Skoda reviews and complaints

At the outset, I express my sincere confidence in your pedestal to take my call further alongwith with several fellow sufferers collectively under the “United by Skoda” cause, started recently. The opinions of Skoda customers across the country indicate that Skoda probably has highest number of complaints – production, quality, spares, service, repairs, faulty replacements, fake parts, car-withholding etc. amongst its counterparts. As probably a confirmation, “United by Skoda” has found a base of over 900 documented complaints, communication with 310 Complainants with over 65 committed individuals & 4 legal suite references across different cities, probably largest for any automobile company in India; which have been simply suppressed even as customers have been crying hoarse.

A glance at Customers’ Correspondence at forums like http://www.consumercomplaints.in/?search=skoda repeats that Skoda shows little mercy towards addressing their basic value proposition rights against its unfair business practices. Most voice that Skoda seems hands-in-gloves with its Dealerships & Authorized Workshops with a free-hand to exploit customers and fleece them mercilessly. These voices also cumulatively translate into a staggering Multi-Crore Figure of ambiguities dished out to both complaining & silent customers alike across our country. To cite an instance of a highly surprising discovery, an email from Skoda itself states that though it cancelled a particular dealership on x date, its public notice was put after complete 1 month. Can’t believe that Skoda was actually waiting for its customers to suffer and be fooled in this period?

Hence after duly losing my money, peace, self-respect and worth with Skoda, I want to raise some concerns with Skoda via your esteemed pedestal. Skoda may try to oppress a single voice but I am sure that the impactful voice of public at large will receive the deserved focus on the aspects queried as follows:-

SKODA AS A BUY:

· Lowest availability of spares, which are priced unbelievably high anyways. This usually results in cars being lying unattended in workshops for months, and there have been instances when fake parts have been deployed by Skoda ASCs themselves.
· Recurrent production faults & short-lived sensors, with tiring discovery procedure and highly expensive replacement cost. For example, Skoda’s Air-Conditioning is highly unreliable with frequent failures in almost every 1 amongst 3 cars.
· Severely high-priced and under-delivered, and ultimately comes to cost higher than its much better competitors due to high maintenance, low reliability, frequent repairs and costly replacements.
· Choice of worst Authorized Workshops & Dealers due to their prospective compliance with companies opaque terms & policies. The company makes no intervention over its highly variable ASC’s conduct, operations & even billing; leave aside an audit or standardization control.
· Most oppressive customer-handling, with several instances when car has been held hostage for years; as a proof of which over 7 Consumer Court Cases are in visible across country apart from several unknown ones.

MAINTENANCE & REPAIRS STRATEGY:

· Initially, commit a small amount for overall well-being of a car, then take it hostage and alongside inflate the estimate doubly.
· If the owner agrees, his perfectly working parts are taken out and replaced unnecessarily, thus fleecing him of much more amount than informed.
· If the owner objects, he is threatened that there won’t be any assurance of car’s performance if the said parts are not replaced now.
· If the owner temporarily delays the matter, they create a small fault in the car and return it. After a few days the said fault is aggravated and the owner has to return to the workshop.
· Cosmetic damages are intentionally done during the repairs so that the car has to return to them once again, lest it is needed for any cover-ups.
· In short, it’s a win-win situation for Skoda Centers any which way, which seems to be educated as a Code of Conduct to its highly unethical Dealerships and Authorized Centers as well.

QUESTIONS AT LARGE:

· Is Skoda offloading their international stock of poor-quality automobiles in India
· Is Skoda essentially propagated the agenda of unbelievably expensive spares to encourage Grey-Market
· Is Skoda intentionally maintained a low-availability of spares to push Customers in purchasing them
· Is Skoda chosen worst agencies as their Authorized Service Agencies in India due to low running costs
· Is Skoda actually following the policy of fleecing us due to low awareness and customer rights in India
· Is Skoda using the Time-Limitation, Giving-Up & Mute-Protest of its customers to its advantage
· Why should one buy a Skoda when he would end up paying much more than a Mercedes or BMW or Toyota or other Auto-Co. product, courtesy the joint cost factor of time, money, convenience & brand image.

The mentioned matter is based on common experiences of us several customers, because it would not be practical for us to expect you to go through each of our individual correspondence and experience details with Skoda. As an aggrieved customer, I believe that your platform would help us put these questions to the appropriate levels.

Skoda Customer Care is the worst I have ever come across, they do not care at all about Customers