cwmenne

I've done a lot of searches on this forum and haven't seen much about some of the problems I've had, so I'm wondering if what I've seen is normal or not. I purchased an '04 545i from the local BMW dealer and it was a single owner car with supposedly all current maintenance completed,(I went with the salesman to the service department and had them read the key). I asked the service department "when is the next service due?" and the answer was 9/09 for brake fluid change and 100,000 miles for major service - that's it. I bought the car and two weeks later the brake pad warning came on for both the front and rear pads, then I found one of the wheels had a crack in it. Now, less than two monts after purchasing the car, the radiator leaked and now the glove box won't open! The car has 80,000 miles on it and it seems that it is having a lot of problems for that mileage. Any thoughts? I have let the dealer know how disappointed I am in what the experience has been so far, but the only thing they took care of was the cracked wheel,(safety issue). The last car I bought from the same dealer was a 2001 740iL Sport that was a CPO and that car was also a nightmare right after I bought it. It appears that even with the CPO cars, they are not really inspecting them or doing any additional maintenance. This car isn't a CPO, but it appears that they didn't inspect it at all, so I might as well have bought it from a private party and saved a few thousand. The most frustrating part was the service guy that lied to me in saying that the next maintenance coming up was a year away and didn't mention that the brakes had less than 1,000 miles left on them. Then they had the nerve to tell me I needed almost $2,000 worth of brakes when I brought the car in two weeks after I bought it! I love the car, but I've had it less than 2 months and it has cost me $3,500 and the glove box won't open. I thought my 740 was high maintenance,($5,000-$6,000 per year in maintenance), but this is just as bad. By the way, my first BMW was a '94 530i (E34) and it was the cheapest car I've ever owned as far as maintenance goes. I put 220,000 miles on it and it only cost me a few hundred a year to maintain,(oil changes not included), and it still looked and drove like new when I got rid of it.

I don't think the dealer is going to do anything for me, but I am curious if I should just suck it up and accept it as normal, or if I should avoid this dealer at all costs in the future,(so far they are 2 for 2 on bad cars for me). Unfortunately, they are my closest dealer and they're still about 35 miles away. The other dealer in town is not too much further, but their in a part of town that I almost never go to.

Thanks for the input,
Chad

DrLev99

You can buy 4 brake pads for less than $200. You might want to PM member DRANGED for info re: the dealerships in the Minneapolis area and to find out which one he uses.

Don't give up the car, but you might want to on the place who sold it to you. I am curious why they charged $2K for brake pads...I'd have to go back and raise hell over that.

Also, considering what you've stated so far as "problems," yours don't really seem that major....just basic maintenance, a leaky radiator and a stuck glovebox...oh, and a wheel. Even with the bad wheel, they all seem like minor fixes that should have cost well below the $$ figures you are stating.

IceyTys

Sorry to hear about your car problems....Im curious to know...if you had such problems from the previous car you bought from them...why did you go back Sorry if I were to spend a pretty penny on a car from a dealer and they sold me a car w/ many problems, you can believe I wouldnt be back.

cwmenne

Well, you point out another annoyance with this dealer... They seem to only do things that they want to do and the way they want to do it. They said "we just replace rotors anytime we replace pads". (Believe me, the phone call from the dealer telling me that I need brakes was a fun one.) I've been wanting to install the iPod adapter in place of my CD changer, but the thought of trying to get the dealer to do the reprogramming required makes me sick. I can see them charging me hours upon hours for it, IF I can even convince them that it is possible. I know thier first reaction would be that they can't do that and it won't work. For example, when I asked them about upgrading the car to bluetooth, they said that it couldn't be done based on the build date. Thanks to this forum, I found out that all I needed was a $300 BMW BTUM, simply pop it in the phone cradle and it works perfectly. If they would have actually checked into it, they would have realized that they could have sold me the module and, but they won't even check into it. Big frustrations with the level of service and detail from this dealer.

As for my numbers, I did include winter tires in that $3,500 total, so maybe I wasn't being fair, but because of the unique size that this car uses, they are quite expensive. Regardless, Brakes, a radiator and a wheel within less than 2 months seems excessive,(plus the steering wheel adjuster also broke, but the dealer fixed it when I pointed it out upon delivery). I'm definitely not getting rid of the car, I absolutely love it, I'm just trying to figure out if the dealer is not holding up their end of the deal with what I should expect when I buy a used BMW from a BMW dealer.

PraiseTheLowered

I feel your CPO pain. CPO is suppose to be "back to new" according to bmw and in many cases the dealerships overlooks issues or apply quick fixes. I had a battery go out on me 3 months after I bought it with a low battery drain light when I bought the car. "Just drive it and it will charge" then they wanted $600 to get a new battery in the car.

Go the aftermarket route for your brakepads and look for another dealership. Mine here has been decent so far but nothing that would make me buy another car from them.

good luck

cwmenne

I guess I feel like I am stuck with this dealer. They are most convenient for me. With the 740, it was so bad that they actually offered to buy the car back, but it was such a rare find that I really wanted to keep it. To top it off, part of the work they did is now failing again. They spent about $12,000 and about a month to fix it after I bought it. I guess the offer to buy the car back was probably the main reason that I decided to go back to them. Also, I thought that the last car must have been a fluke, but now it is obvious that it wasn't. It seemed that they were willing to stand behind the car, but I guess now I can see that it was probably only because the car was still under warranty. They certainly aren't standing behind THIS car. Lastly, one time years ago when I had them do an oil change on my 530i, they inadvertantly removed part of the oil filter housing and didn't put it back in so I ran 5,000 miles with no filtering of the engine oil. I found it when I started hearing a lot of knocking on engine start and idle. I had to prove it to them that they left the part out and I had to tell them what part they left out for them to even understand what it was. I guess this dealer may be hopeless.

nikko64

Sounds to me like the dealer is the problem. Unfortunately, non-cpo cars are not the same as those that are cpo'd. That being said, not all dealers are equal in the cpo process. My local dealer tried to sell me a cpo that had the entire passenger side re-painted and whenI asked if it was previously wrecked, the salesman denied it. Thank goodness for carfax and the sun whoch both revealed the presvious wreck. Now, I drive 20 extra miles to service my car at a different dealer and they treat me like we should be treated. Had this been a CPO, you might have had some recourse and could have contacted BMW NA (dealers can actually lose their license for selling lemons as cpo). Good luck with the fixes. As others have pointed out, you should take the car to either another dealer or a good independent place...nothing can be worse than te dealer that you have been dealing with, right ?

DrLev99

I know you feel these are big issues, and you certainly have had to deal with a lot from the start, but you may have gotten ripped on the rotors....and that's basically a maintenance issue, along with the pads, and there's nothing you can do now. Chalk that up to your dealer being rotten, not a "problem" with the car, per se.

Winter tires shouldn't cost more than about $215 a piece for good 18's...which is what I paid. The tires on our cars are not that unique and are no more costly than any other 18" tire, for the most part. Of course, it depends on the brand too.

Most of what I am hearing is frustration with the dealership, not the car.....so even though you might have to drive a bit farther to find another BMW deaelership, I think you won't regret it. And I thought my dealership was bad! You should know by now that asking an SA about information is pretty useless....ask questions here first!

Or like someone else suggested, find someone private who knows his German cars. Good luck, and hang in there.

fogger

Sorry to hear about your problems with the dealer. To me, those issues you mentioned I would have expected the dealer to take care of before moving the car, especially to a previous customer and return buyer. I also agree that at 80K, this could be considered normal maintenance but would mean to me that they didn't do an inspection of the car. On the other hand, it's no real surprise to me that a sales rep is selling something that he doesn't know what he's selling but the service guys should be telling you the straight skinny. I purchased a CPO vehicle last year in Minneapolis and all the material from the previous owner was still in the glovebox, though I chose not to call the previous owner for additional info. Mine had 18K on it so I decided to purchase the extended maintenance as well, some 6 months after ownership. I will say, the service dept. has been excellent to work with as I've had tranny fluid, wiper blades, front brakes, console wood replaced, and general checkup for what I thought was rough running as winter was setting in. This is all minor stuff I realize but for this '04 545i owner, I've been very pleased with the service and think that they have given me better service than the local Audi dealership which I used to frequent and I'm pretty sure they had won awards for their service excellence.

rodneyremington

Sorry to hear that. You live in Minnesota, you need winter tires not an SUV. AWD will help you less on icy roads than winter tires.