Small claims sounds good, although it depends on if you think it worth the bother, Jon...

Some info about small claims on:

http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/

PDF About the "Small Claims Track"-

http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/cms/media/ex307.pdf

The advice is sound and worth pursuing if you can be asked with the hassle. Also, as stated above it would be a test case for others who may follow.

It comes as some surprise to me that the reason given is that the block, rods and pistons are only rated to 200BHP :eek: and therefore anything over that is a beyond tolerances. I pointed out a couple of points on this, the main one being that as standard the RS appears to be coming with 185 to 195 as standard. The limit then miraculously raised to 220 when the lack of margin was pointed out

Isn't the engine in the audi TT the same engine as the vRS but with a bigger turbo? Doesn't that run at 225BHP?

Does that engine have 'beefier' rods and pistons etc.?

Isn't the engine in the audi TT the same engine as the vRS but with a bigger turbo? Doesn't that run at 225BHP?

Does that engine have 'beefier' rods and pistons etc.?

Bearing in mind that their "limit" miraculously rose by 20Bhp when Jon pointed out that their standard engines usually produce more power than they quote, I'd take this 220Bhp figure with a shovel full of salt.

They're ducking out of fitting a new engine, plain & simple.

If the mods weren't declared and the garage investigated the failure normally, I wonder if they'd interogate the ECU and find a chip?

Especially if the failure was mechanical like this one tather than a missfire or some other performance type complaint.

It's all academic for John now of course, but I bet one another one of us will be faced with the same problem soon.

Sorry to hear about this Jon, but pleased to hear that a new engine for a Skud (an S3 one at that ) is a darn sight cheaper than an Impreza engine.

Steve

I wonder how many people on this site have been f***ed over by Skoda UK and it's Dealers?

Steve

Skoda UK != Dealers.

Sticking up a bit here for the middle folk, they need to know all the bad points about dealers as well as the plus points.

As to going forth and multiplying, it's not an uncommon experince from dealers, of any marque. Had to pay for a new clutch after only a few hundred miles on a BX from a Honda dealer, only for hte problem to be a well known problem with a 2bob bit of metal, untill the claims in court were talked about I was gettng nowhere, they had emptied there skip at this point

Modding is not always a percived danger, however it does give the compaines the option to turn down a request, much like insurance, if you forgot to tell them you had a chip in the first place. I feel for Jon and of course ponder my own choices; it's the age old issue of buy a cost effective motor and tune it, or pay for an S4...same with overclocking PC's, till you burn a core you think it's all fun, then you see 200 quid melt, you don't go as far again next time; least not without an extra fan

Dealers on the whole are getting better or worse, who knows. I do know the local Citroen man of # years knew more than the whole franchise put together, which is why he continued to service most of the areas 3+ year old cars.

Of course as pointed out diagnostics plays a large part now, so Skoda UK can force DEalers to pay large sums, so Dealers are then piggy in the middle, sadly they forget that we are not obilged to be there customer, we do them that favour.

Sorry for the hijack Jon, I konw your dealer is a good chap, thats the key, find the good ones, plenty about even if it's a few hours away, least you know you getting a quality team. If I have not mentioned it by now, reviews is up with dealer in regional format...havea look and leave a thought please.

I know for a fact Skoda and it's Technical team check this site , when i mentioned the Speedo reset scam to Skoda UK they had a Area Technical Manager on here trying to find information, and they were very unhappy to find out some of us new how to reset the clocks.

When you buy a car and have problems-Jon and the 100,000 RS

or my New Superb why do the Dealers/manufactures do everything they can to slip out of it?

IS IT BECAUSE THEY ALREADY HAVE YOUR MONEY?

Obviously.

I have damage on the underside of my car that was done on a transporter,and do you know what HL Austin said...... Your wife done it.

I had greasy hand prints all over the head lining which they made worse by steam cleaning it.

Ive been told by a Skoda Area Technical Manager that the car should NOT have been sold to me in this state.

DO YOU THINK HE WOULD PUT IT IN WRITING THOUGH.

Ofcourse not.

So after loosing three and a half day's off work{self employed} they've agreed to sort the damage underneath and replace the head lining.

HL Austin -very unhelpful throughout the whole of this.......Quite rude and unprofessional

Skoda Tech Manager- makes light of the damage and turns a 24inch scrape in the bodywork into 50mm....................

A MASSIVE Thank You to NIKKI at Skoda customer services ,

She sent my Wife flowers and was nothing but helpful throughout the whole thing.

Make it known on this site if you have problems......after all you might stop someone else going through the same crap.

Steve

Sorry for the hijack Jon.

P.S If buying a new car from HL Austin insist on putting it on a ramp before signing for the car.

I wonder how many people on this site have been f***ed over by Skoda UK and it's Dealers?

Steve

Me, and i'm sick to death of the pathetic excuses they give for what is a straight forward fault with your car. I find it quite insulting at times when dealers give out verbal diarrhoea as a way of avoiding their responsibilities ie:

It's not an oil leak it's just misting but we wiped it clean for you sir, well it's misting all over the drive then you idiots.

The car is supposed to pull to the left sir but we can offer you a wheel alignment service for

Des that's fair enough with misc. faults like those - it annoys me too. I've got a drivers window with a mind of its own which they cant fix as they 'all do it' but I think reading this thread that a lot of people need a reality check...

You guys know the risks when you mod your car... if you dont then you should think about it; you cant seriously expect to mod your engine away from std factory settings and then expect Skoda to honour the warranty when something innevitably goes wrong? It aint gonna happen! Like Jon says it's no great surprise its not covered - it was worth a shot but they said no! You will be on a hiding to nothing going to a small claims court (unless you blatently lie to the court).

:santa:

Me, and i'm sick to death of the pathetic excuses they give for what is a straight forward fault with your car. I find it quite insulting at times when dealers give out verbal diarrhoea as a way of avoiding their responsibilities ie:

It's not an oil leak it's just misting but we whipped it clean for you sir, well it's misting all over the drive then you idiots.

The car is supposed to pull to the left sir but we can offer you a wheel alignment service for

Was that Sherlodge Des?

Can't say but i'll straighten my Wig more.

Des

Steve

HL Austin -very unhelpful throughout the whole of this.......Quite rude and unprofessional

Was going to use these as they are just the other side of the bridge to where I work. Think I have now just been pursuaded to do my own servicing. Just means the book will be Toyota stamped, not Skoda stamped. Still main dealer though!

Whilst I sympathise here, and with those who have bad experiences of dealers, the problem really is that servicing nowadays is all done in-direct, and that applies to nearly everything you buy.

This means the manufacturer can control the terms and conditions of claims made, and basically can reduce the loss that every customer service set suffers.

By using in-direct service, they will argue against the dealer on some of the claims made by the dealer which will result in non payment of that claim.

Now I am not saying all dealers are innocent parties, as obviously they arent, but sometimes we are a bit quick to jump up in anger against them.

Personally if a service organisation does me wrong then I will not re-use them.

I will also let their customer service manager aware of this, and anyone else who will care to listen....the money is mine and I will spend it where I choose.

I agree that some charges made by some dealers are well over the top, but then we dont complain when they "overlook" non-obvious mods when we ask them for warrenty work/servicing.

We all know the consequences of modding our motors...its just that we do it in hope that nothing comes of it.

Now dont get me wrong and jump down my throat (anyway you wont all fit), I am NOT saying dealers are angels and total innocents, but sometimes we have to balance what we want with what they need to do/charge to stay in buisiness.

If your dealer does you wrong or you feel agreived then name them so that we can all avoid them and so deprive them of custom, which at the end of the day is what keeps them afloat.

Cheers, sorry to go on.

I bought my ex furbie from Clock Garage Of Derby and i would never go near them again :mircowave:

consider them named and shamed

Not a great deal more to add to this thread other than to say I agree with all the above.

Would I buy another Skoda? Well the car is good when it doesn't have problems, but the customer service in solving problems has not been very good IMHO. Maybe because I bought the car elsewhere and the local dealers aren't interested in dealing with the warranty - who knows.

As it is I am waiting for customer services to phone me so we will see. :yinyan:

My motto is 'find a good dealer and stick with it'

The trouble is that many then lose their franchises. Over the years, I've had this with Mazda, Toyota and Subaru. My favourite Subaru dealer is 50 minutes away and I'd still use them again over 3 other nearer ones (if I ever got another Subaru) for a) Value; b)Experience; c) Genuine customer care*

(*Genuine Customer care is different from faux customer care where the condition of the waiting room and coffee is deemed more important than knowing what they're doing and letting you know what they are doing)

Rob

(*Genuine Customer care is different from faux customer care where the condition of the waiting room and coffee is deemed more important than knowing what they're doing and letting you know what they are doing)

Rob

Agree with you there Rob. Some dealerships seem to think that offering you a nasty cup of coffee makes up for sh!tty service and lots of inconvenience.

With my current local dealer, you dont get any frills and dont need them as the service is always spot on.

Only picked up on this thread today as my PC has been playing up, but in the original posting it was stated;

"........ The mechanics said they have never seen one go like that before, they usually either buckle or split width ways......"

Does this mean that con rod failure a common occurence in vRS's:shocked:

I'm booked in for a Jabba session next month and I'm starting to get a bit worried about it!

I will be trying to find out more about a similar conrod/crank failure in Holland - also on a close-to-250bhp RS with the same mods as Jon's, so FMIC, exhaust, CAI, aggressive custom remap with top-end emphasis.

Must still be hearing from the owner himself, so it would only be fair to wait for that, but meanwhile here are some comments from a respectable fellow tuner:

"Conrod/crank failure can certainly be caused by knock - and thus through going too far with the engine management - as is indeed the most common cause of Scooby engine failures.

Injectors on the 180hp engine are already close to their maximum, so I'd advise anyone topping 210hp to change the intercooler, turbo and injectors, or at least increase the fuel pressure."

So is he talking sense?

I'm booked in for a Jabba session next month and I'm starting to get a bit worried about it!

For a start, don't worry. Enough as been said about Jabba and all of it good.

What I will say though is to ask for a conservative remap when you go in.

If you work on the basis that all VAG engines have some 'room for manouvere' in terms of extra power, my view is the more you push to get the last bhp out of it, the risk becomes out of proportion to what you will gain.

Leave some safety margin in and be happy with 180bhp rather than 190bhp.

I asked for exactly this approach on my 1.8T engine (220bhp) and hope it pays off in the long run.

Rob

Alternatively,

Don't use the power when you don't really need too (Traffic Light GP's etc)

Let the engine warm up before taking it over say, 3500 revs, be religious about Oil & Coolant checks, etc etc etc.

Or if you can't exercise a bit of self control, fit the Jabba boost controller and run it at "normal" levels and save full power for special occasions.

To be honest, now the novelty has worn off i find myself driving the car "Normally" and only booting it for back-roads overtaking and such like.

And i still think Jon's incident is an exception rather than being the rule. There's plenty of other modded 1.8T's out there still going strong

I'm booked in for a Jabba session next month and I'm starting to get a bit worried about it!

Dont worry about it, Jon's car has been treated very differently to everyone on here. His remap was very different to what jabba normally do, and dont forget Jon's had in excess of 120k miles on the engine including quiet a lot of track use. His engine has been chipped in some form almost from new, until july he was running 220'ish and had been for 100k miles.

Isn't the engine in the audi TT the same engine as the vRS but with a bigger turbo? Doesn't that run at 225BHP?

Does that engine have 'beefier' rods and pistons etc.?

Nope.. Later 225 motors are spindlier rods... and smaller small ends. :mad2:

Remembering my little 156bhp 20VT motor is running 350bhp from its stock bottom end on 21psi boost.

200bhp limited - wot a laugh... Fob off time for real.

Bill