lax535

After having an accident this week in LA my car was STOLEN by BMW Roadside assistance. Whoever they used diverted the car to a no name fraudulent body shop. They refused to give back the car saying that that was the name of where I told them to take the car. They crossed off my dealers name on the work order and wrote over it.

BMW customer service was rude and accusatory and of course claimed no responsibility and would not assist in any way to get the car back.

I reported the car stolen, it seems that the LAPD paid the body shop a visit and were able to convince them to release the car to my dealer.

BEWARE if United Towing in Los Angeles shows up for your call this could happen to you. Your car may end up at Northridge Auto Collision these are the bastards that stole my car.

This is now a fraud investigation by my insurance company as it is unclear what they did to the car or stole off of it.

Needless to say I am not done with BMW NA and if the car has been tampered with in any way they will be replacing it.

I am so disgusted by BMW NA and the handling of this, I can not believe that they are foolish enough to allow this to happen to customers with new cars.

They can sing whatever song they want to but legally they have a huge responsability here.

EBMCS03

Oh man... thanks for the heads up. I'm in LA.

lax535

Yes its a huge mess. The car is a total loss now and I have still two weeks later not recd a call from bmw NA.

KnIgHtCoM

Thanks for the heads up. That's a real scary situation. I hope everything works out and BMW NA takes care of you, otherwise there's gonna be some heads rolling. Good luck!

rodybmw

Wait a minute.......I thought that BMW's Roadside Assistance was ONLY supposed to take the car to BMW Dealers and nowhere else, even if the owner asked for it. Am I wrong? I think that is the way it's supposed to work, yet the BMW rep had no problem with the car being taken to a non-BMW facility? I even remember people saying that Roadside Assistance would only take their car to the CLOSEST BMW dealer and not any other BMW dealer of the owner's choosing, so how did they not have a problem with the car being taken to an independent body shop? What if my transmission broke down and I asked BMW Roadside assistance to take the car to an independent mechanic shop or to a Mercedes dealer? I'm sure BMW NA would have a problem with that and refuse my request, so how is this any different? Hopefully the BMW rep you talked to had no clue what they were talking about and it isn't normal policy to let the car be towed to anywhere other than BMW dealers.

lightfytr

didnt this same situation happen a couple months ago????

nickolas_g

I know that BMW does watch these threads. Perhaps they will chime in if the lawyers don't get in the way.

lax535

I insisted and indicated in writing that it be taken to Beverly Hills BMW the towing company diverted the car to northridge collision and refused to release it saying that I called beck and changed the tow order.

Only once the police were involved was I able to get the car back. The insurance company has now declared it a total loss.

Friday a supervisor at AAA called to ask me if i was satisfied with the resolution. What a joke there has been no resolution.

To add insult to injury the BMW NA rep insinuated that I created the situation in the first place.

Not really the ULTIMATE DRIVING EXPERIENCE

JSpira

Just to clarify: this is presumably as a result of the accident, not the diversion, although they still have to investigate if the body shop might have further tampered with the car (although that sounds unlikely but with that type of operation, one never knows).

lax535

Yes you are correct although I have not seen the car as I have been out of town for the past two weeks. I will take a look at it this week as I have not seen it since we got it back from our friends at United Towing.