My Skoda Kushaq at 2 years: Positive service experience & other updates

My vehicle has been performing flawlessly so far and I am really enjoying the ownership.

BHPian KharbandaKartik recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I want to share my bit of experience with Å koda's after-sales service. Before I purchased my car, I had heard a lot of bad things about VW/Å koda, starting from the unreliable injectors, gearbox breakdowns, non-availability of parts, higher cost of maintenance and whatnot! Took a leap of faith and brought home a Kushaq in August 2021.

I was waiting to share my experience with you all since the first service, but I thought I should be giving it more time (more workshop visits), so that whatever I share is more concrete. My experience is only limited tothe Å koda dealership in Noida.

To start with, my experience so far with Å koda has been good. During my recent service visit, the team stayed at the workshop till 8:00 PM, so that they could deliver my car the same day. Booking the service is easy - you can either call them up directly or book an appointment through the website. I always run through the Å koda service calculator before the visit, so I have an idea about what all has to be done. The team is cordial and they let me stay with the car during the service and I make sure each and every thing happens in front of me. Can't have it any other way.

Positives:

• Team is responsive towards any problems being pointed out
• No unnecessary add-ons to the service bill
• Customer friendly

Negatives:

• Time taking service process
• For problems which aren't common, don't expect a quick resolution
• The load on the service centres has gone up, and their service centres aren't really capable of attending to a lot of vehicles in a day
• Some spare parts can be expensive

Before buying the vehicle, I had gone through the prices of spares, just to have an idea of what I was getting into, the prices at that time seemed reasonable to me but recently the prices have gone up quite quickly, for example, the brake pads change is now 4.5k which was around 3k initially. The brake pads for the bigger discs (1.5 TSI) are 7.5 K. These pads are being manufactured in India by TVS. I have come to realise that the spares are going to be definitely more expensive than the rivals.

The service manual skips on a lot of important information, there's no mention of cleaning/service of brakes, throttle body cleaning, transmission oil replacement, coolant replacement, etc and I don't understand what they mean when they say "lifetime coolant". I strongly feel most of the service centres do their best to serve a customer, the problems which a customer may face, is also a lot of times because of the manufacturer itself, the manufacturers are supposed to train the technicians, make sure of the spare part availability, plan their dealerships, due-diligence of a dealer, etc. All the manufacturers have deliberately designed the business in such a way, in case, anything goes wrong, the dealer gets sandwiched. I know someone who works in SAVIPL, Pune, I told her about the fluctuating blower problem in my Kushaq, and whenever I followed up, I was given another date for a solution, now I have been asked to wait till end of August, through this I can now safely assume, that the problems which you and I face, which aren't so common, there's no solution for them from the manufacturer itself and we usually blame the dealer.

Now, for the 45,000 kms service, the engine oil, oil filter, air filter, cabin filter, were replaced, also got the wheel balancing done. The service is time taking though, they take a complete log after the vehicle is serviced, which is submitted to Å koda in real time and takes around 60 mins. The engine oil used is 0W20 Longlife IV, which is green in colour. My power window bounce back was resolved in March 2023, it works as intended. The A/C software was also updated during the March visit and it works better now at lower rpms, not that I had a problem with it to begin with.

My vehicle has been performing flawlessly so far and I am really enjoying the ownership. I have taken it to Ladakh last year and Lahaul & Spiti twice  apart from these trips, it has been to Kinnaur, H.P a few times, to Rajasthan every month or so. This is basically a highway runner, it has spent more than 90% of it's time on the highways. The fuel efficiency hovers in the region of 17-19, it's a manual.

For around a month's time in between I wasn't able to fill 95 octane and could feel a slight loss of power, got back to 95 Octane, and the performance has also resumed. My tyres will be up for a change very soon, they should be good for another 5-7 K kms.

So far everything is bone stock. I bought Morel components last year but didn't fit them yet. My driving has also come down a lot since the time I got into RC flying, it takes up a lot of my free time. We are planning up a road trip to Madhya Pradesh in July this year, let's see how it fares. I'll share my in detail long-term ownership experience once I hit 50K.

Till then, drive safe and have happy holidays.

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