There has been issues on the Mk3 with the gel back splitting in the expansion tank and blocking up one or more of the the three different water circuits.

 

If this has happened a flush wont do, it's strip and degrease and rebuild and I've seen costs approaching £1500 for a new expansion tank and a full clean of the water circuits plus refill.

 

Even with a standard coolant change a £37 Halfords jobby won't do unless they have the VAG diagnostic tools to move the relevant valves and solenoids into the correct positions before starting the procedure.

Get the dealer to check the diverter sleeve in the pump is working correctly. Iirc it's vacuum operated, and it may be disconnected, or the solenoid valve is not working.

Its definitely and dealership or VAG specialist with the software job.  At that price id be pushing Skoda to pay it all or threaten court action. They should be ashamed leaving it back to you broken then haggling on whether they are responsible.

Thanks for all your recent replies and advice!  Hate being stuck in this position, worse for my wife as she has to drive to work each morning freezing cold.     

 

****Latest update****

Service manager at retailer called yesterday evening(Tue), had spoke to his boss, still going over the same sort of things. Says had got their advice from SKoda and the engine temp is reading correctly @ 68% but the water isn't getting through to heat the car. The degreasing process has a 90% success rate and they believe this will be all that is required. Talked about the full cost being £460 (consisting of "parts" cost of about £120/£130 plus the time in the workshop) which they had reduced to £400 but he said he understands that this needs to be lower as we have been faithful customers.  He wasn't suggesting any specific figure.  I said I needed to discuss with my wife and would get back to him (I also needed to see what Skoda was advising).

 

Skoda had originally promised to call be back yesterday so i called this morning(Wed). Case notes show that they were waiting for the manager at the retailer to call them back yesterday but that he hadn't done so.  My Skoda case handler will be in office soon and he will be in touch again with me.  I need to see what they are saying to see if it gives me any further bargaining power with dealer.   We can't continue with no heating in the car so need to try and agree or sort something asap. Will let you know again once Skoda gets back to me.

 

 

Isn't this a manufacturing issue/fault and hence covered under legislation for 6 years? Not fit for purpose, reasonable life expectancy and all that.

 

Skoda UK should foot 100% of the bill.

3 hours ago, AidanL said:

Thanks for all your recent replies and advice!  Hate being stuck in this position, worse for my wife as she has to drive to work each morning freezing cold.     

 

****Latest update****

Service manager at retailer called yesterday evening(Tue), had spoke to his boss, still going over the same sort of things. Says had got their advice from SKoda and the engine temp is reading correctly @ 68% but the water isn't getting through to heat the car. The degreasing process has a 90% success rate and they believe this will be all that is required. Talked about the full cost being £460 (consisting of "parts" cost of about £120/£130 plus the time in the workshop) which they had reduced to £400 but he said he understands that this needs to be lower as we have been faithful customers.  He wasn't suggesting any specific figure.  I said I needed to discuss with my wife and would get back to him (I also needed to see what Skoda was advising).

 

Skoda had originally promised to call be back yesterday so i called this morning(Wed). Case notes show that they were waiting for the manager at the retailer to call them back yesterday but that he hadn't done so.  My Skoda case handler will be in office soon and he will be in touch again with me.  I need to see what they are saying to see if it gives me any further bargaining power with dealer.   We can't continue with no heating in the car so need to try and agree or sort something asap. Will let you know again once Skoda gets back to me.

 

 

 

Has anyone checked the silicon bag in the expansion tank as this could be the cause of the contamination. You will waste money if you have the system cleaned and this is still leaking.

 

 

 

On ‎26‎/‎09‎/‎2018 at 09:49, xman said:

Isn't this a manufacturing issue/fault and hence covered under legislation for 6 years? Not fit for purpose, reasonable life expectancy and all that.

 

Skoda UK should foot 100% of the bill.

 

No, Had heating, pump replaced, no heating.

On 22/09/2018 at 09:34, logiclee said:

There has been issues on the Mk3 with the gel back splitting in the expansion tank and blocking up one or more of the the three different water circuits.

 

If this has happened a flush wont do, it's strip and degrease and rebuild and I've seen costs approaching £1500 for a new expansion tank and a full clean of the water circuits plus refill.

 

On 26/09/2018 at 13:10, logiclee said:

 

Has anyone checked the silicon bag in the expansion tank as this could be the cause of the contamination. You will waste money if you have the system cleaned and this is still leaking.

 

@logiclee , thanks for this. I'll update on my own thread rather than the OP's here, but this seems to be exactly what happened to mine when the water pump failed.

**Update**

Spoke to Skoda on Friday and they have agreed to foot 80% of the costs of this next process. They said that this doesn't finish the matter, they will keep the case open and will look at it again once this next process is done with the view to providing further support if needed.  We can't continue with no heating going into the winter so have told them to go ahead and get it sorted. Car is going in on Saturday and we are getting courtesy car in the interim.  They weren't sure when the work would be done but at least we have some heat!

***Update – the saga continues***
We took car to the other Skoda garage on Sat 6^th oct and picked up courtesy car. Got call on Wed 10^th to confirm car had been fixed and we just had to pay £69+VAT. Drove the 40miles to pick up car but said I wanted to check it first before I paid and before I took it home. Sat in the car over 20mins to get engine temperature up and whilst there had been some improvement with some heat getting through it took a long time and to me it was a long way from being correct. The salesman sat in with me also (service dept closed) and then we went to another Octavia and did a comparison with it. After 5 mins in the other car and with the engine temp in it being way below where mine was there was more heat coming out of it and it was getting warmer. Salesman agreed with me that it wasnt working like it should so agreed to leave it with them and go back home again in the courtesy car, a wasted evening and journey of 80 miles.

 

Spoke to both Skoda garages next day, Thur 11th, and explained so they were to come back to me to advise.
 

Skoda customer care called on Fri 12^th Oct and explained where they were. Said that the next step was to fit a new heat exchanger to the car.  The cost of this process was £890. He explained they had reached the end of the process where they could provide any more financial support .  He said we should not have been charged the £69+VAT but I said I hadn’t paid it anyway. He said that our car was out of warranty but they were still wishing to assist us with the matter. He said he would be speaking to both the Skoda garages and that he would be pressing for the dealer to contribute “at least half” of the cost of the heat exchanger otherwise he would escalate to “dealer principal”.  He said he would get back to us next week.  At least my wife has some heat now in the mornings for her commute but the saga continues! 

Have they forgotten to reconnect the electric pre heater?

 

if not, small claims court? Car worked, they worked on it, it stopped working.

Edited 15 October, 20187 yr by cheezemonkhai

****FINAL UPDATE (hopefully!*****

The heat exchanger/matrix was replaced on Monday and garage kept it overnight to do an extended test on it and called yesterday to say all

was working fine. I spoke to Skoda and they confirmed that an agreement had been reached with them and the retailer to cover the full costs

of all the work so we had nothing to pay(thankfully).  Was really impressed with the support given by Skoda Customer Service and always 

felt that they were working fully to support us as customer and impartial as far as possible.  It was a long journey since the water pump initially

went but I got the car back last night and heating is working fully as normal. Just in time for the cold snap!  My faith in Skoda has been renewed :-)

 

Just one more point of information for you all. Had our other car up for MOT at weekend and mentioned to the chap doing the MOT and he said he
had heard recently of a local garage (that does a lot of this sort of work) that there were a number of cases where some "pouch" had been left in the system during the

PVI and it eventually breaks down and clogs up the system.  Thankfully we don't have to  pursue the matter any further but thought it might be of

interest.  

 

Many thanks to all of you who assisted with our problem, it is very much appreciated! 

 

Aidan.