Alex.br

asickmf

that is amazing. to bad it won't make it any cheaper to bring the 5er in for service. maybe they should put more effort in making the car not need CIP updates. or at least make them work correctly.

Rudy

Pretty neat. One thing to remember is that demos always work well -- let's see how well these things will work in the field...

At least the technician has a couple cupholders on his tool tray!

AlwynMike

Sorry Rudy,

I have to disagree.

That is NOT a technician, that is just an overpaid monkey.

We all know that some BMW "tech's" know less about our cars than we do, and this will take it one step further. BMW will not need "skilled" men to do jobs, just a set of fancy shades.

Would you knowingly entrust your pride and joy to someone who may be intellectually challenged??

Not me.

Rudy

After hearing some of the dealer stories here, I think many people are forced to do exactly that!

I agree with you that the video shows a guy who is merely reduced to a parts replacer (or monkey) but unfortunately, I think that's the direction the automotive repair business has been heading for some time now. No, I'm not advocating it, I'm just looking at it realistically.

Obviously, there are exceptions to the "intellectually challenged" tech (mine, for example, is really awesome) but even the good guys rely heavily on the upstream support from BMW -- be it PuMA or just TIS information and TSB's. There's no way even a highly skilled and intelligent technician could fix our cars without some reliance on these types of things. (I really feel sorry for the independent shops who are forced to invest in high-tech tools or risk not being able to perform the service in the first place...)

The newfangled glasses that show how to change the part is more likely designed to cut down on the labor hours (or nail down an accurate amount of hours that will be reimbursed through warranty claims, etc.) because someone will still have to diagnose and troubleshoot the problem before they even put the glasses on their heads.

The other thing that will happen, as I think you may be implying, is that there will be more low-level parts replacers at the dealership who take orders from the higer-level techs. The techs will diagnose and troubleshoot the issue then pass the car on to the lower-level guys to put the goggles on and do the dirty work.

Either way, I don't think it's avoidable and, in some ways, can help eliminate some of the horror stories we hear on these boards about how much the dealer screwed up someone's car...

AlwynMike

Rudy,

As usual, you speak a lot of sense.

I don't have a high regard for Dealer servicing. I don't have a favourite Tech as I try to keep my cars out of the Dealers and on the road. I don't have a favourite Indy as, so far, my BMW's have been pretty reliable.

I do try to do as much as I can myself, using my years of accumulated knowledge of thing mechanical and electronic - my Old Man owned an Independant Garage, and I trained in Electronics myself. Saying that, a lot of my car is alien to me, and as you rightly say, a man that knows everything about ONE car is very rare, never mind a man who knows one MAKE of car.

I think I am just a dyed-in-the-wool cynic, especially having seen cars come through my Old Man's garage that had been subject to Dealer abuse.

OK, everyone has to start somewhere, but the skilled tech will take half the time to do a job than a monkey with a set of shades. That is what he's paid for.

I certainly don't think that this scenario will be confined to BMW, and contrary to popular belief (in the UK at least), us BMW owners are not paying the highest service bills. Indeed I have an aquaintance who paid about 3 times as much for servicing his VW Passat than I did for my old 330d. He's now running a Mercedes with lower service bills, but he's still paying more than me!