E60BEEMER

waiting for some pics now really!!

Taken any yet?

igord

not yet, will do as soon as the weather clears up

igord

Finally! The pictures!

Black BMW530iA

Congratulations on a really good looking car

HotLap

What can I say WOW That's one of the best looking 550i's I've seen yet!! GREAT pics and you must be really enjoying the ride

Very nice...I think if I had seen that combo on my dealer's lot...I might just have ordered it on the spot!! What color of black is that? The Natural Brown leather interior is dead on for that black exterior color!!

lokoloko

Nice car, looks like it already has an Eisenmann! Too bad my experience with Peter Pan service sucks!

igord

thank you!

igord

Thank you!

This is carbon black (although the car has to be under certain lighting conditions for one to actually see the blue in it, but when it is visible the combo is gorgeous). There was no dealer in the area (at the time) that had the color, so I had to order, but I also did it because I wanted sport-automatic transmission (which, again, at the time was not available on lots)

Actually, this was the first car I ordered without ever seeing the interior or exterior colors in-person (love it though )

igord

Thank you! Actually the exhaust is stock.

Also, as far as Peter Pan, I had the opposite experience with them. I take both my cars there for service, most of the time they get things right! There were a couple of times when I was in and the service adviser was less than pleasant, but she really knew a lot about the cars/bulletins/etc.

(WARNING, long rant) If you want my "mini" dealer review, please read on, otherwise please ignore:

Over the past 10 years I've been to several dealers (mostly because I move around) and here are some brief experiences with them:

(bay area / san francisco)

'98 328 - bmw san francisco: mostly courteous, however, a lot of the time I had to come back to have them fix the same problem (had rain leak through the door panels, had to come in several times for that for example, then other problems with rattles, etc)
'98 328 - steven's creek: was there only once for alarm install, they changed the programming presets (door locking, seat options, etc), however they did contact bmwsf so that they would take care of programming things back at no charge

(left for southern california)

'01 330 - Center BMW - Sherman Oaks - almost never needed service (least visits on ANY bmw I ever had), only went in for alarm install, service and price were excellent. In fact, the car was infested with ants (parked by a tree with an anthill), they even cleaned out the engine bay - very nice.
'01 330 - Steve Thomas - Camarillo - VERY courteous and accommodating (sometimes almost uncomfortably so), went in for A/C odor problem, they took care of it, but broke a piece of plastic in the vent control which resulting in a few repeated visits. Got my brakes changed there as well, no problems there.

'05 x5 - Steve Thomas - again very courteous, but fairly ineffective in resolving rattles, squeaks, etc.
'05 x5 - Rusnak Westlake - moderately courteous, not effective at all, cd changer issues, have been to their service department several times, with no avail, at one time got a nail in the tire (while the car was in service). Not very welcoming environment both in service and sales departments. The only good thing I can say about them, is that they always gave a loaner car.

'05 545 - Steve Thomas - courteous always, but, again ineffective in resolving rattles, squeaks, etc (this time they were quite severe). The did resurfacing of the brakes, double-triple checked everything, but never resolved things to my satisfaction.

(back to bay area now)

'05 545 - Peter Pan - not so pleasant SA, but resolved ALL of the issues: seal creaking - gone (although solution is slightly less than elegant - they ended up using teflon tape), brake squeaks - gone (replaced rotors), steering control rattle - gone (replaced the turn signal lever). (the ols SA is gone, the new SA is EXCELLENT!!) After one of the SIP updates, started having problems with CCC, after a few visits (some were longer due to the fact that this was a new issue and they had to deal with BMWNA) replaced the CCC - problem gone.

'05 545 - BMW of Mountain View (will never go there again) - got a steering malfunction warning, called Peter Pan, but they were booked for the week. So I called Mountain View, they had an appointment the same day. They fixed the problem, however when I got the car back it was driven 5-6 miles and had a TON of pebble mars/paint chips on the front bumper and front part of the hood, a CD went missing from the in-dash cd player (don't really care, but just the fact) and they left a pen and some papers behind (interestingly it was a Mercedes pen). The thing I cared about were paint chips, after going back-and-forth with the service manager (and I forget what other manager) they basically called me a lier and refused to fix, claiming that there is no way they could've picked up the paint chips during the 5 mile drive (really? p.s. there was road work/re-pavement being done nearby). Anyway overall very unpleasant experience.

(07 x3 - now the back story to this is that we got the car at Steven's Creek, Peter Pan didn't have the combination of features we wanted)

'07 x3 - Peter Pan - alarm install - there is a list of settings dealer can program, such as alarm chime, etc. First of all they refused to change the door auto-lock setting during the alarm install (although it is obvious that they were already on that screen for alarm programming features). However during the alarm install they changed the behavior from what it used to be (since, in spite of their claims, they were on that screen anyway). After making a (small) fuss they finally programmed everything to they way we initially asked (bad SA, but good Service Manager) if they weren't such jerks (and actually took the form I filled out for the "key" programming) to begin with, they could've saved themselves the time and expense of having to re-program things again - I don't understand it, but I guess just a bad SA.

(upcoming requests)

'07 x3 - will take to Peter Pan - for the transmission software update (if you search on bimmerfest you'll see how many problems the '07 model has)

'08 550 - will take to Peter Pan - the headlights seem to be pointed too low (lower than my '05 545, so much so that I can't see the road signs on poorly lit freeways/highways) and there is an ever-increasing plastic rattle coming from the steering column.

DennisM

Congrats !