Manufacturer of happy drivers??

[Rustle]

I have been reading loads of posts on this site over the last 6 months or so & is the Skoda/VAG reliability all it's cracked up to be? I have had my fair share of woes but at least I have the approved used warranty to fall back on.

I have had 8 cars from the VAG stable & can say this one by far has been the most troublesome!

So the question is what are your views on the reliability of Skoda?

[Skodaboy1983]

Having had the car a couple of months I am impressed with the car, yeah it rattles but I don't care and I think Skoda have improved in the last few years.

My Girlfriends mum has a fabia comfort on a 51 plate and that is a bit troublsome with it leaking, flat battery and a petrol leak but thats about it.

Davy

[john_grant358]

Not to many probs, High rise brake light blown up but apart from that its been fine.

[McScooby]

I've had my Furby vRS from new in Feb this year & haven't had any problems with it - nearly done 10K. My old Kia Rio which I had brand new in 03 gave me loads of trouble over the 4 years compared to the Skoda.

[andy2407]

You have to remember that hardly anyone comes on to say "My car has been running really well this week". People only tend to post when they have a problem.

I did a poll some time ago, and over 90% IIRC said they didn't regret buying their Skoda.

[Decron]

Originally Posted by Rustle

I have been reading loads of posts on this site over the last 6 months or so & is the Skoda/VAG reliability all it's cracked up to be? I have had my fair share of woes but at least I have the approved used warranty to fall back on.

I have had 8 cars from the VAG stable & can say this one by far has been the most troublesome!

So the question is what are your views on the reliability of Skoda?

You come onto a site where the majority of people are only posting to find the answer to an issue or solution to a problem. Thats what you will find here, thats it's point.

Briskoda has a fantastic reputation as being the place to go for non official support and advice for the marque in the UK. Just looking round the site might give you the impression that they are a bit of a pup because it's full of issues but they are generally no worse than a lot of other marques you might want to try infact they
generally tend to be a lot better.

Also a lot of the single serving posters who post with one problem then disappear just as quick as they appeared have older, more worn in cars with lower spec (EG. "My 2000 1.4 8v Fabia with 90k is running a bit rough. Should I get it serviced as it hasn't been done in 40k").

I had more than my fair share of issues with my VRS but then I see my mate who bought a 55 plate CTR a few months back having just as much grief. My Roomy has run perfectly for the first 5k of it's life with no issues at all apart from a small rattle.

That's life.

[Toots]

Had my 1.9SDi saloon 3 years next month,no proplems what so ever.Only been in dealers for yearly sevice.Had SKODAS for 35 years with very few repairs,one clutch,one starter motor,ignition fell to bits could not get key in and broken gear lever,so would not change to anything else.

[KLM]

As already said, it tends to be that people only post on here when there are problems with their cars. While Briskoda is a very good place to look if you do have an issue, don't believe that all cars have these problems. I bought my Fabia in June and have done 14k in it so far. There have been a few bits and pieces, but you will get that with any car, and to be honest so far it has been brilliant.

Mark

[stuno1]

Also, there is always a few bad cars in any line of cars so bound to be issues. I have owned my car for over a year and have only had one issue that has frustrated me which i think is pretty good. All forums have similar posts. As said above people only tenmd to post when they need help. Notm many people will post to say my car is running without a hitch!!!

[viewer]

1.4TDi 87K miles. one sensor changed at 500 miles from new. Since then nothing has gone wrong (touches wooden head for luck). Early stiffness and noises have disappeared. Very pleased.
V

[Chrispy]

Hmmm........

After a bit of car ownership, I'm under the impression that no car is perfect by any means. My Jap cars rusted, my Pugs had silly faults with central locking and alarms, my BMW's had loads of stupid things go wrong,
etc etc.

The Skoda has had several things go wrong with it, most of which have been documented on here to a fair degree and so I knew immediatly what to do on each occasion. But, many of the problems I feel are simply down to a combination of poor design (feeble suspension causing clunks etc) and cheap components that fail too easily.

Overall I'd say the car's been 'average' in terms of faults. Nowt special either way.

But, I'm also under the impression that a car forum can instill a kind of car hypochondria of sorts. Once you're aware of all the stuff that can go wrong on your particular model, then you tend to look for it and perhaps imagine it's there when it's not.

[smstext]

had to get the a/c done two months in, but apart from that its been running like a dream.

[mattandy]

I think there could be two reasons, feeding off each other, to give the impression of bad reliability.
(seperate to other posters points)


The first is that this site / forum is huge. Compared to sites related to other marques this is an almost be-all-and-end-all, catch-all global forum. Other manufacturers' car forums are split up into seperate forums for models and nationalities whereas here we have every single model pretty much ever produced by Skoda catered for all over the world. Everything from the early 70s (or even earlier) to 2007, from New Zealand to Alaska, is represented here on one site. That's a lot of different cars, of different ages all over the world so you're bound to see more than the average problems than normal.

The second is that this place is a haven of friendliness. Go to most other forums and you won't find anywhere the same amount of helpful, free advice that's given on here, whether it's a life-long member or complete noob they'll still get the same amount of help. This makes it easier for those new to the forum to post their car questions / problems without fear of being laughed at. It may seem like a question with an obvious answer to everyone else but they won't take the p!ss out of the poster which in turn leads to more 'trivial' reliability questions being posted.

(and breathe!)

Help me down please

edited due to me having my dinner halfway through, losing my train of thought and typing rubbish. Roast veg and tuna rice is highly recommended though

[GlacierNR]

I had some problems starting off that the dealer has finally fixed. I would probably buy another one even despite that. Skoda has something special in identity of the Fabia that other VAG vehicles don't have.
I have heard a lot of nightmare stories about recent VAG vehicles (post 96-97) - more often than not with the petrol spec'd cars. Diesels seem to be less problematic. Skodas also seem simpler electronically speaking and even though have their fair share of problems (electronic/suspension), they seem to be easier to diagnose and fix (even by diy-ers). That is where Briskoda comes in. Having a "family" of car owners who are willing to help each other really makes the ownership experience a better one.
Just my two bits...
Nate

[kwacka]

I have a Volvo, BMW & Honda bike and Fabia, and visit all forums. I don't think Skodas do too badly compared with a lot of cars, I think in many cases the manufacturers have made them over complex and often have trouble diagnosing faults - my new Volvo took the main dealer 18 months, 6 visits and several thousand pounds to fix a fault that was unbelievably simple in the end. I have had quite a few faults on the Fabia, (most of the standard ones), but the car has never actually let me down, and is fun to drive - I prefer it to the Volvo, but not the bikes.
Would definitely have another.

[cjb]

I've driven almost exclusively VAG cars for some years, and I have to say I think the whole 'VAG quality has dropped' is a myth.

My Fabia has a few slight issues that will get sorted at the next service, but since I've owned it it has been 100% reliable [touches wood].

The 1999 A3 I had before developed a few issues at about 7-8 years old (5 years ownership) and 80k.

The 1997 Ibiza TDi before that had a few minor warranty jobs, but only let me down once in 60k and 6 years with a failed water pump.

My wife's 2000 Lupo has never let us down so far, and has only ever needed consumables, a clutch cable, and a window switch.

The 2001 Polo she had as a company car before that was 100% reliable, and had no warranty work besides freeing off the rear calipers. It was 'driven like a hire car' by me too .

I could go further back, but all the other cars were older, so you expect to have to fix things. For the record, the most unreliable, crap car I have owned was a Volvo 480. They are ****e.

There are always issues with cars that only appear after launch- say Golf 1/Scirocci clutch cables pulling through the bulkhead.

[devonutopia]

Had 2 fabias since the summer of 2001. Had no real issues at all with any of them. Ok, maybe the issue of "roof meeting tarmac" with the first incarnation, but that was me, not the car.

[Skodaboy1983]

In all the cars I have owned

1998 Micra - No Problems at all
2003 Micra - Where do I begin!!

hen I bought the car the boot would not open, two months down the line the airbag light came on this got fixed under warrenty, two days laters the battery light came on and failed to start a day later, Car was again fixed under the warrenty ie the ecu.

Two months later the car failed to sart again the battery had drained in a course of a day for no reason turned out to be a fault with the micra.

The last straw was when the car failed to start on the hottest day of the year turned out the ignition had packed up.

By this time I had lost faith in the car and was considering changing it.

After a period with micra I got a focus and the only thing that went wrong with it was a latch on the boot broke and the engine management light came on for a few days then went off.

Now owning the Skoda bearing all the jokes from my dad who had a skoda in the 70's nothing has went wrong so far and I'm quite pleased with it, if we can do say 50000 miles in it over three years with no problems I will be laughing and will defo be buying another one.

In all honesty the quality of Skoda is improving all the time from say 10 years ago with the likes of the felicia, the car does rattle a but nothing I can complain about, even when I looked it at a motorshow a few years ago I thought the fabia was a well built car an well put together comared to some other makes of cars at the show.

[Fabia_TDI]

Running my second Fabia 1.9 TDI Elegance. First one was virtually fault free. Second had the 'stutter'. Lost a bit of sleep over that but it's fine now thanks to the fine people on this forum. If you want ultimate reliablilty you might be better off with a Jap car like a Jazz or a Yaris but I'd give Skoda a 9 out of 10 for reliability. And there's no way I'd want to drive anything else in the same price bracket - mine is very comfy, very frugal, well made and reasonably quick (the vRS boys and girls are all laughing at me now). So I'm a happy driver - at least until the next time some fool driving a large Mercedes nearly crashes into me on the M40!

[Grendel]

I'd agree with previous posters who have commented on the large size of this forum compared with other manufacturers - I would guess the percentage of members with problems against those with out is very small.

Over the years I have driven quite a few Skodas and although they have had problems they are quite often quite trivial and inexpensive compared with those suffered by friends and neighbours driving more expensive marques.

Apart from the usual stuff like tyres, exhaust and batteries this is a run down of issues I can remember with cars I have owned.

Morris Marina - bought it for £80 quid with 70000 on the clock. Drove it for further 97000 miles. - Alternator - boot lock and rusted around the sills and wheel arches. Speedo. Rear wheel drive unstable car but a good laugh in snow and ice.

Skoda 120LSE - drove it for 93000 miles - alternator and clutch pedal spring.

Lada Samara - Brake servo, Clutch lasted a mere 90000 miles - 3 ignition modules, coil, rusted faster than the Titanic - did 98000 miles in four years. Sold it to a Latvian student who drove it home one christmas. Also leaked like s**t and regularly stalled and spluttered at the sniff of rain.

Skoda Favorit 3 door - 36000 miles - no issues

Skoda Favorit 5 Estate - rear shock mountings kept breaking, ECU (I blew it up with RF). kept it for 137000 miles.

VW Polo - 144000 miles. Throttle body, 2 clutches. First went for 5 years 120000 miles, second only lasted 15 months due to incorrect fitting by a High Street Clutch specialist. Pedal box. Door locks failed due to plastic fatigue.

Still a lot less aggro than most of my neighbours had running cars for similar lengths of time and they were running the "quality" makes.

Currently have a Fabia Estate and a Fabia Sport, no issues but would say that the combined MPG figures quoted in the brochures are a tad generous.