Iceman

Yeah, great job by BMW NA CR. It might have been better to ignore your email, instead of this response...

The Pentium Guy

Pathetic.

alohalc

man, might as well saying something like, "every car has problems. what do you expect?" what's the diff ?

niktee

That's exactly the response I received when I e-mailed them with concerns prior to ordering. Something like "As you know, today's automobiles require a lot of complex systems....you can't expect all of 'em to work properly all of the time, now can you?.....blah, blah, blah." Must be form response 376-A.

Rudy

Although I understand the frustrations caused by the failure of the transmission (whether or not it is Thanksgiving), the truth is that these cars ARE incredibly complex. This failure is an exception, not the norm. What do you think BMW should have said? They are sympathetic to your problem and are offering to help you and the dealer resolve it. What else do you expect them to do? Isn't that what a warranty is for?

If they ignored your letter, that would be worse. Instead, they answered you and offered assistance. They never said you should expect to have problems -- those were your words. Actually, they said that despite their best efforts, a problem may occur with a particular vehicle or component. That's exactly what happened and that's true with every vehicle from every manufacturer. There are isolated problems with "reliable" cars like Honda, Lexus, Acura, etc. as well.

In a perfect world, this wouldn't happen. Unfortunately, it happened to you on one of the worst possible days. Please understand that I truly feel bad that you and your family had to suffer being stranded. It funny how much we all love the car when it works but as soon as there's a problem, people don't want to accept the fact that we're driving a very complex machine. Machines break.

I just don't understand all the animosity toward Tricia's reply -- what else you expect BMW to do at this point?

nicknec

I have to say I agree with Rudy. What else can she do at this point except to offer to work with you and the dealer? I know it is a bad situation for drjochen, but this is why there is a warranty.

Many manufactures will not even repsond to their owners emails. My '03 Lincoln Navigator blew an engine with with only 1500 miles. My numerous inquiries direclty to Lincoln and through the dealer went unanswered-until I sued them under the Lemon Law.

If you realy are unahappy, ask the dealer to put you contact with their factory rep. The rep will have more power than a customer service rep replying to email at BMW NA.

Guest

Its not about the fact that I had a problem. (although I have had 3 other problems with the car in the first 4 weeks, which I didn't even mention). And my dad in Germany blew the engine on his 4 month old 525i, scary...

And I appreciate BMW responding, don't get me wrong.

Its about the fact that they tell me to expect problems in a way that comes across as "hey, what do you complain about - you bougth a complex car, you should expect this to happen". NO, I SHOULDN'T. I never should. Maybe I am wrong, but this is a bit too honest for my taste.

I also compare this with a recent experience with our Subaru. My wife had a problem with a 4 month old Subaru Outback (driveshaft), which the dealer handeled beautifully (some compensation in Subaru bucks, free loaner, pickup and dropoff, we got the car back full with gas and cleaned, repair update calls ever day, etc.).

At my BMW dealer, I had the impression this happens every day and they didn't care much... At least, I got a loaner from Hertz after much bitching.

And btw, my dealer had no clue what to do with the error message. He didn't even look at the car for 4 days...but he told me like 5 times to repond with all 5's on the survey I would get soon.

drjochen

Sorry, the last post was obviously me.

nicknec

drjochen,

I agree, the rep who responded to your email did not use the best choice of words.

I suggest you tell your dealer you want to speak with his rep and that you will give him the worst score possible until you do. The rep is the one you want to hear your concerns. He is also the one who has power to do something about it.

Best of luck.

akirax

sometimes i wonder if im aware of all these bmw issues is because i read a bmw board, in other words my perception of other cars like lexus, honda, ford, etc is that they are to a certain extent reliable, yes they have problems but if it were to the degree of the bmw issues it seems you would hear about it in the news, media, etc. and because more people drive hondas then people driving bmws, you dont hear about it. sure there are recalls but not to the extent as to the numbers of software updates seen by e60 owners.

i wonder what exists on other boards such as lexus, honda, or ford.
sure the bmw's are complex cars, but all theses issues that are discussed on this board PROVE that there is no quality assurance process being applied to these software updates.

im not reading that e60s are having massive hardware failures(yet it does happen, CCC, MASK modules, etc) im reading that a lot of these issues stem from software being upgraded, things that were working are no longer working

How long does it take a BMW development team to compile new code, upload it to 2 525s, 2 530s, and 2 545s,(MINIMUM), with one manual, one automatic, and field test each of these cars for a period of 2weeks and compare findings with known/existing issues before releasing the software to dealers???? and of course if any issues are found during the field, those findings get sent back to the s/w dev team and retested??? WHATS THE PROBLEM?

There are others forms of hardware/software combinations that are a lot more complex than the system running in a BMW, try a passenger Jet, a vehicle that transports people back and forth between cities on a daily basis. Can you imagine an issue where a passenger jet crashes because the radar software failed due to a recent software update to navigation system?

how about the software running on $250K Virtual Hard Disk Storage Array?
or
the sotware running in a $1,500 Cisco Router? talkabout multiple massive software revision families, but yet each version is extensively tested before they label it as mature, yes on a $1,500.00 router!!!!

If these issues continue by the time i buy my R6, I won't feel bad asking for $7k off of sticker price, they can say no, but i wont feel bad asking....if i gotta beta test bmw software upgrades, they will have to pay me up front...

I try and stay positive looking forward to owning my first bmw, it aint easy....