Sorry, this posting is rather longwinded... my Roomster has been off the road for over a week now, and while this has been a result of a number of factors, it has been a rather disappointing and one might say thought provoking experience.

I had never needed to call the breakdown services before for my Roomster, but the other Friday when I was driving on a weekend trip some distance from home there was a loss of power; I initially looked to see if an air hose had come loose, and upon finding nothing phoned the breakdown services, who found that one of the rubber turbo intercooler hoses had split. The breakdown services tried to source the part but none of the local dealers had it in stock, and the car had to be recovered back home; thankfully as I had ‘relay’ type breakdown, there was no cost involved.

I phoned my local Skoda dealer and ordered the part and was told it would arrive in two working days, so on Tuesday I dropped into the dealer only to be told that the part was on backorder and didn’t know when it would be available, but promised to make further enquiries and get back to me. They never did. I wasn’t really impressed with both the lack of communication since surely if the part was ordered on Monday it is most likely that the dealer would have known then that the part was on backorder then.

I then phoned Skoda UK customer services and sent an e-mail; I got an automated response which said I would get a reply in up to two days, and stupidly I waited for a response… because after two days I did get a response, but only to say how sorry they were and that they were investigating! Certainly not the response I needed at the time when my car was off the road, very frustrating! I still haven’t had a proper response from Skoda UK.

On Friday, the car had been off the road for a week and I still had no idea on what the part availability was; I had lost all confidence in the local Skoda dealer who seemed not to care less. I had not had any problems with this dealer in the past, though in the last month or two the dealership was bought out by a bigger franchise.

Anyway, I found the next nearest dealer was not that far away and phoned them up; this was a much smaller dealer which also was a dealer for another marque; thankfully they were most helpful and said that although there was a part of the intercooler pipe assembly on backorder, it wasn’t the part I required. The part was ordered which hopefully will arrive next Wednesday, and I have finally been able to book in the service as well.

This experience has made me think how one bad experience can tarnish years of troublefree motoring – I certainly won’t be buying another Skoda, though will probably have to stick with the Roomster for another year, as I’ve only just bought two nice Michelin tyres and taken out another two fixed price services with Skoda. Probably next time I might choose one of the Korean manufacturers with longer warranties. My Roomster is an 07 1.4TDi but as I don't do a huge mileage, it should still have a lot of life in it.

The service from the nearest dealer is obviously disappointing; as there is quite a lot of consolidation of car dealerships, presumably due to economies of scale, one will have far less choice, though if a car is out of warranty I suppose investigating independent dealers could potentially provide a better service.