The car is awesome and is my favourite for long drives

 

Exterior

 

Interior (Features, Space & Comfort) Much is written about cramped rear seats. But I find it to be practically the same as other cars, as the rear of front seats are carved in. L&K has many useful features like it gives the diesel consumption (mileage per 100 Km, accurate to the dot), average speed for day & last 2000kms, rear-parking sensors (very accurate), sun roof which the kids love. I found the electrical switches to be of poor quality, with the interior lights switch, main beams switch, rear windows locking switch failing sequentially from 2nd year to 4th year of use. The music player is very outdated.

 

Engine Performance, Fuel Economy and Gearbox The performance of the engine rocks & i have hardly ever had any one overtake me, on the Mumbai -Pune highway, in the last 4 years. The car is very very very... stable at high speeds and at road cornering, which is comparable to the best cars i have driven. The fuel economy is very good 4 diesel @ 14 Km in city & 21 kms on the highway, with full AC blast. The gear box has a very efficient ratio as even in clogged roads you can drive in the 1st gear without having to press the clutch, as the gear ratio is very high (the speed is LOW in 1st gear). The gear is very smooth, (except for 2nd gear in my case for the last year).

 

Ride Quality & Handling The gearbox and interiors are so silent that i have to glance at the Odometer at signals to confirm the motor is running. Even after long drives on patchy roads you dont feel tired as the car is very smooth without any vibrations, even after 106000 kms.

 

Final Words The car is awesome and is my favourite for long drives, but the service & dealer network sucks. I used to get it serviced at Nummer-Eins- Bombay, their service was spot on with very efficient trouble shooting, but used to charge like hell & were big rip-offs making you change rims & spares. (Twice they had me tow my car to their garage (95 Kms) & charged me exorbitant, when the diesel had run-off, later i learnt that the car could be restarted after refilling, by removing air, which is achieved by loosening few nuts. Nummer-Eins was de registered by Skoda & I went to Autograph which was the most terrible experience, basically they were a bunch of thieves, who charged you exorbitantly, didnt provide any service & were caught by me stealing (replacing car parts, if anyone interested i can write in details). They too were banned by Skoda, by this time i was fed up of the service & maintenance cost & tried local garages & found them to be quite competent, but of limited use due to non availibility of original spares. Some problems like breakage of oil sump (due to low ground clearance), electrical were quite efficiently carried out.

 

Areas of improvement As many user reviews have written, even I would like to attest to the fact that Skoda is quite unresponsive to customer. All mails to every levels go unanswered. I tried to purchase child safety seats from Skoda, as given on their site, but got no response, even though its given on the site, that its dangerous to drive with small kids, no response from dealer either. Got the feeling that Indian lifes might not be as important, as the Govt. regulations are non present (Case in point is Renault & Ford, which sell cars stripped of safety foams & features in India)

Skoda must improve its service and see to it that service is available from private garages as this will bring in competition & ensure good service to the customers. Spare parts prices have come down in the last few years but the labour rates are atrocious. Skoda says it believes in green initiative & its a very environmentally friendly car, in the same sprit it must give environmentally friendly services, by repairing the spare parts, instead of throw & replace policy (Even if side mirror is broken, entire assembly, including the mirror tilting motors & housing has to be changed, even though the mirrors are snap on type), Skoda has to understand the Indian psyche ~if it has to emerge as dominant player in the Indian market.

 

Speed, Build Quality, Reliability, Road handling, Braking, fuel efficient, cornering (hugs the road)Service network, very expensive spare parts, low ground clearance makes it VERY unsuitable for India