I rang my local Skoda dealer asking if theu could sort out my heater/AC as they only work on setting 2 and 3 but not on I.

They said they would have to carry out a £99 diagnostic test to find the problem and take it from there.  I have told them the problem and they must surely know what's causing it.

An y thoughts gents ?  Thanks.

Welcome.

They need to earn there money somehow.

 

If the diagnosis takes 10 minutes then are they just going to charge you for the repair and waive the £99?  There are Main Dealers charging more than that now.

(Skoda fixed price servicing and maintenance had the first 30 minutes of a diagnosis at £60 last year at participating dealerships.)

 

The repair will not be cheap anyway.

Is there not an Independent VW specialist you can use rather than a main dealership?

 

 

Edited 15 May, 20233 yr by toot

59 minutes ago, Jonah107 said:

heater/AC as they only work on setting 2 and 3 but not on I.

Ok, do you want them to check exactly what the problem is, or just put a fan speed controller in the parts cannon and hope they've guessed right?

1 hour ago, Jonah107 said:

I rang my local Skoda dealer asking if theu could sort out my heater/AC as they only work on setting 2 and 3 but not on I.

They said they would have to carry out a £99 diagnostic test to find the problem and take it from there.  I have told them the problem and they must surely know what's causing it.

An y thoughts gents ?  Thanks.

Normally I am the first one to slate any and all dealerships but...

 

You cant have your cake and eat it. You either want them to simply supply and fit a part (if you knew what part it was) - no liability on them for a wrong diagnosis and your problem if it doesn't work. 

Or you want them to do a end to end process that carries a guarantee where they listen to your symptoms, carry out a proper diagnosis, find the fault, located the faulty part or whatever else and then replace it, test the system again, return the car to you.

 

You speak to someone and tell them your fan only works on settings 2 and 3, the person you speak  to generally has 0 technical knowledge and is just there to book you in, and even if they did, there are many possible causes however unlikely some may be. If they quote you for what they 'think' it may be, say, a fan resistor at £30 and an hour to fit so lets say £130 all in, and it actually turns out your heater resistor has melted the wiring loom and the heater box itself at a cost of £1000's, well then you are going to complain because you were told it was only £130. 

 

You aren't telling them the problem, you are telling them your problem, which is just the symptoms you experience, you then have to pay them to find the actual problem. Which is more than reasonable.

Why not spend say £30 and buy a code reader go online and post the code fault, there's loads of people out there willing to help as we are all in the same boat these days so little cash but some dealers ignore this and charge what they think they can get away with, ask around someone near might have a code reader and might help you out worth a try

Or you could do what I would do. Use the fan on settings 2 and 3 and forget about 1. Total cost, zilch.

40 minutes ago, ApertureS said:

Normally I am the first one to slate any and all dealerships but...

 

You cant have your cake and eat it. You either want them to simply supply and fit a part (if you knew what part it was) - no liability on them for a wrong diagnosis and your problem if it doesn't work. 

Or you want them to do a end to end process that carries a guarantee where they listen to your symptoms, carry out a proper diagnosis, find the fault, located the faulty part or whatever else and then replace it, test the system again, return the car to you.

 

You speak to someone and tell them your fan only works on settings 2 and 3, the person you speak  to generally has 0 technical knowledge and is just there to book you in, and even if they did, there are many possible causes however unlikely some may be. If they quote you for what they 'think' it may be, say, a fan resistor at £30 and an hour to fit so lets say £130 all in, and it actually turns out your heater resistor has melted the wiring loom and the heater box itself at a cost of £1000's, well then you are going to complain because you were told it was only £130. 

 

You aren't telling them the problem, you are telling them your problem, which is just the symptoms you experience, you then have to pay them to find the actual problem. Which is more than reasonable.

 

Point taken.  Thank you.

1 hour ago, KenONeill said:

Ok, do you want them to check exactly what the problem is, or just put a fan speed controller in the parts cannon and hope they've guessed right?

Got it.  Thanks.

7 minutes ago, Murdockman said:

Why not spend say £30 and buy a code reader go online and post the code fault, there's loads of people out there willing to help as we are all in the same boat these days so little cash but some dealers ignore this and charge what they think they can get away with, ask around someone near might have a code reader and might help you out worth a try

I think I know just the man.  Thanks.

1 hour ago, Murdockman said:

Why not spend say £30 and buy a code reader go online and post the code fault,

 

Because a £30 code reader will only give you generic OBDII codes relating to emissions or safety related items, ABS, Airbags etc, it will not be able to interrogate the HVAC controller and in any case the volt drops across the individual resistors in the array are not monitored so there would be no fault code to find even if it could access the controller.

13 hours ago, Murdockman said:

Why not spend say £30 and buy a code reader go online and post the code fault, there's loads of people out there willing to help as we are all in the same boat these days so little cash but some dealers ignore this and charge what they think they can get away with, ask around someone near might have a code reader and might help you out worth a try

What is a £30 code reader going to do in this situation to help?

Its not going to throw up fault B0111 - change the heater blow resistor or

B0112 - there is a burnt out wire on the heater fan connector.

 

A code reader is only as good as the person using it and a lot of systems and faults aren’t able to self diagnose let alone tell you what to replace.

the most you might get out of this is a short to positive blower motor code. Which doesn’t help with a huge amount without further diagnosis still.

 

the difference is you have a £30 code reader to recoup the cost on, they have £100,000s worth of tools,  building, staff and training to recoup the cost on

Edited 16 May, 20233 yr by ApertureS

Lets be honest here - that chances are this is simply the fan resistor pack that has burnt out - first speed 1 goes, then 2, then 3 leaving you with just 4.  It's a common, known, failure point.

 

I'm pretty mechanically minded so I'd fit one myself on a 10 year old car (in fact I did on our Fabia Mk 1) and see if that fixed it - or if I wasn't I'd be asking a small local garage, or a mate who is, to fit one for me for a few quid.

Edited 16 May, 20233 yr by skomaz

1 hour ago, skomaz said:

chances are this is simply the fan resistor pack that has burnt out

Absolutely, but not always...

1 hour ago, KenONeill said:

Absolutely, but not always...

 

Indeed - but it's a high probability...   and given the low cost of a new fan resistor is, in my opinion, potentially the cheapest option and worth a shot before doing anything else.

 

As I said - my opinion and high probability...   but it's the OP's choice.

OP, you have three choices:

 

Pay the £99 to get a huge quote from the dealer.

 

Take it to an independent specialist.

 

Fix it yourself.