Defective Skoda Cars in India

SkodaIndiais highly unreliable and worst auto MNC inIndia. It is highly recommended to avoid purchasing products of SkodaIndia, which is a failure inIndiawith respect to its services and customer satisfaction.

There are several incidences of bad customer experiences inIndiaand I am providing information for one of them.

We had purchased Skoda Rapid in 2012 from Himachal Pradesh. They had a new dealership in Himachal and the initial behavior and services were reasonable. In May 2015, we were travelling fromNasikto Mumbai when suddenly steering of the vehicle became hard and restricted the movement of vehicle leading to an accident and major damage to the car. This was the time when real face of SkodaIndiacame to light. Road Side Assistance is a service provided by Skoda by taking advance payment through their dealer. As RSA numbers were not reachable, we called up a service center in Mumbai. To my surprise, it was informed that the vehicle is not enrolled for the RSA program. Though, I had renewed RSA in 2014 for two years by making payment to Dev Bhoomi Motors, Mandi, H.P., they had not renewed it. Somehow I managed to get the services of Towing and taxi for the family.

It appears that the dealers are just charging the money for RSA and when needed, the services are simply not available.

Car was towed down to JMD Motors, Bhandup, Mumbai on the day of accident for necessary repairs. It was a surprise to notice that there were no warning indicators for steering failure and further vehicle was serviced just one month back. We had filed a complaint regarding the failure of the steering within 15 days of accident and had personally talked to service advisor in this regard. It was assured that the Vehicle will be duly inspected for this failure and necessary reports will be shared with the consent of Skoda India.

Vehicle was retained by JMD Mumbai for 3 months in the name of repairs. Initially I was told that every thing is fine with the car and it will be repaired with due process of insurance claim.  I was insisting for the technical analysis and several mails sent to Skoda customer care were simply ignored. Several mails were sent to Vikram.swaroop@skoda-auto.co.in, and ryan.pimenta@skoda-auto.co.in. Shri Ryan of Skoda was probably least bothered and when tried taking to him, I was told to send reminders to Shri Vikram Swaroop, which ultimately were never replied. It was clear that the company officials were intentionally delaying the matter.

After 3 months, I was told that vehicle’s engine has a crack and hence it will lead to total loss situation. Vehicle was with service center for 3 months and they were simply not able to detect the engine’s failure or it was probably an intentional act to avoid disclosure of technical fault. Further, I was also charged for the parking charges before the release of damaged vehicle.

For the past few months I had sent several mails to senior officials of SkodaIndia, but was never replied back. I was finally told that since the vehicle was not in the best physical state wherein it became necessary to conduct a Technical inspection of the vehicle for verification of issues to be the probable cause of its accident. Hence, the hardening of Steering could not be established and verified to be the reason for the Car’s accident. The above was after commitment of workshop persons to provide details of technical analysis.

Above is a clear case of company selling defective products and risking the life of its customers in India.