Comments on: Skoda Octavia RS-P Australian concept

By: Nick

Nick — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 10:26:32 +0000

Good to see a ‘honeycomb’ grill on the front of the RS-P. The regular RS needs to have something like this because the vertical grill just does not look right with the lower ‘honeycomb’ grill on the face lifted car.

By: Slats

Slats — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:13:41 +0000

Am facing a similar dealer problems as Stu.
Am so sick of dealer crap.

I want to buy a RS Wagon, and the dealers keep saying they have no stock for me to TD.

The morons I have encountered at Skoda head office here don’t know their product line up either.

I understand part of the Skoda problem here is the promotion and advertising is controlled by VW whom might be concerned the Skoda would divert sales from the VW badged cars – but even if that’s true there is staggering lack of knowledge I have come up against.

I am going to try a car broker next.

I agree with the comments earlier – the pricing is high for the “economical” arm of VW brands. Perhaps this has to do with VW Australia wanting to hang on to VW badged customers???

By: Brian

Brian — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 02:51:25 +0000

This wagon looks and would drive awesome.

If released, I’d buy it in a heart beat. I was an inch away from buying the last model RS, and now the new updated shape has addressed the ugly spots that made me shy away. Having driven one, it’s always on my mind as my next purchase with an ECU upgrade to give it 191kw. What a weapon it could be!!

By: observer

observer — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 11:27:07 +0000

Stu:
Federal legislation phohibits the enforcing of that kind of service momopoly that the Salesman was trying to pull over your eyes…You can service any new vehicle under warranty from any licensed repairer and the manufacture of the car cannot refuse or void the warranty so long as either original/comparable parts are used.

I would have walked away as well..you can fool some of the people some of the time but you cant fool all the people all the time.

By: Stu

Stu — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 06:35:39 +0000

I agree that their marketing could be improved but the salesmen and distribution network is the key problem for me.

My wife and I were interested in a RS Wagon. We were told no demos were available and we could not test drive one (not even a RS sedan).

Then when we asked about servicing and warranty we were told that the Skoda is a premium brand and expect premium servicing costs. I mentioned that Skoda is not considered premium in markets like the UK and the salesman just looked blankly. It’s like he had never heard of the internet.

Furthermore we were told that the warranty would be void if we did not get the car serviced at the dealer. The dealer is in a most inconvenient location to us. So the wife made the choice easy and simply said no.

For us there were too many problems and caveats associated with buying a Skoda.

By: observer

observer — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:26:53 +0000

Tom writes:
They’re marketing has been crazy in Australia, but it hasn’t worked… I wonder whats wrong? Maybe they shouldnt have invested so much and hit us so hard, blending into VW dealers slowly would have been much wiser.

Agree Skoda marketing is a basketcase: “Eat My Hat” campaign what the hell are they thinking…no wonder they struggled to shift less than 80 cars Nationally last month.

Sack the marketing idiots and start again with a clear strategy and establish some brand equity. I’ts not rocket science.

By: Reckless1

Reckless1 — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:21:00 +0000

Tom, you can boost this car to 190kw with a stage 1 tune for less than $1000. Given that the car already has a 3″ exhaust, you bypass stage 1 and go straight to stage 2, giving you over 200kw.

All the mods – brakes, suspension, tune, exhaust would cost quite a bit less than $20,000. More like $10,000.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:12:27 +0000

It looks AMAZING but i imagine those modifications arent cheap, considering its only a 40k car to start with. Im thinking it may end up around 60k… but if they boosted power to about 190kW, then 60k would be perfectly feasible as far as im concerned. Just get rid of those odd braces in the boot OR try to integrate them a bit.

Very. VERY. Nice car. Now Skoda has to market it. They’re marketing has been crazy in Australia, but it hasn’t worked… I wonder whats wrong? Maybe they shouldnt have invested so much and hit us so hard, blending into VW dealers slowly would have been much wiser.

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:29:28 +0000

CA, if you guys delete a comment that other people have responded to, can you delete the responses too? Neither mine nor Pete’s comment make sense anymore.

By: Martin

Martin — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:57:40 +0000

Regarding my previous comment, I meant that in a good way. I think this looks really pretty good. The white on black wheels is fantastic too, my favourite colour combo for cars.