BHPians might only be shocked to read this coming from my fingertips, but yes I have to accept that the prices mentioned aren’t incorrect nor goofed up to exploit or fleece the customer!
Being the curious cat that I am, I was following this thread from the time it went live and also started my own way of fact-finding in such situations.
In-fact with the whole history that I have with Skoda India, Now, I even have some friends there too, who I can trust and believe for what they say or recommend, again it might amuse a few folks but that’s the truth.
So using such sources I started my own little investigation of what’s happening.
What I have to agree is that Yes, the cost for flushing is quite high and I feel Skoda as an OEM should do something about this to get the costs down (this is my personal opinion, technical and chemical experts might disagree as they might feel the cost such chemicals or technical process to be correct) But what is being charged to customers at the current situation is more or less on the similar pricing that has been charged to Prajnya.
So with PPS being a new Dealer in Bangalore and being the one accused of overcharging, also since I have little or no contacts with them, my resort was to check with the other dealer in Bangalore for their practices and pricing in such instances that have occurred to Prajnya’s car.
The following are my findings from 2 days of understanding the process during such instances and it's my personal take after the small investigation that I could carry out with the time permitted during my schedule
First thing that I would like to keep transparent is the process that a car has to go through for flushing.
- The car is drained of coolant considering that either current coolant in the system is a non-genuine coolant or coolant having some scaling or deposits visible in the tank or if the coolant is mixed with water.
- The coolant system is completely filled the flushing solution (which previously was a concentrate and currently supplied as a ready-to-use solution) and the car is run for about 90 minutes or so.
- The coolant system is next filled with a neutralizer solution and the car is run for about 20-25 minutes.
The above process is carried out so as to de-scale the whole system and also ensure any foreign particles are removed from the system so as to not cause any damage to the car - The car is again filled with new coolant and checked for any issues.
Next thing that I would like to clarify is the pricing of two particular solutions/liquids/chemicals that is used for flushing which is primarily the cause for such high costs incurred during flushing.
- ‘Clean Sol’ which in other words is the flushing solution used in 1st of 2 steps of flushing is priced at INR. 4099.03 as per the MRP label printed across the bottle, this particular solution is filled in the complete coolant system and run for 90 minutes.
- ‘Clean Set’ which in other words is the neutralizing solution used 2nd of 2 steps of flushing is priced at INR. 4986.02 as per the MRP label printed across the bottle, this particular solution is filled in the coolant system and run for 20-25 minutes.
What now is to be looked at is quite something which was an eye-opener for me as well,
Once I understood the process, I wanted to see if all cars which needed coolant flushing was undergoing the same process irrespective of if the car was under warranty or out of warranty was the same and were all customers whose cars were out of warranty were being charged the same, so I requested the folks who I knew to show me some more invoices from older dates to confirm the pricing.
What came to my notice is that:
- The cars which were under warranty were also billed for the same quantity of solutions/liquids/chemicals but as per warranty policies, these cars were billed at INR. 0 value.
- The cars which were out warranty were also billed for the same quantity of solutions/liquids/chemicals but since these cars were chargeable for these services, most of them were adding up-to similar values of what Prajnya’s car was billed.
To summarize my investigation for fact-finding is: The process carried out on Prajnya’s car is more or less a standard practice across the Skoda dealers which is also what Skoda has trained their dealers to do during such instances, yes the cost when compared with other car companies is relatively high but until and unless whole VAG group can do something about bringing down the cost this will remain standard pricing across all Skoda dealers.
All that I can now say is since the cost of this chemical is out in public, one can please verify if the same chemical is priced at the same price across other VAG brands present in India such as VW & Audi.
But hats off to the other dealer who supported me for this fact-finding and also being transparent enough to allow me to look at such bills, prices mentioned across the bottles and also giving me confidence that Skoda is improving under the able process, steps and standards set by Zac Hollis for Skoda in India.
Hope to see maintenance costs being affordable under the Skoda 2.0 plan.
P.S: The attached pictures contain a reference invoice and pictures of the coolant flushing solution and the neutralizer solution used.