Air-conditioning gas.

[Postiepat]

Contacted by nearest main dealer (live in mid Wales for my sins now) 50 miles away where last serviced AND Hampshire dealer I bought car from that air -con gas needed replacing as car two years old. Never happened with previous Skodas l've had. Queried message, booked car in and drove to Furrows at Oswestry to be told " sorry but your car doesn't need re-gassing"! Three and a half hours and fuel wasted.
Anyone else suffered this Skoda UK incompetence?

[SurreyJohn]

6 hours ago, Postiepat said:

Contacted by nearest main dealer (live in mid Wales for my sins now) 50 miles away where last serviced AND Hampshire dealer I bought car from that air -con gas needed replacing as car two years old. Never happened with previous Skodas l've had. Queried message, booked car in and drove to Furrows at Oswestry to be told " sorry but your car doesn't need re-gassing"! Three and a half hours and fuel wasted.
Anyone else suffered this Skoda UK incompetence?

Where did the message come from, sounds a bit of a scam

 

Although carmakers changed refrigerant type few years ago (due to some slick lobbying by gas maker of lawmakers), a car where air con is left on all the time doesn’t normally need regassing, plenty of owners of cars 7-10 years where it is still working fine on original gas.

 

However, a warning, if you turn it off for long periods, expect problems as seals can dry out.  A regas is lot more money than any marginal fuel saving from turning off.

 

 

Edited 21 February, 2020 by SurreyJohn
Bad grammar corrected

[Breezy_Pete]

This sort of thing seems to be coming up quite regularly on here; so I suspect the answer is basically "yes, lots of people are being upsold things like this unnecessarily by car dealerships".

This is only likely to get worse in my opinion, as there's a culture-shift in society these days towards feeling a need to constantly renew.  Car industry obviously loves this.

Edited 21 February, 2020 by Wino

[KenONeill]

The critical question here is "who feels the need to do this sort of thing?" There are mobile a/c services who will check, and if required refill, your automotive a/c at your home or work, and charge less than a $marque main stealer for doing so!

[Apprentice]

As usual not cheap from the Skoda main dealer, see maintenance prices:  current air con service price is £139.00 and an air-con cleanse is £29.00

 

https://www.skoda.co.uk/owners/servicing-maintenance-fixed-price

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-IRep7PGBY

Edited 21 February, 2020 by Apprentice
another link added

[BoxerBoy]

19 hours ago, Postiepat said:

Contacted by nearest main dealer (live in mid Wales for my sins now) 50 miles away where last serviced AND Hampshire dealer I bought car from that air -con gas needed replacing as car two years old. Never happened with previous Skodas l've had. Queried message, booked car in and drove to Furrows at Oswestry to be told " sorry but your car doesn't need re-gassing"! Three and a half hours and fuel wasted.
Anyone else suffered this Skoda UK incompetence?

they had you sussed.

 

Are you over 21?

 

Does yer mum know you’re out.

 

Sorry if that sounds cruel, but who’d fall for such dealer bull**** in the 21st century?

[FirstAndLastSkoda]

Bit unnecessary.

 

It's only through experience and being fannied about that you  soon learn what your vehicle needs doing and what is dealer upselling BS.

 

If you make a mistake and learn from it, that's experience.

If you continue to make the same mistake, that stupidity.

 

I made the schoolboy error of believing the hype about how good Skoda and it's dealers are.

The experience I gained from that is to never buy one of their vehicles again.

[bigjohn]

For balance I've only had a good experience with service of my 2014 Skoda Superb by local dealer - DM Keith Hull

[Guest]

3 hours ago, BoxerBoy said:

they had you sussed.

 

Are you over 21?

 

Does yer mum know you’re out.

 

Sorry if that sounds cruel, but who’d fall for such dealer bull**** in the 21st century?

 

I sometimes can't believe how gullible some people are but if you read the OP's question more carefully, you'll see that TWO seperate dealerships called to say the car required the gas replacing.  If I didn't spend time reading the various publications, I to would have have believed what the dealer had said and done exactly what the OP did.  I think your comment is harsh.

 

Where I believe the OP is wrong is he/she says garages called, but then blames Skoda UK incompetence. Where does Skoda UK say it recommends an aircon recharge at 2yr old? Your issue is with your incompetent dealership, not Skoda UK.

 

If that had been me and I'd travelled 100 miles round trip on the advice of a garage only then to be told that advice was wrong, I'd have demanded to see the dealer principal and receive some goodwill in the way a discount voucher for your next service . I still would ! 

[wharferat]

Whenever I've had my car serviced & they suggest my AC needs re-gassing as it loses gas, my response usually goes along the lines of, "Do you get someone in to re-gas your home refrigerator & freezer every couple of years or so because they lose gas?". That is usually enough to stop them pushing that extra service expense. If they persist I point out that amongst other things, I work with refrigeration systems & they are spouting a load of bull5h*t.

[Kenny R]

Home fridges and freezers are completely different systems to what is in a car. 

Fridges have a hermetically sealed system that’s why they don’t leak. Automotive systems are different and have an open compressor, and it’s well documented that they can loose around 10% of their gas annually through leaks from o ring seals in the system, compressor shaft seals, and permeating from flexible hoses. But being a refrigeration engineer you will know all this.

Edited 22 February, 2020 by Kenny R

[KenONeill]

On 22/02/2020 at 08:43, Kenny R said:

loose around 10% of their gas annually through leaks from o ring seals in the system, compressor shaft seals, and permeating from flexible hoses

Less, if you have and use a system like Climatronic where the AC is permanently "on"; I still had enough gas in mine to chill after 8 years with no service.

[Sanqhar]

I always run with the aircon permanently on.  In the summer it's cool, in the winter it aids demisting as well as keeping the seals good.

 

tom 

[Lyminton]

On 21/02/2020 at 00:36, Postiepat said:

Contacted by nearest main dealer (live in mid Wales for my sins now) 50 miles away where last serviced AND Hampshire dealer I bought car from that air -con gas needed replacing as car two years old. Never happened with previous Skodas l've had. Queried message, booked car in and drove to Furrows at Oswestry to be told " sorry but your car doesn't need re-gassing"! Three and a half hours and fuel wasted.
Anyone else suffered this Skoda UK incompetence?

Did they say regassing or just aircon service like cleaning etc? Aircon working perfectly fine you will notice it's efficiency drops with years. System do leak and it's made to work within certain pressure bracket. It also needs oil. I'm sure that if you don't change oil for 40k miles your engine might still run but is it the reason not to change it every 10k? 

[Tilt]

On 21/02/2020 at 23:14, FirstAndLastSkoda said:

I made the schoolboy error of believing the hype about how good Skoda and it's dealers are.

The experience I gained from that is to never buy one of their vehicles again.

 

To be fair, there's good and bad cars everywhere.....and good and bad garages / dealerships.

I personally wouldn't write off all Skoda's just because I'd had a bad experience with one of their cars... (no mention of what you have in your sig).

 

If you have had a new Skoda and badly let down with both it and the service Skoda provided, then fair enough maybe...

I don't really sing their praises, but I have had my 2nd hand ex lease Octavia for nine years now and still (fingers crossed) going fine. (bloody noisy PD engine tho, Lol).

 

I cannot believe the Op went along with his scenario tho.

[FabFabFabia]

In the winter I use my Karoq 1.5 PSI DSG air conditioning about once every few months - is this not good practice? Instead, should I have it on all the time? But would this prevent the cabin from getting warm enough? I never use the Climatronic as I like to manually control cabin temperature. And I used Carista to change the aircon setting to "adjust for hot countries" as the car was not quite getting cold enough on hot days.

[KenONeill]

7 minutes ago, FabFabFabia said:

I never use the Climatronic as I like to manually control cabin temperature.

Which you can do, by setting the demand temperature. Once you've done this, the CC will blend hot and cold air as required/available to achieve and maintain the demand temperature. Having set my preferred demand temperature, I hardly ever have to touch the CC controls.

[FabFabFabia]

45 minutes ago, KenONeill said:

Which you can do, by setting the demand temperature. Once you've done this, the CC will blend hot and cold air as required/available to achieve and maintain the demand temperature. Having set my preferred demand temperature, I hardly ever have to touch the CC controls.

On a cold morning I dial the temperature up to Max and then when the engine is warm I open the footwell vent. As I get warmer I turn the temperature dial down to about 21. I did try the Climatronic once and it started to blow air through as soon as I started the engine which is not what I wanted. Did I use it incorrectly? If, say, I set the Climatronic to 21 would it start to blow cold air as soon as I turned the engine on? And what happens when my wife is too warm/cool and manually adjusts her side of the cabin temperature?

[Ootohere]

Turning the Temp Dial to Max is a good way of making sure Stop / Start is not operational on a cold morning without having to use the Off switch..

 

[SurreyJohn]

4 minutes ago, FabFabFabia said:

On a cold morning I dial the temperature up to Max and then when the engine is warm I open the footwell vent. As I get warmer I turn the temperature dial down to about 21. I did try the Climatronic once and it started to blow air through as soon as I started the engine which is not what I wanted. Did I use it incorrectly? If, say, I set the Climatronic to 21 would it start to blow cold air as soon as I turned the engine on? And what happens when my wife is too warm/cool and manually adjusts her side of the cabin temperature?

 

Are you using a manual fan speed, rather than leaving it in auto

On auto, it should keep the fan low on engine switch on, and only ramp it up about 20-30 seconds later when the compressor has had time to start

 

If you have dual then each side has its own vents (although if you have middle dashboard vents not angled towards each person, tend to get messy blend in middle)

[Kenny R]

11 minutes ago, FabFabFabia said:

On a cold morning I dial the temperature up to Max and then when the engine is warm I open the footwell vent. As I get warmer I turn the temperature dial down to about 21. I did try the Climatronic once and it started to blow air through as soon as I started the engine which is not what I wanted. Did I use it incorrectly? If, say, I set the Climatronic to 21 would it start to blow cold air as soon as I turned the engine on? And what happens when my wife is too warm/cool and manually adjusts her side of the cabin temperature?

Just set to dual control, set your side to 21° ( mine is set to 19° ) and your wife’s to whatever she wants. Select auto and ac on and leave 24/7 365 as I have for the past 15 years or so that I’ve had a car with climate

The only time you need to alter anything is to press the demist button on a cold morning, then back to auto, but with my previous Yeti and current Kodiaq having the heated windscreen I don’t even need to do that.

 

 

[FabFabFabia]

14 minutes ago, Roottootemblowinootsoot said:

Turning the Temp Dial to Max is a good way of making sure Stop / Start is not operational on a cold morning without having to use the Off switch..

 

The first thing I do when I start the car is deactivate the Stop/Start system.

[Ootohere]

Doubled down then, with the Interiors temp set 16*oC difference or more than the ambient temp.