About a year ago, my father welcomed a new car in our family, a 2024 Skoda Kushaq, in April 2024. It has been exactly a year and two months since we drove a car, and we at 6-pistons made a video about it, kind of an ownership review after a year and 4000 kms covered. You can check it out in our You-tube channel. Anyway, we thought that we should do a service-cost analysis of the Kushaq and how effective the service was. Since the car is just a year old, we have only done the first service, so in this post I will be talking about that only, and I will also try to give you an estimate of future service costs, and how much money should you keep aside just in case.
So, the first service was after 1 year, or 15000 km, whichever comes first. They call it a “free” service, but we still had to pay for parts and labor. It’s slightly more expensive if we compare it to a Maruti or a Hyundai, I agree, but it’s not unreasonable, and you have to be vigilant and clever, and do only what’s truly necessary, otherwise they will keep increasing the bill because you didn’t know much and you will have to pay a ridiculously expensive amount, without you getting any real benefit. When we were finalizing what to do and we got a rough quote from them, the bill total was ridiculously expensive, it rounded up to a preposterous Rs.13,000! Obviously, since me and my dad were smart enough to see through this, we eliminated all the unnecessary items, like a basic polish and paint removal kit, for which they were charging absurd amounts, whereas in the aftermarket you will get higher quality of work, and it will be much more affordable. We reduced it to a final amount of Rs. 6950. Now, what did we get for our money?
To clarify, we gave our car to an official Skoda dealership, so that checks out. We did the free service, which includes an engine oil change, an oil filter change, with a new washer and new plug. Along with that, we got a wheel alignment, wheel balancing, and A/C disinfectant. So, let us move to the breakdown.
The engine oil costed Rs. 567.8 per liter. The car requires approximately 4 liters of oil. So that becomes a total of Rs. 2271, approximately. Adding 18% GST, we get Rs. 2680. When we talk about any other consumable required, we get Rs. 594. The oil costs Rs. 178, which becomes Rs. 211 with 18% GST. The washer and plug cost Rs. 135 and Rs. 196 respectively, with 18% GST, of course. Pollen filter costs Rs. 470 with GST, and they charged Rs. 366 with GST for the weights they used to do the wheel alignment and wheel balancing of the car. Coming to the labor, they charged Rs. 649 for free service and wheel alignment, Rs. 590 for wheel balancing and Rs. 1056 for applying disinfectant to clean the Air-conditioning system.
Keeping the cost aside, when it comes to service quality, am I satisfied. I am very conflicted, because on one hand I like that they were very polite and co-operative, they delivered the car home on time, and when I called them to understand everything, the person on the other end of the line explained everything very calmly, and professionally. However, the fact that they tried to extract a lot of money initially for no reason left a bad taste, and the complaints that we told them to look into were perfectly documented in the invoice, but weren’t looked into properly, though they did try, at least. We had two major complaints, one was that the left rear power window had stopped working, and the other was that power delivery was a bit jumpy when starting off, the throttle and brake pedal felt like an on-off switch and the car would randomly lurch forward, which is dangerous in stop-go traffic. They did work on it, and for a while everything was okay, but it lasted 3 days. The rear left power window is still not working properly, we have to close it by hand. And it’s jumpy again.
All this aside, the general service interval is once every year, or every 15000 kms, whichever comes first. I would say that keep Rs.8000-15000 for every service once a year. Obviously, the first service is the most affordable, after which it might increase slightly depending on how much work your car needs, and usage pattern. If you use your Kushaq a lot, there’s lot of heavy usage, and you have already crossed the 5-year period or something, then start keeping aside Rs.1-2 lakh per year if you would have to do a major job, like gearbox oil flush, new tires, suspension refresh, paint job, scratch and dent removal etc.
All-in-all, if you own a Kushaq, don’t worry too much, be vigilant, think twice and take expert advice before doing anything, and enjoy your car!
