Mmmm, Cab Sav and a Slick50 chaser! Deelish!

I've always found that dealers of whatever make will always supply you with a courtesy car if you are prepared to book your service/warranty work well ahead. With regard to more serious warranty work ie something that needs sorting out immediately, I have reckon that it depends on how loud you shout! Copyright Volkswagen.

Turning this round ever so slightly, I had a very interesting conversation re: coil packs, with my local VW dealer the other day. They are really struggling to supply service loan cars as so many of their vehicles are being used by owners of 1.8T's still waiting for coil packs. The local Audi dealer (same group) are having to send people out in top spec A6s while a coil pack is being changed on a two year old A3.

Originally posted by KLB

I voted for "my" dealer (Langstone Motor Co.) because I found them so much more friendly and helpful than the other local dealer (White Dove) - which wasn't a Skoda dealer when I bought my car.The salesman at White Dove explained that they are ISO9660 certified (yeah, right... your procedures can be crap as long as they are well-documented crap) and insisted on taking us on the "standard" test-drive route. He wouldn't even let my wife sit in the front passenger seat; but did (reluctantly, it seemed to me...) drive the route again (my wife doesn't drive) with me sitting in the back and my wife in the front.

To be fair, the Octavia was well on top of the shortlist even before this, but it didn't endear me to White Dove at all...

I was interested to see these comments about White Dove from KLB - I was wondering what Langstone were like - they sound quite good. I bought my new vRS Estate from White Dove recently and found them to be pretty good - perhaps they have improved since KLB visited them. They have just opened their new Skoda showroom which is very flashy - they have a vRS hatch(yellow) and a vRS Estate (red) on show there. For my test drive I drove a black vRS hatch with wife and baby in the back and salesman in the front - he was quite helpful and basically let me drive how I wanted. I have been invited to their official opening next Tuesday evening - I thought I would go to see what freebies I could get and to see if they wanted any of the pictures I took at last year's Network Q rally for their nice new showroom - lots of muddy Octavia shots!

The only minor problem I've had with them is that I had a dodgy Octavia Manual - some pages missing - and they wouldn't send me a new one until I'd posted the old one back to them!

Rob.

P.S. Has anyone used the Hereford Skoda dealer - I'm failrly close to that one as well as Langstone & Cardiff.

Big thumbs up to Trinity Motors Smethwick nr Birmingham. Thats where my dads RS came from. Company car however and his company have bought 6 Felica vans, 2 RS and 2 Fabia's from there so no wonder. They get all the servicing too. The servicing manager is a good bloke:cheers:

I've bought my vRS and prevous SLX TDI estate from Sherlodge in Gillingham even though I live in Basingstoke and have a local dealer.

At Sherlodge we were given the car keys and were basically told "see you when you get back!". No salesman, no hassle.

We got to drive how we wanted ,where we wanted and for however long. The salesman, Paul Davies, was friendly and helpful.thumbup:

We got

I gave a positive vote to my local (to office) dealer H.L Austen, Wandsworth.

I haven't got my car yet (L&K TDi Estate), but so far they have been very helpful and struck an excellent deal. Again, for the test drive, the sales guy (Tony Crisp) gave me the keys to their demo TDi Estate and said "see you later"

It will be interesting to see how long term service stacks up - I currently have a Vectra CDX Estate and the service that I get from the dealer that I bought the car from is questionable!

I note that someone visited their dealer to have a coil pack changed in 10 minutes - for the same type of problem it would take my Vauxhall dealer the same time to book it in for 2 weeks time!!

I bought my current Octy back in 98 from Sherlodge, and have on order a Superb to replace it, also from Sherlodge. I also got the "take it out and come back when your ready, yes here are the keys, no we dont need your keys, just go for a run" treatment. I have to say it is absolutely wonderful to be able to go out and test drive a car without having to compromise because the salesman is sitting in the front, or even going with you.

I can not fault Sherlodge, and especially Barry in anyway shape or form.If I have had any probs (only a couple) they have been sorted promptly, efficiently and curtiously.

Dealing with them has been a breeze, leaving me feeling happy, welcome and trusting.

Shame really because if the guys at the local VW dealership had been even 10 % as nice as Sherlodge they might have had some custom from when I bought the Octy. But because they were arrogent, rude to my wife and kids, stuffy and generally stuck there own a**es they didnt , and wont ever again.

Shame for them, good fortune for Skoda, and Sherlodge.

I have noticed the pattern tho, with Skoda dealerships quite happy to just give you the keys and wish you a good test drive, makes you wonder why other dealers of different makes dont do similar, might make more sales.

Cheer guys.

Dealerships are the topic, hey...

hmmm well Le car Finchley, what can I say? My dad owns a Ocatvia vRS and I own a Rapid 136 Black, and while my dad can't moan about his Octavias treatment, i can moan about my rapid. We bought it off them for 200 quid on condition it passed MOT. It did and it was bought, but they MOT'd it with the garage down the road from them and i think they're in cahoots as two days after purchase theres fuel all over the floor and it appeared the Rapid had wet himself. Closer inspection showed that holes infuel lines shouldnt be covered with leccy tape. Now the batteries playin silly games and I'm more used to lookin through the rear window from bumpin it than I am sittin in the front drivin in it... They don't really know and its really down to me and the old man to sort it out. Maybe they dont want any pre Volkswagen-buyout cars dirtying up the forecourt? No, that'd be silly....

I too haven't had any problems with Skoda dealers! On buying my first Fabia the salesman at Saltdean Garage just let me and the family take it where we wanted to try it out! We were smitten from the start! We had a bit of trouble getting courtesy cars out of them for services, but that was probably my fault for leaving it too late! I also had a problem when a light came on on the dash and they said pop in and we'll check it, it turned out to be a brake light switch which they sorted whilst I was there!

The dealer at Sidcup wasn't too helpful when the power steering warning light came on whilst travelling up the M25, but it was a Saturday morning and they were a bit busy, but they did do a check on it and told us what the problem was. We were heading to Great Yarmouth and managed to get there OK, the steering was a bit heavy occasionally. Anyway whilst on holiday booked in at the Norwich Skoda dealer (can't remember the name) and they were good as well!

Since then have bought another Fabia from Saltdean Garage and they have looked after me really well. Get the servicing done at their sister garage QAS in Tunbridge Wells and they are good too. So all in all they have been really good to me!

I recommend Skodas to anyone who wants value for money.

STEVE / ANYONE

IS THERE A PROBLEM WITH MARLBOROUGH AS I'M THINKING

ABOUT BUYING A CAR OFF THEM TOMORROW ?!?

ie( "I can't slag them off enough")

I think you'd be alright buying a car off them - I've no

experience of them, but if it's the car you want at the price

you want I don't see how the dealer themselves could cause

too much of a problem! Maybe naivety on my part...

I've looked at their website before, and their servicing seems

expensive - London prices maybe?

Rob.

Originally posted by Fabpreza

STEVE / ANYONE

IS THERE A PROBLEM WITH MARLBOROUGH AS I'M THINKING

ABOUT BUYING A CAR OFF THEM TOMORROW ?!?

ie( "I can't slag them off enough")

Have you decided which one to go for?

Decisions, decisions!

Depends on how you look at it?

You can buy a duffer from any dealer.

The fabia i had off them leaked water. Which they fixed.

The TDi i bought had a twisted o/s/rear strut {well the didn;t really know but they wanted to replace that first and go on from there.Oh and the tyres and discs needed replacing.}

Fabpreza if your gettin the car on finance ,make SURE YOU CHECK ALL THE FIGURES ADD UP.

I got caught

Thanks for the advice guys. Steve:- I've been speaking with the sales manager - Trevor ?

Haven't decide yet which way I'm going to go

ie Fabia or Octavia Rs / 4x4, as we have two cars - one of which we might keep or sell both for a Tavia.

Will advise if I get my first Skoda !

Hello all,

New to the forum, just joined today, so it is a pleasure to say hello to everyone.

My local dealer Alex Larrie has been great to deal with, at least so far! They only opened about 7 months ago, I bought a Octavia L&K 1.9TDI hatch from them (new) and managed to haggle a thousand off the list price (after them telling me that they would knock anything off! They didn't think I would phone other dealers for a price! WRONG!) Anyway they ended up matching the best price I got with good humour and good will.

The car has surpassed my best hopes and I am very pleased I bought it. Fuel consumption great, all the toys I could ever want, and it looks smart. Then the wife got too fond of driving it instead of her old Micra, and as she started doing more miles than me it made sense for the diesel ecconomy etc. So I came up with a plan to get her a second hand diesel Fabia. Well that was one half of the plan! I realised that when in the showroom all those months ago, what I should have done was gone with my instincts and plumped for the vRS. So while going to the dealer under the guise of looking at a Fabia for her, I asked them what deal they would offer me if I bought a second hand Fabia, and a new vRS trading in my current Tavia and her Micra, a lot of haggling later, and contact with several other dealers telling me that they wouldn't match the offer, meant that the wife is driving round in a Fabia (51 plate) 1.9 Sdi, and I am taking collection of a new vRS on Friday

Sorry to go on, just wanted to share my tale with others who might appreciate it (the bottles of Stella help). Can't wait to get the RS and have a go, and here are some questions that I wonder if anyone might be able to help me with. What are all these problems with ignition packs that everyone is talking about? I am going to have a problem with it as soon as I get it? And does anyone know if you should allow the engine to 'run-in' before you wind the engine up to the red line? The salesman tells me that 'with these new engines you don't need to run them in'. But sounds like an expensive lesson to learn if he's wrong!

Damien

Congrat's on ya vRS.

I would run the car for the first 1000 miles up to 4k and then over the next 500 miles take it up slowly.

Read other threads about coil packs!

Steve

I can heartily recommend the team at Forward Motors in Luton, where my VRS came from. They have serviced it took it back a few times to look at various niggles.

Always courteous and pleasant with great service.

I also would recommend Graham Harvey the aftersales assistant manager, who is very thorough and knows his stuff.

10 out of 10!!!!!!!!!!!