Why is Skoda ranked so high in most surveys?

fantasyvn

Could you help explain this question?


In all the car surveys that I read, Skoda is always among the Top 5, perhaps even the best or the second.



Does it really mean that Skoda cars are good value for money and more reliable than other ‘prestige’ brands like Toyota, Audi, Honda, etc.


Or does it just reflect the possibility that most people who are willing to answer the surveys are Skoda buyers?
Thank you[FONT=&quot][/FONT]

DUTR

What does it matter? Yes as you mention many willing to answer own a certain brand, I'm surprised though as most new cars should prove good in the 1st few years , naturally, there will be more KIA owners to say Bugatti, so there shoud be an adjustment factor to account for this.

DUTR

BTW when I say why does it matter? I meant there is no reason why the Skoda shouldn't fair highly in these surveys.

gilbert_and_sullivan

Well basically you're getting a VW or Audi in a much cheaper set of clothes, so expectations are sometimes lower, but many canny buyers delieberatly go for the Skoda version cos they likes a bargain, can't say i blame them.

Not sure as it still applies but many Skoda dealers were small family owned companies, these places invariably offer good service whatever make they supply compared to indifferent chain dealerships which often lose sight of the customer relationship.

BeenThroughItAll

fantasyvn wrote: »

Does it really mean that Skoda cars are good value for money and more reliable than other ‘prestige’ brands like Toyota, Audi, Honda, etc.

Bearing in mind the volume of Skoda vehicles sold, the figures do support this point of view. My experience (having owned four of them now, of different models, and having covered well over 100K in total in Skodas) is that they have been very well built, cheaper to run (taking all costs into account), and reliable (but I do look after my cars and rarely suffer from problems as I prefer to pro-actively maintain rather than react to failures).


I have owned Audi and VW models too, and they have been more expensive overall than their Skoda cousins, and no better in any significant way. In fact the Skodas have always been better specified so represent significantly better value for money.

Or does it just reflect the possibility that most people who are willing to answer the surveys are Skoda buyers?
Thank you

I don't know how you might answer that question, but there's nothing I can think of which would suggest that Skoda buyers are any more or less likely to fill in a survey.

InsideInsurance

fantasyvn wrote: »

Does it really mean that Skoda cars are good value for money and more reliable than other ‘prestige’ brands like Toyota, Audi, Honda, etc.

Or does it just reflect the possibility that most people who are willing to answer the surveys are Skoda buyers?

You need to look into how statistical analysis is done. Normally they will cut off any model that has insufficient votes. There may even be a trimming of the top and bottom votes to deal with spurious voters but having more votes will never have an overall positive effect when we are talking about reasonable sample sizes.

To answer the first question you start getting into more brand theory. Now, it could be that Skoda set expectations much lower than Audi do and so when they both give average performance Skoda will be rated higher than Audi as people were expecting less from them.

Alternatively you have to look at the type of person that buys a Skoda -v- say Audi. Perhaps Audi people, irrespective of marketing/ expectations are generally more picky than the type of person that buys a Skoda.

Of cause it could be they are just a better car.

Most likely its a combination of the above and other similar factors.

verityboo

The satisfaction surveys include ownership experience, the Skoda dealers normally do very well and seem to do a better job of 'caring' if something does go wrong

topdaddy_2

Toyota and honda are prestiege?

Johnmcl7

It's an interesting question as in some surveys the difference between Skoda, Seat, VW and Audi can be surprisingly large even though underneath they're all the same and they suffer exactly the same problems. I agree with the posts above that it comes down to perception, people are getting something they perceive better for less therefore they're less critical and more likely to praise it whereas Audi/VW are the other way round, people are getting less and paying more so they're more likely to be critical of the car.

I'm not convinced about the Skoda dealers in general being better, my experience with their garages has not been good and there seems to be plenty of other poor ones just like any other dealer I guess. I've had three VW based cars (Octavia mk 1, Toledo mk2 and Octavia Mk 2) and wasn't that impressed with the last Octavia, it had quite a few issues over the time I had it and all of them were well known issues with that series (Golf Mk V/VI platform) and was the only car I've had that broke down on me.

John

colino

Surveys with meaningful responses tend to come from people who actually paid for the car as well as drive the thing, so a good, keenly priced plodder like an Octavia (taxi anyone?) will get a decent response. Other manufacturers seem to have traded on their good name too long (Skoda is getting there too) and its a long time since I've heard anyone who handles a lot of cars calling, "Toyota, Audi, Honda" prestige marques.

Nodding_Donkey

With a Skoda you are not paying for the name.