sirjaymill

I lurk around this and another forum looking up my problems and seeing what everyone has done to fix them, since all of mine have been address I have only posted a few times. Today I need a palce to vent and thought this would be the perfect spot. I did a search for a thread and couldn't find one so started this one.

Dealer: Dreyer & Reinbold of Greenwood
Couldn't get a manager on the line, and am sure that if I didn't all I would get is drive 4 hours and sit for a day and we will try to fix or just a bold service, but I looked them up on their site and sent a message email, can't wait to see what I get faster a spam email or a reply..

Message was: Service, on 11/02/10 I had 2 rear tires replaced on my BMW 550I. on the invoice it says the tech topped of the fluids. Shortly after getting home, I had to have my local shop top off my fluids since my power steering fluid was low. 5 months later and still no warning, so it was just low and never topped off. The real reason for sending this message, is to let you know that shortly after that I removed my summer tires and put on winter. Now it is spring again, and I went to put back on the summers, to find out the rear tires I had replaced, were put on backwards and no one on town wants to flip them for fear they might tear up the tire. SO, now I have to risk buying two more tires to get them flipped, or drive them with out the correct pattern. Just to show how a little over sight can cause a real bad week and me even more money. plus the carpet that I know was in the car door when I came in, was missing and xxxx Axxxx said they would order it, yet 5 months later still never showed up. Hope you only treat your out of town customers like this.

I removed the SA's name for his sake, and fixed a few typos. What is sad, is they did both and never checked them before putting them on. Would you drive 4 hours to make them fix it for a point, doubt they would. Would you just take it to your local shop and pay 30 something to get them changed over, or just go to a local shop, which none I trust..

Percy_991

Good call to start this.

I've had a few bad experiences from main BMW stealerships all within 12 months. I've documented these in other posts. Here they are consolidated:

[1] Stratstone (I won?t mention the exact one!)
The "Transmission Failure" message was displayed across the iDrive screen. There was a loss of power as the car went into 'safe / limp mode'. The stealership checked this and discovered a transmission oil leak. The gearbox sump was removed and the sleeve and sump were replaced. The parts that were changed were as follows:
[a] 24117571227 (Oil Pan)
[b] ZLU13 (M1375.4 Auto Gearbox Oil)
[c] 24347588725 (Seal Sleeve)

Once this work was complete, I was advised by the service advisor that the fault was still apparent in the mecatronics unit which would either [1] require a new MU or [2] a new gearbox. I wanted a second opinion. The next day I took the car to another stealership and they diagnosed the problem as an incorrectly installed sealing sleeve. They then rectified this. Best case scenario was about £2,000 for a new MU + labour! Worst case a new gearbox costing upwards of £4,000!

I feel that the mis-diagnosis and incorrect fitting of the sleeve connector by the first stealership was shocking and unacceptable. I took this matter further with BMW UK and the original stealership and eventually received compensation and an apology. On a related note, BMW have documented something of importance in Service Information SI B24 08, 06 Jan2009:

"In some cases, the incorrectly installed sealing sleeve may permanently damage pins in the Mechatronic connector (X8500). In such a case, the Mechatronic module has to be replaced (pin repair is not possible)."

The stealership who rectified the problem took photos of the incorrectly positioned sleeve and compared this to a correctly fitted one on another vehicle they had in the workshop at the time. This was used to show the original stealership had made a mistake.

[2] Sytner (Again I won?t mention the exact one)
A few months back I rang a few stealership's in a 60 mile range to get some quotes for supplying and fitting a new inlet manifold and exhaust manifold. I managed to get one BMW stealership to reduce the labour rate and I spoke with the parts manager to get a good discount on the parts; this alone saved me a few hundred pounds at least. Two days before I was due to go in, I fired across an email to the service department, with the parts department copied in, confirming I would be in and also to clarify the costs. I received an email back with the confirmation from both departments.

I take the car in to the stealers around 11:00AM on D-day and again clarify the work and costs with a service adviser. He looks at his notes for the job and says everything is in hand and my car will be ready at the end of the day. I then leave in a dirty Mini One courtesy car which is covered in mud both inside and outside! About 16:00 I receive a call from the service adviser telling me my car is ready to collect and that the work went to schedule. I get to the stealership and wait in the coffee area being amused by the stealerships in-house clown disguised as a BMW 'tyre expert'; see my other post on tyres! Anyway, my turn and the service adviser hands me an invoice and asks how I will be paying. The invoice amount has increased by about £400! I ask him to explain. He "um's" and "ar's" telling me the work had taken longer than expected and there were additional parts that needed to be used. So I ask him to give me a breakdown of these. He is unable to do so and tells me there were additional gaskets and bolts and "you know when work is carried out sometimes we need to do other stuff". I was not buying into this and asked to speak with the service manager. The chap tries to phone him, (apparently), but no response. I ring the parts department and speak with the parts manager, whom I had spoken to before my car came in, to clarify the parts that were used on my car and the prices. These matched the prices I had been quoted before. So where was this extra £400 coming from?

The service adviser tells me that the stealership have done me a favor at this price and that it is at costs; how many times have I heard this one? This is despite me driving about 50 miles to get to this stealership. Anyway, I tell him I want to get a coffee and head towards the coffee area. I then phone the stealership and ask to speak with the service manager. Call gets routed straight away and I notice an office with the door open just off the coffee area. Whilst talking to the service manager, I can hear the conversation on my phone and from this office. I wave my arms to get the service managers attention. He comes out, and we continue the conversation face-to-face.

I tell him I need to know where this extra £400 has come from as I had agreed a labour price and a parts price before work was carried out. I then told him I had confirmation back from his own team a few days previous. Furthermore, I told him that when I was phoned to pick up my car I was told everything went according to plan. Again, I was struggling to know where this extra £400 was coming from. The manager was pretty embarrassed and said there must have been a communications problem within his team and parts. We went back to the service desk where "Mr. Chuckles" aka the original service adviser was sat. His manager told him to amend the invoice. After apologizing, the manager left me with Mr. Chuckles who had the nerve to tell me "not to feel guilty for not paying the extra £400"! Wow! To that I told him that I did not feel guilty as there was nothing for me to feel guilty about. His unprofessional mannerism was far from what I would expect. I wont be going back there again in a hurry.

BLooD

Try this one, I had a wheel bearing reaplaced and they left the roll bar hanging, reported to BMW uk.

Percy_991

Did BMW UK give you the usual, "Well Sir, unfortunately you need to speak to the (s)tealership directly, as everyone is an independent franchise! But I can arrange for someone at the (s)tealership to contact you directly" I refused to listen to them when I had the issues as Stratstone listed in this thread, and threatened legal action. They seemed to move when I got a good friend who is a Solicitor to send them a letter. They soon acted as I was given compensation.

Also, when I had my E92 I had the 225 19" alloys refurbed and the stealership painted them black at my request. But when I got them back there were fingerprints in the paint finish. Was not impressed. Another stealership tried rectifying the wheels but with no prevail. In the end I got BMW customer services to replace all 4 alloys with brand new wheels as apparently BMW did not endorse painting alloys a different colour to OEM and I believe were to speak with the Dealer Principle. I thought this was an excellent result as ironically the 225 19" alloys had just featured on Watchdog, (a UK consumer rights programme), where people with the same alloys were getting major structural damage due to pot holes. However, BMW were refusing to replace them saying there was no design flaw and it was due to the users driving style! Ironically, the 225 19" alloy were no longer offered on the LCI E92! But hey, BMW will never admit there was a design flaw!

BLooD

No mate they dont do that, twice I have reported bad service and both times they got on to the dealership and gave em a dressing down.

Percy_991

BMW UK over in Bracknell are pretty helpful but I find that you need to be fairly persistent. The stealerships have to react once HQ get involved as complaints against them affects some of their internal metric scores I am lead to believe.

Sanj

Sold my 5 serie's after an incident at Sandal BMW here in my home town,car went in for an oil change and breather filter change at £305,and after picking it up I found out somebody had set a blind monkey loose on my pride and joy as the dealer had given my car a wash and clean(car was mint with no dirt mark's on it at all) and had taken a chunk of my paintwork out on the front passenger door when ragging a hoover round the car,and had left lot's of surface mark's all over the rear bumper(I managed to polish them out),contacted the dealership service manager who claimed it may have been done elsewhere,I stated it had come in first thing in the morning and was fine,needless to say I went into a fit of rage and demanded to see CCTV footage of the area my car was being worked on,he gave in and ordered a repair on the door asap,now that's another story.....it did'nt end well. :thumbsdown:

Percy_991

Not good. We choose major stealerships for peace of mind, perceived superior service and technical capabilities. We pay a premium for this and it still shocks me when they fail to deliver. Dont get me wrong, I have had some excellent experiences with various stealerships in the past but when they funk-up they can really funk-up! On one occasion when they were putting my alloys on they snaped the head of the locking key into the locking nut. Worse thing is they did not admit it at the time. Luckily I noticed a few days after when washing the car. Took it straight back and demanded they fix it. They had to drill the locking nut out, damaging my alloy in the process. They also replaced the locking nuts as I would have expected.

Sanj - did you get another 5er after selling up or was this enough to make you switch marques altogether?

sy1616

You sir need to be more aware of what's going on. I always check my tires first thing, before picking up the car.....caught it done incorrectly a couple times.

Percy_991

Indeed.

After that particular incident I never leave the stealership until I've checked her over thoroughly. Another thing I always do is check the courtesy car in detail before I sign for it and physically take it out.