The Czech Mafia arrives … watch out!

HAPPY NEW YEAR FOLKS!!!

Kicked off the new year with a lazy rainy Sat morning SOG meetup at 8am…
Everyone was still half asleep… hahaha…

Too bad more didn’t turn up as expected… probably due to the late night partying the night before…

The slight drizzle didn’t damper our moods though… We then had a hearty breakfast at Macs

Marina South

Kallang McDonalds

As some of you guys would’ve already known by now…

I took over my car with only 1 key…

Asked Dennis at Servo to get me 1… he never got round to doing it

Anyway… got fed up…

Went to CA and ordered, had to pay first, if not they won’t order. Thought fine… reasonable… how wrong can it get? $150

Placed my order on 6th Oct.

The product manager called to inform me the key arrived today. After I went to CA several times.

Went down today, Sammo took the car out to Cars N Cars workshop. Waited for about half an hour to 45 mins.

My car finally came back after God knows how long hahaha… (like I mentioned… around 30 to 45mins?)

Sammo and the other malay guy then explained to me. Cannot be done. Got problem. And on top of that, no refund. What the hell?!

They said they followed the procedure/guidelines/SOP to take down my chassis number from my instrument cluster using their VAG Tool (which has the immo. code too) and they just needed that to send to Skoda in Czech Republic to fabricate my key.

Turns out… when the key was cut nicely and sent over here…

The key couldn’t even open my door.

Here’s the reason. CA blamed that my instrument cluster (the speedo console) has been tampered with or changed previously.
That instrument cluster is currently “attached” to another chassis number which belongs to another Octavia.

Sammo went on to explain that this could be a case of fraud. The only reason he could think of was that the speedo was swapped for another with a lower mileage when the car was sold to me.

He mentioned that places like Servo were equipped to perform such a thing.

Therefore, my key cannot work. And even if I gave them my chassis number and the current so called swapped instrument cluster, it might not work. PLUS it will cost me another $200.

No fault of theirs.

I can’t do a thing.

I get no refund either.

Suggested solution?

Go to Turf City to see if my keys can be done there.

$150 gone down the drain.

I am not a happy man
I contacted the ex-owner of my ride who of cos denied swapping the instrument cluster (of cos)…he went on to mention that that thing alone costs $2k. Why on earth would he do that?

He then blamed former dealer JTA of screwing the car up.

So now my ride is suppose to be an Elegance with a Classic/Ambiente speedo.

Not that it makes any difference to me.

But just what I was told.

and oh… ya… I can’t dupe my key

Guess I’ll pay Turf City a visit to see if they can cut the key and hopefully I can get it programmed there or at CA
CA just trying to shirk responsibility?
Could all this have been avoided?
I wonder if CASE can do anything …

Went for the Singapore Skoda Owners Group meetup earlier in the afternoon before heading to Pat’s place for dinner, and then playing mahjong with Zhishen and Angela with Pat. Had a really fun day!

Here are some of the photos I took at the meetup

Have you guys seen this sticker? I have it pasted on my glove box in my car…..