delje08

I believe the service maintenence is well worth it. When they did my brakes, they replaced pads, rotors, sensors, brake lines and fluid. I went ahead and purchased the extended maintenence plan from twinkidneygrill.com for $1595. I also have an X5 that i had recently brought in for service with 99,000 miles and they did oil service, top off fluids, brakes, SPARK PLUGS, all oxygen sensors, all drive belts, microfilter, and tranny fluid.

Its really good to know that when you bring your car in for service you have almost nothing to pay for.

subarashi

I agree that when it works, it works. You obviously have a good dealership where you go. I too have the extended maintainence and the extended warranty I purchased when I bought the car from Munich. On second thoughts, may not have done it now. A lot is not covered with the extended plans.......

EBMCS03

Hahah good answer! Mods did you hear this... Rudy..he needs some extra post counts as a reward.

Oh I didnt know CMS and Medicare use this system too. Ya i dont like it. I think its flawed too... it makes me want to think that the techs... or medicare docs would want to just push their patients out the door asap. thats why 3/5 times I have to return to the dealer for the same problem...

Oh also... if you return to the dealer for the same problem BMW will not pay the dealer for the initial time they performed the work.
So if you ahd to go back to the dealer for the steering rack twice within a time period... they'll only get paied for fixing the steering rack once.

subarashi

REALLY!! Now that is interesting...so they do hold them accountable somehow. I have been back SEVERAL times for quite a few of the same problems so they must really hate me down in my dealership!
BUT...I gotta say, I'd probably still buy BMWs even if they didn't have maintainence included. It leads me to think that perhaps they were stretching to get greater market share by throwing that in.
Anyone know why BMW went with that?? Are there other car companies that have a similar model? Is this true for the EU also??

EBMCS03

I know Merc HAD it... but did away with it in 2004 or somthing because it was costing them too much $$..

I'm not sure how Audi's maintenance plan is... I thought they had some kinda... maybe not as extensive as BMWs... anyone know?

subarashi

The key to remember is that you have to go to your dealer for alignment and balancing because of the OEM Rims and the unavailability of other devices that clip on to the rims acurately to do a good alignment. I think there was some mention of this elsewhere in the forum but I know that there is a significant difference as I used to have my wheels aligned at a local store and still experienece pull/uneven wear issues till I started going to BMW and paying three times as much..but getting a good job done.

I checked with MBUSA, Audi USA and Porsche USA -- no maintainence plans included but they did point out BMWs flaws to me several times when I asked them what they thought of BMWs maintainence plan. Not that I agree with them completely [a Porsche brake job can force you into Chapter 11 I hear], but it's nice to hear the other side sometimes.....

EBMCS03

What did they have to say about BMWs maintenance plan? I'm all ears!

JetBlack5OC

Yep, a BMW brake job alone pays for the extended maintenance.

subarashi

Ha ha....

Well, the guys from MBUSA actually said that they don't offer the maintainence plan because they do not feel it appropriate to charge their clients an "exorbitant" rate for maintainence that would never cost as much as the plan itself. The Porsche guy was even better -- he said that they don't believe their car will need major maintainence and is designed to run for many years with minimal intervention!! In other words, he dissed BMWs quality!!!

It's amazing what answers you can get when you put them on the spot.......

I think the point is this......most sellers believe BMW makes money on their main plan AND it's a sale gimmick. Thus, other vendors do not believe that this will serve their client base well who are looking for a no nonsense car up front.

Oh..and yes, they did point out that there are several clients that need to argue about what is covered and what isn't! As the MB guy told me, "We would never do that to our clients!"

ARE YOU HEARING ME BMW NA?????????????????

subarashi

I have another question to ask you guys....

We've been having a lot of cold weather here in the South and I've noticed a lot more rough starts in the morning when the engine is cold. There've been no backfires or pings on the engine but there are surges when the engine starts off and I feel like this is related to the SIB that we've looked at with the valve, etc....

I took it to my SA who said that they could not "replicate the problem..."

I'm having this flashback of having to fight again but I really don't want these rats messin with the car unless it is absolutely neccesary...what do you experts say.....