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Luckily mine is the base petrol model, which has fewer parts to go wrong, but a visit to What Car suggests Skodas aren't as robust as they were five years ago. The AA man did say mechanically Skodas are mostly bulletproof, but some of the electrics can play up as they get older. Also with the dealer being an hour's drive away( the previous one went bankrupt), I am keener to buy from a dealer closer to home and probably a car like a Hyundai or Toyota for reliability and warrnaty reasons.
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Think you’ve been very lucky . All vag products are seem to be showing unreliability with electronic systems. Friend has just had an alternator failure on a 48volt mild hybrid, just out of warranty and a £2k bill .
It's the unreliability with electronic systems along side the over use of touch screens for basic car functions that has recently made me move away from VAG .
Edited by Big John on 14/11/2024 at 23:55
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It seems mechanically Skodas are strong, but they are prone to electrical faults as they get older and I do recall a mechanic saying years ago, some of the wiring and connectors used are cheap and can fail. Also now the car is out of warranty, I'm thinking of moving to another make of car and to one with a dealer closer to home. Looking locally, apart from BMW, Mini and Volvo that are out of my price range, I have the choice of Ford, Vauxhall, Peugeot, Kia, Nissan, Suzuki, SEAT, Toyota and Hyundai
Regarding a replacement next year for the Skoda, I am quite interested in the Hyundai i10, Suzuki Ignis or the Toyota Aygo X. I only do 8k a year, rarely carry luggage and something like this would be fine.
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You have SEAT on your list of possibilities. Like Skoda, SEAT is a Volkswagen group brand. The quality between Skoda and SEAT electrical and mechanical parts will be the same!
That said, I have a 5 year old SEAT Ibiza with 78,000 miles (from new) and that has been trouble free.
I've had trouble with a pre-reg Hyundai and with a pre-reg Toyota. Others on this forum will have had trouble with every car brand on the market (or like yourself, will have spoken to someone who has).
If your Fabia is just out of warranty, I'm assuming it's 3 years old and sitting around 24,000 miles. As it's warranty is up, one option you have is to keep it and get any servicing and repairs done locally by a trusted independent garage. I'm assuming you've taken care of it and had it serviced on time. It should give you many years of good service.
It will cost you several thousand pounds to change car. At the moment your Fabia has only cost you £250, I feel it's a mistake to change it if it's not giving any trouble. A replacement car is going to depreciate heavily as soon as you take ownership.
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You have SEAT on your list of possibilities. Like Skoda, SEAT is a Volkswagen group brand. The quality between Skoda and SEAT electrical and mechanical parts will be the same!
That said, I have a 5 year old SEAT Ibiza with 78,000 miles (from new) and that has been trouble free.
I've had trouble with a pre-reg Hyundai and with a pre-reg Toyota. Others on this forum will have had trouble with every car brand on the market (or like yourself, will have spoken to someone who has).
If your Fabia is just out of warranty, I'm assuming it's 3 years old and sitting around 24,000 miles. As it's warranty is up, one option you have is to keep it and get any servicing and repairs done locally by a trusted independent garage. I'm assuming you've taken care of it and had it serviced on time. It should give you many years of good service.
It will cost you several thousand pounds to change car. At the moment your Fabia has only cost you £250, I feel it's a mistake to change it if it's not giving any trouble. A replacement car is going to depreciate heavily as soon as you take ownership.
The Fabia is an excellent car to drive and has been reliable up to now, so possibly this is just a one off. I have it on a 48 month PCP and I know the sales staff's ears pricked up when I mentioned this, so maybe another one when the PCP ends next August as I could get a better deal than changing the Fabia to something different. Also Telfords of Carlisle are a family business who are well liked in Cumbria and have sold Skodas for over 30 years.
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Also Telfords of Carlisle are a family business who are well liked in Cumbria and have sold Skodas for over 30 years.
Having a dealership you like & trust is so important. Most car manufacturers underestimate this aspect. If you feel you have one you like, that's great.
Unfortunately, where I stay, virtually all the car brands are represented by around 4 huge dealer groups which compete with each other on having the worst customer service experience possible. That's why I'm happy to keep my (out of warranty) car and use my excellent trusted independent.
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<< Having a dealership you like & trust is so important. Most car manufacturers underestimate this aspect. If you feel you have one you like, that's great. >>
Absolutely. But it can be a dilemma for dealers. I bought my ex-rental Pug 207 from the Macclesfield dealership, which had been a family firm since 1911 (perhaps still is), and the whole experience was very pleasant - perhaps helped by the credit crunch. But that was almost 16 years ago, and as the car has never failed since, I haven't needed to look for another ....
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A bill of £250 just out of warranty is annoying but not to the extent I would consider parting with the car. If this bill is the start of a succession of them then I would make a decision at that point. If the window fault is a known weakness then a decent independent should know how to fix it for less money.
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I guess the problem is, you don’t know if this is a one-off or the first of a series of faults.
‘I have it on a 48 month PCP and I know the sales staff's ears pricked up when I mentioned this’
Could you apply a bit of leverage on the dealer, along the lines of ‘I would love to stick with the Skoda brand but I’m so disappointed to get a repair bill just out of warranty…..’? It worked for me when my Volvo was in the same position. I was going to have another Volvo anyway, but I kept that bit quiet and the sales team covered the repair bill.
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The bill was paid on the day the car was fixed, but I am known to Telfords, having used them for 6 years, and going way back to the noughties, when they sold Hyundais as well. I suppose like any car, there will be something that breaks, just it is annoying when this happens. Mind you, I had an Austin Montego once that was always having problems, so things have definitely improved since the eighties.
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