=1 

 

eg,

No Warranty, Dealership Staff with not a clue about a 'white flashing spanner' warning, Skoda UK could not care less. 

& a 2012 car that did not need '34F7' supposedly.

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/444617-7sp-dq200-dsg-failure 

 

Edited 4 June, 20188 yr by Offski

My car had all the upgrades and recall work carried out including  34f7 - after I bought the car from a london dealer all the recall work done By Silbury skoda, Cramlington. I kept the car maintained by them throughout.

 

Warranty by skoda are nothing more than insurance company they admitted to me they have no mechanical expertise they are simply accountant based insurance and employ assessor to carry out inspections. 

 

On a side note once dismantled my car blocked a ramp at Silbury for about 7 weeks so this was hard for them at a time of new registration sales coming through but they never made an issue of it to me. I called in several times during the process and the car was on the ramp. They also supplied me with a courtesy car - which under the terms of the warranty was not included. Simply excellent garage and staff. 

I  wouldnt even consider buying an extended warranty, a complete waste of time. I thought I had the "benefit" of one of these but I got a rude awakening in March 2018. My heater fan failed on speeds 1 to 3 and I contacted Mitchell Skoda Chester. I then got told completely different stories (by the same salesperson!) in the space of less than 24 hours   and ended up having to get my normal independent to fit new heater resistors and I had to pay of course. Extended and increasingly heated correspondence with the dealership  got me absolutely nowhere  and I say here what I said to them; that the warranty isnt worth the paper its written on. I did all the right things. I went to Skoda customer services and they were useless too.  I tried them more than once but they were as poor at the end as they were at the beginning.  I know for a fact that ev you will have to wait at least two weeks to get it booked in for diagnosis, , certainly thats the case at Mitchell Skoda.       No special  time is set aside for warranty claims, you have to wait for a slot in the diary. Then you have to get it diagnosed then the warranty company( Skoda) have to agree, to authorise the claim that it has to be booked in again to get the job done. The warranty doesnt give you a courtesy car so you have to use public transport or stay in like a hermit. Go to work? not by car unless you shell out for a rented car. The warranty may look good and Skoda dealerships will push it and extol its virtues but when it comes to crunch time the warranty is a complete waste of money. Dont bother getting one!

I would say don't bother with extended warranty

 

Fair chance something minor will need fixing, so set up standing order and transfer amount you would have spent on premium each month into a deposit account, then use the fund to pay for it

There is slim chance something major will go pop, If it does you are very unlucky, and may need to fork out

 

But generally only the warranty company will be in profit

One point to clarify here, I have been buying cars with warranties for almost 40 years and I've ever believed that even under a new car warranty that you could "jump the queue" to get it repaired in its own marque dealership, 2 working weeks seems to be the period of time you need to wait when booking a car in - there just is not the need to provide a next day service and we as owners are not paying for that level of service, that would cost a lot more per year if you required a 24 hour response each and every time you needed to use your dealership.

 

All the rest of the discussion I do agree with, having had an annoying incident once with a VX main dealer and VX's own extended warranty, luckily for me I worked 10 minutes walk from that dealer, but even so, 5 visits to sort out an ABS issue that even I had nailed down the root cause after visit 2 was hard to take and would be down to the dealer following the guidelines and replacing the cheaper parts first, though in this case they ended up replacing 6 wheel sensors and then accepting it was only the controller that was left, complete idiots working that way. Garage trade and its associated services really do deserve all the bad press that they get, okay most people at the bottom of the pile do very good jobs and are switched on, but are smothered by their "superiors".

I read the point about warranty claims not having precedence at a dealership with great interest. With respect I think the contributor is wrong. Having to wait a minimum of two weeks before you can even get a diagnosis is awful if you are working and public transport isnt available. Are you supposed to take two weeks holiday or rent a hire vehicle for two weeks or what?   The warranty company choose not to offer a courtesy car, they could increase the premium allow for this  but they dont.  Its a conscious business  decision on their part which disadvantages the customer.  The customer loses out yet  again. Warranty claims should have precedence, it shouldnt be beyond the wit of humans to set aside diary time each day on a reserved basis. The more I think about it the more I  think that its very much a matter of the dealership and Skoda losing interest in you once you have given them your cheque. You are a nuisance after that point, I certainly was to Mitchell Skoda and they are not unique by any means. I have friends all over the UK  who own Skodas and they have all found their particular dealer not to be interested when they try to invoke the warranty. Nor are Skoda UK any better. This all adds up to a vote of "no confidence" in the warranty system  since the dealers interests and Skodas interests  always take precedence over the customers interests.

 I would also clarify one position - in this case where my skoda fabia gearbox failed the warranty company were difficult to deal with once there were some problems with the repair, but in the first instance they were reasonable ok ie if the gearbox had only needed the mechatronics as is usual with these failures it would all have been done inside a week. 

The garage were fine from the outset, no delays they took the car in and started work the next day.

The warranty on a 7 yr old car cost £250

The final repair bill was £5500

the car was valued at £4300

so my option would have been a written off car, as it  is my car is like new and cost me very little and certainly saved replacing the car. Even with all the hassle dealing with the warranty company it was very much worth it to me in this instance.

I am really delighted it worked out in the end. However, many people do not have the time or the skills or the patience to persevere for 8 to 9 weeks. In my experience people want a  "quick and easy fix" and the warranty does certainly NOT provide this. It is full of built in delays and uncertainties and I still believe it is not worth taking out. One persons success with the process should not  affect this.

When it concerns a cheaper repair I agree with you Hetty, However  when it concerns £5500, I had nothing to lose in the fight - and in my case I think if someone does not make the time then they are very rich or very stupid not to fight a case.

 

I have learnt in life quick and easy is not usually a reality in any case.

 

But I am getting on in age - and I am patient, tenacious and have a wilful mindset more so when someone tries to pull a fast one on me.

 

Even more against beancounters who no nothing about mechanics or engineering (part of my trade background).

 

If no one stands up and fights then they always win - so always stand your ground against these firms - they are legally bound by contract if you have paid your money. 

 

 

 

 

VW Group are the owners of a Warranty Underwriter no matter what cr4p they might say.

 

Those that have been blown out after having purchased a Skoda Warranty have tried tried and tried again but still been cheated by a Corporation that is a proven to be untrustworthy.  Not that they bother much at that as European Governments and courts do not bother them.

Extended Warranty from ŠKODA Insurance – putting ŠKODA into your insurance. (1).mhtml

 

VW Group have even been saying they are not the manufacturer of DSG so the wrong people to pursue.

The thing is in the UK they will not defend actions in a court in England / Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland where they would be required to put up a defence and witnesses or figures of failures and reasons upgrades were required.

 

They do threaten people for defamation, but then they would be taking a chance going to a UK court saying harm was done to their good reputation, they cheated millions of owners around the world and governments as well. 

Proven by their own admission in the USA courts.

ŠKODA produces 1.5 millionth DQ 200 dual-clutch transmission at Vrchlabí plant - ŠKODA Storyboard.mhtml

ŠKODA AUTO produces two-millionth DQ 200 dual-clutch transmission at Vrchlabí plant - ŠKODA Storyboard.mhtml

Edited 4 June, 20188 yr by Offski

Hi I Know that VW are the controlling arm of the Skoda warranty albeit the company trade as :

Lawshield UK Ltd  and are the ‘Appointed Administrators and Claim Handlers’ for Volkswagen Services.

 

I never got them as far as a court, I simply wrote them a letter pointing out the terms of the warranty booklet - ie my contract with them, this was backed up with the financial services ombudsman who took on the case and started discussions with them.  Under UK law there is quite a lot of protection given to consumers. It's no good ranting and raving you need to extract and lay out basic facts (not opinions) and back these up with bits of law from the consumer and financial services system. It takes time and effort but if you get this bit right they often have no where to go - these are at the end of the day lawyers and accountants - they understand nothing but legal wording and figures. Play them at there own game. I am not a well schooled person just an ordinary bloke. I spent some time doing my research and then very carefully laid out the way i communicated with them. It paid off for me - it was not easy but like I say a bit of effort has saved me a fortune. I wish anyone the best of look in dealing with them and i hope never to have to in the future. I would never make trifling small claims in any case. That said I may or may not take a warranty in the future as the car I have just bought comes with one for a year. 

I know quite a few in the past 7 years that have done the same and managed to get satisfaction & the issue with fundamental design, manufacturing, component / material or manufacturing failings.

Also false information from Franchised Dealership Employees and Skoda UK Customer Services Employees.

 

Important to have an independent expert engineers report and a solicitors prepared to take on your legal actions against a dealership and the importer,

then VW Group / Skoda doing the right thing. Buy backs, new or replacement vehicles and engines or DSG's. 

Only issue being people having to sign confidentiality agreements. 

 

It will all come out in the wash eventually.

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/294051-cave-cthe-14tsi-just-reply-please-if-you-have-had-an-engine-replaced 

 

Edited 4 June, 20188 yr by Offski

Having read through all the separate posts on this two conclusions emerge. Firstly, whether justified or not, many people do not trust the car trade one inch and that includes the warranties that are sold by Skoda. They would rather take a chance on no problems arising due to this fundamental lack of trust. Secondly,  despite what one or two posters have claimed, many people do not have either the time or the skills  or the financial resources to engage in lengthy attempts to argue their case. They have many other things to and limited time and unanswered letters and staff not being in even when appointments have been agreed and backtracking on agreed work all contribute to the reasons why many people do not follow through.  If you consult a solicitor that costs you money, you will not get legal aid easily or at all. If you are retired and have some free time  thats one thing but  working non office hours and lots of travelling to even get to work?   No way.

So we are still at people pay thousands buying a used car or own a car that they find out after owning the Engine is a possibly dodgy one and could cost them £4-£5,000 if it fails and the Gearbox £3-£4,000 so they buy a Warranty in good faith.

Car fully serviced by the history, they have no knowledge or had none of any issues, just heard of others experiences.

The Manufacturers know the risk of failure, the Warranty / Insurance people should know, that is their job after all.

 

Odd then that Warranty Sellers / Underwriters then say 'Known Issues',  Of course there are known issues, the VW Group have known them since they first had Failures. 

Why people buy warranties.  Try to cover the possible risk which normally is a low risk, just not with VW Group Lemons that can be a high risk of terminal failure.

For information Financial ombudsman is free service, just make sure you have a good case ie honest and with facts that reflect both sides of the issues. 

hetty1, I think that you will find that many of the reasons why people do not make a claim via their warranty on things like houses and cars is because of the time wasting it will cost them. I for one would never ever consider heading for my dealer if I could solve the problem myself, reasons being as you suggested that the booking time off work etc could make it very costly in terms of lost holidays or even just lost hours at work. So in my brain that could mean that only 50% (my guess) of issues get sorted at the cost of the warranty, I've worked beside many first time new car buyers and they head for the dealer for the smallest of issues, which they are entitled to do - then start moaning about needing to pay back their employer lots of lost time when really they would rather be doing other things.

 

With respect to booking a car in for work at the dealership, I'd suspect that VORs (vehicle of road) would get treated with a bit more urgency especially if it was dumped at their front door by a recovery truck, but a car still being able to be used but basically faulty would need to wait its turn.

 

Finally your comments about providing a hire car at short notice, I have "hire car" provided by my insurer at a cost of roughly £24 for 12 months - but that only covers me in the event of theft or accidental damage that renders it undrivable.  It could be that something like that could be added to a car warranty, but it would probably cost quite a bit more if it was available to be used for any/all issues that required that the car went left at the dealership, as maybe that is why it does not seem to be offered?