The Superb: Customer experience

[2009fsi]

I think we are far enough down the track from the release or the B8/NP series now to have a thread for "The Customer experience"

For me, my 206 Superb Sedan has been all I expected & hoped for. The leap forward in technology & design, from the B6/3T model is enormous & for me fully justifies my decision to trade the 3TV6 in for peanuts on this new model. I keep saying it & will say it again; the car is a remarkably innovative design, well equipped vehicle for both driver & passengers. This car is not just looks & gimmicky gadgetry, it rides, handles, brakes exceptionally well & in the 206kW version with AWD will in my opinion leave many a so called performance car for dead on wet, winding roads.

My issues with the car were all related to poor delivery:
- Windscreen washer pointing to the underside of the bonnet;
- Bad front wheel & Front to rear wheel alignment;
- Mudflaps not supplied & fitted at delivery, took six weeks of chasing;
- Car delivered a month late because of an administrative blunder.

I've changed the tyres from Pirelli P7s to Conti SC6, but that's for my preference. Personally, I think Skoda should have shod the 206 with PZeros, as it has the higher performance Audis & Golf R. It may be larger, but the 206 is only a matter of about 140kgs heavier than the Golf 4x4.

As far as my dealer experience goes, the self titled 'prestige' dealer is an absolute dead loss. How the wrong model can be ordered or delivered from Skoda & not notice until the morning of delivery, demonstrates a quite unique degree of incompetence somewhere in the supply chain from Skoda to dealer. Their proposed solution was, take the 162 & we'll give you back some of your money They were useless in the lead up to delivery & my experience with their service department, not much better. Located off a busy road, away from the dealership, lacking any real customer amenity, (even the tea/coffee machine didn't work the morning I was there!), with insufficient parking for the number of vehicles they have booked in for service & a spares department which is a hole in the wall of what you presume must be a toilet door, has quoted the highest price on the several Skoda accessories I've sought. Higher than other Skoda dealers, that is. Their quality of sales & service is reflected in the fact you never see the same face twice. I will have my car serviced by the 'other' dealer.

My customer experience with VAG-Skoda Australia is non existent. I have not heard or received anything from them. Indeed I think it pertinent to ask, Do they actually exist? My attempt to ask them for some specific information about detail of my car's build spec, has elicited precisely .... nothing. Total silence. A vacuum, it seems.

Yesterday I entered my VIN into Skoda's software update sight. There is an update for the Columbus GPS system, new maps. So far the download has been going for NINETEEN hours & at the rate it is going, another 12 hours will be required! My tested fibre internet speed is consistently around 25Mb/s, so it would appear the update server in Prague must be based on a Commodore 64, on dial up! I contrast this with my TomTom Live 2050; updates download & install new maps, speed cameras & other items within 4-5 minutes. Why doesn't Skoda Australia have a local site for such updates? I suspect this disgraceful grade of service is directly related to VAG's ambition to force owners into proprietary dealer servicing at the highest price possible. The ridiculous size & time needed for owners to keep their GPS updated themselves, is in my view, just another deliberate strategy to necessitate ridiculously high priced update charges on Skoda owners.

I've got a long memory VAG. You make owning a Skoda excessively high & I will replace it with a non VW product. There is plenty of choice in Australia, most with longer factory warranty & service included, for the price of a fully optioned 206. I don't like feeling 'ripped off'.

My summary; A great car, poorly supported by the maker's Australian distributor & dealer network.

[2009fsi]

Twenty seven hours thirty minutes it took, to download Skoda's Columbus update. Unpacking the 23Gb .zip file takes close to one hour. Skoda's download program demands a 64gb Class 10 blank SD card. It refused to unpack onto one of my 1Tb milspec portable HDD. Installation takes more than four hours, with the ignition on, or you can take a 400km drive without GPS, if you prefer. So suggests the Skoda procedure.

Despite the VIN clearly identifying a car sold in Australia, Skoda downloads the entire world's store of maps, PoI. This is utterly ridiculous, unless you intend driving from Alice Springs to Brasilia or Moscow! One would think Skoda in Prague might be better served implementing a download service which allows the owner to select pertinent maps. Tom Tom & other GPS providers automatically do it, based on your device's serial number. Surely Skoda can do the same based on VIN. Just think how much load that would take off the corporate servers!!! Methinks this 'download the world' approach is the reason Skoda Australia don't offer a local download portal. It would probably bring their vintage server down faster than the ABS's drongo handling of the Census. Much easier to charge your 4-5 hours labour.

Now I'm equipped with up-to-date maps, I think I'll drive over & fill the tank over at the BP Service Station near my aunt's house in Wellshead Rd, Dyce, Aberdeen......Scotland.

Actually, I think I'll go back to my trusty, pillar mounted TomTom, with its 5 minute updates, live traffic, speed & red light camera functions.

[woofy]

I have 115Mbit download and it took a similar time. My guess is one server in Europe. Takes 40min to upload in the actual car though, but I had issues with formattting the brand new 64GB fast SD card I used. I can't even recall how I got it to work in the end as I tried so many combinations. Having said that I find the Sat Nav works reasonably well compared to other companies.

[blueSup]

You're both lucky. My FTTP NBN can't hold a continuous connection for more than 8 hours straight. To kick me while I'm down, the file doesn't resume from where it leaves off.

[woofy]

Thats not just you, it dropped connection many times on me, and yes it loses everything it had downloaded to that point. The downloader just doesn't work.

[2009fsi]

Six months in with the new Superb, I am sad to report bits of trim are being dislodged.

The trim is the rubbers & chrome strips above both front doors, which in turn springs the strip of chrome trim on the rear door.

The worst is the drivers door where the rubber seems to be expanded by warmer weather. The rear end of the rubber has stretched until it starts to fowl the rear door trim. After a trip along the very uneven in places, M1 expressway on a 32 degC day, from north of Newcastle to Sydney I got out to find excess rubber loose to the rear of my drivers door & the chrome trim on the rear door spung away from he rubber. A closer look at the front of the driver's door trim revealed it had travelled nearly 1cm up off the bottom of window chrome trim. I was able to push the chrome trim back down to where it should be meeting the lower trim at the front of the door, using a large screwdriver wrapped with electrical tape. I was also able to push the rear trim back into place. These are only temporary fixes to prevent other damage.

When I checked the less used passenger side doors, the same rubber & trim creep was evident to a lesser extent.

This needs to be fixed under warranty, albeit I can see the same happening again, unless they have devised a way to secure the trims in place better. The real problem does look to be a rubber expansion problem. The trim is just a passenger on it.

[Mysticality]

Sounds like you've had some issues, and I'd be very curious to hear which dealerships you've experienced them at.

The Superb 206 is a fantastic machine, and I don't understand why there aren't more of them on the road!

That being said, an old bloke walked into the showroom the other day, looked around for maybe twenty minutes and then blurted out "Nice cars, but I wouldn't spend fourty grand on a Skoda" whilst eyeing the Octavia vRS... My internal thought process went "Are you serious?! I'd drop $60k if I could!"

[2009fsi]

Yes Mysticality, it's a fantastic car & I have no regrets at dropping 65k to buy it. Having owned the previous 3TV6 the leapt forward Skoda has made in virtually every aspect of this car is tremendous. I cannot fault the car. These trim issues are a minor issue really.

The car is great. VAG runs Skoda in Australia. A great step forward could be made by Skoda running its own show here, as it does in other countries. As for the dealer, its a Sydney dealer selling many makes. I won't name them because I don't know if they're worse or the same as the rest. They don't deserve a mention, even a bad one!

[Mysticality]

I won't name them because I don't know if they're worse or the same as the rest. They don't deserve a mention, even a bad one!

I tried to PM you, but you have PM's turned off! Hence my asking here.
But that makes sense.

Good to hear you're enjoying the car, however. Here's hoping you (and BlueSup) can make it to the meet'n'greet we have planned!

[dArK5HaD0w]

VAG runs Skoda in Australia.

actually VAG (Volkswagen Group or Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft, aka VW AG) does not run Skoda in aus - VW Aus does. VAG is just sitting in the background.
everywhere (worldwide) else, Skoda run themselves, with VAG sitting in the background. no middle man like VW Aus.

that's why Skoda in aus has been, is, and always will be, constantly shafted by VW's best interest, not VAG's best interest, let alone Skoda's best interest.