Hey guys! I'm looking for some advice and help.

The other day I went in to the official dealer for a first gearbox oil change (185 000 km, 5-speed manual transmission). I had to wait 4.5 hours for the car to be done. Plus, they only put labour cost on the bill and then called me 15 mins after I left to tell me they' forgot to put the oil and the bill and that they will email me the bill for the oil and to wire them the money and send them a proof of payment.

 

Anyway, I downloaded quite a lot of procedures from skoda erwin pages. There it's written explicitly (and on a couple of briskoda posts) that the gearbox is not leveled and it can not be filled through the fill plug, and it needs to be filled through the reverse light switch hole. I know that in order to do that you need to take the air filter box off. So I decided to put some marks before going to the dealer to see if they'll do that. After I got home and checked, nothing under the hood has been touched at all.

 

Plus, on the bill they send me via email, it only says "218297120 gearbox oil", no VW/Skoda genuine oil, no oil specification or anything. So I email them back to tell me which oil they put in. No response.

 

I call the dealer 2 days later, he says that there is no specification, and that it's a genuine VW oil. He also says the correct procedure is filling through the fill hole and that they are working according to the official VW manual, despite me arguing that's not the correct procedure that's on erwin.

 

What do you think I should do? I really don't want to pay someone else to drain the oil again and measure how much is in there... Can I contact Skoda somehow and ask for their advice? What are the consequences of driving with a small amount of oil missing in the gearbox?

Well the number 218297120 could be the Skoda part number but there should be a quantity.

Did it have other work done or just a gearbox oil change? Have you used them before.

I don't know the procedure where you are but if they are not your usual garage I would not be  paying for it unless they can prove they did it,

Over here it would be a civil matter and the worst they could do is take you to court for the cost of the oil.

Any decent garage would accept they made a mistake by not charging you for inexpensive oil and stand to the cost.

 

I used them a couple of years ago for regular oil changes and actually I bought my car there 13 years ago. But for the last few years I didn't go there, they do still have my data tho.

It was just a gearbox oil change. They didn't show me any proof of work done. I do notice that the shifting is a bit smoother, so I'm pretty sure they did change the oil, just not the right quantity cause they used the wrong method. On the bill it says they used 2 liters. According to erwin data, the gearbox capacity is 1.9 liters but you can only drain out 1.7 if you're not taking it apart, so you refill it with 1.7 liters.

I think I'm going to ask another dealership how they would do it, and if they tell me the correct method is through the reverse light switch hole, I'll pay them to replace the oil and demand the refund from the first dealership that did it wrongly.

The 2 litres bill is most likely down to VW selling it in 1 litre bottles, so having to purchase two to fill the gearbox (I know it was the same with my car when the local mechanic did it)