BigMike

Wednesday:
I took in my car for a routine 20k service (as recommended by them) around noon, left the car after telling them to look into my diesel's apparent higher than usual rpm'ing when stationary. The service dept told me that the routine service would take a few hours and the testing of the diesel rpm problem would take another few hours so they told me to pick it up at 5pm the next day. They said, 5pm--not later since they wouldn't be open.

Thursday:
I take a 30 minute taxi drive from my house (south of taipei city) the the BMW service center (north of taipei) and just about 1-2 minutes before I get there, I call up the service person to have my car ready.

He answers the phone and says "Oh, I forgot to call you. We've been busy so you'll have to pick it up tomorrow so go back and come tomorrow".

I asked him why he couldn't just call me earlier if they changed the pickup time and his answer was that he forgot and it wasn't a big thing.

Wasn't a big thing?! I had to cancel a work meeting to to pick up my car, spend 90 bucks (roundtrip) for nothing?

All they had to do was make a simple gadamn phone call!!

Talk about top notch service for a luxury car my ass!!!

I called my SA and he says yeah...bmw's like that but what you wanna do about it? Just live with it... I politely asked to to call their dept and get a specific date when i can pick up the car.

Call returns with a 'probably tomorrow but we're not too sure but we'll call you when we know'.

Friday:
Today I get a call saying I can pick it out NOW! So I take another $45 dollar, 1/2 hour taxi ride to the BMW Center and the only person who would talk to me was the secretary who wanted me to pay for the maintenance fee ($700 bucks).

I told her I had some questions regarding the maintenance and wanted to talk to the original person who I had been dealing with... well, I guess he was hiding cuz I had to wait and wait..

Finally I spotted the manager and ambushed him with the situation. His response, oh yeah we're busy......but you can get your car now.

I told him OK but BMW's going to pay yesterday's taxi fees ($90 bucks) and had to really resort to some serious expressions for a few minutes until he finally relented and gave in.

But of course, made me feel like a f**king asshole for being such a whiney tightwad for wanting the taxi money.


WHY DO WE HAVE SUCH POOR SERVICE and SERVICE ATTITUDE AT BMW TAIWAN?!!!!!!

Makes me sick and ashamed to even be a BMW'er.

We pay more than even Korea and they get 5 years FREE MAINTENANCE!!! Yep, you read that right.

We DON'T GET loaner cars nor pickup service like the States. C'mon, even Lexus and Infiniti does that..... is it that hard?

We pay 700 bucks for a maintenance service job and get this kind of attitude!!

Thanks alot BMW!

530ISPORT

thats sucks.... thats kinda bad... not as bad as my time at the dealer... i almost got in to a fight with like the whole staff at service.... over a loner car... long story.. ill see if i can find it.. i posted it back some time ago..... but glade you got the money back for the cab....

luigi524td

BigMike,

Discourteous treatment of a paying customer is unacceptable - ESPECIALLY at a BMW Store!

I urge you to write to BMW Corp, outlining your experience (sans emotional content) and recommend that they address this dealer representative's poor customer service. You should cc the dealer's General Manager, too!

It was not out of line to expect compensation of real costs (cab fare) and consideration of indirect costs (your time is at least as valuable as their dealer SA's time.

Lastly, while I don't think country level programs (maintenance) will change as a result of your experience, it's a real eye-opener for those of us in the USA.

seoulman

Mike~ move back to Korea! No diesel sedans in this country but the service is top-notch!

All joking aside, your whole experience is really unfortunate. I really recommend you contacting the people at BMW Asia Pacific and informing them about your service fiasco. No matter where you are, 'econo-box' service levels for a luxury car such as BMW is totally unacceptable.

So... What was the problem with your car?

TexaZ3

Man, that sucks. But then again, its not like that everywhere. Most BMW dealerships are actually owned by someone else, not BMW. So in most cases, BMW has nothing to do what individual dealer service level is going to be. Yes, they can influence that, but can't really control.
Having said that, I just had a HORRIBLE service experience at my regular dealer, the one that usually gives me top notch service. Everything was just like always, brought my 645Ci to have door seal replaced (it started separating a bit) and passenger seat mat replaced (seatbelt light was randomly coming on while driving and caused freaking dinging sound). Got a loaner (335 sedan - nice!) and was told it should take about a day or two to have the mat problem diagnosed. Long story short, it took them 2 weeks to have the problem diagnosed, and they replaced the mat and the seal. But...the tech that was handling my car broke off 3 clips off the kickpanel and now it is rattling like crazy and doesn't fit right. Glovebox trim (ruthenium panel) has a deep half-inch long gash/scratch in it and is indented in the other spot. My rear rim has about 3-inch long curb rash, really bad too (I have restored all 4 wheels to like-new condition only 3 weeks ago!). The leather on the pass seat was all bunched up and not fastened securely at all. The headliner has dirty fingerprints all over! Finally, when I drove the car back home, noticed something rattling under the hood - guess what I found there? A 10mm metric wrench and a small ratchet with 12mm socket on it. Un-freaking-believable! The car is back in service to repair the wheel and replace kickpanel and glovebox trim today. I hope they don't screw something else. And this is one of the best BMW dealerships in Dallas area that is usually awesome. So, everyone screws up from time to time. But this doesn't give them an excuse to do that.

seoulman

Mike's frustration is with the dealer that is also the importer of BMW in to Taiwan. They basically have a monopoly for BMW cars in the country so they charge whatever they want for service and from what I hear, they treat customers like sh*t. BMW itself has no presence in Taiwan. This dealer interfaces with BMW Asia Pacific based in Singapore. I empathize with Mike. What he is going through was the plight of Korean foreign car owners until the brands themselves set-up offices and took over the importation of their own products. Things will get better when BMW sales volumes in Taiwan warrant the creation of a BMW Taiwan office by BMW and they take over the importation and give dealerships to other companies creating competition.

wees75

This sucks... I think you should write to BMW about this experience. The service center in Dubai is also not the expected "world class" as well but I have not been through your experience.

BigMike

+1 what Seoulman said.

At least the manager did something about it or I'd go ballistic..

RE: the problem. They didn't find any but updated the ECU and checked the engine etc... So far so good. Runs a bit smoother now and other than the 'poor service attitude', everything's peachy.

seoulman

Glad the problem with the car has been take care of. As for the service you received, I still think you should bring it to the attention of BMW Asia Pacific in Singapore.

BigMike

BMW Taiwan is known for their poor service attitude and I don't think me complaining will any good. I think they should consider the reason they are losing to Lexus big time and do something about themselves.

If they want my future money, I expect them to change. If not, oh well, I'm thinking of another car brand next year so that's their problem.

But they'd better hurry since they've lost a lot of business to Lexus who really knows how to treat their customers. (nope, I'm not getting a Lexus tho)