Roy7

So my Warranty expires in about a month.... I was told spark plugs need to be replaced at 40k, so what should I tell my dealer to get him to replace them? The car stutters? Sluggish when accelerating? Sounds strange?

Thanks again.

acefuture

I had the factory warranty expire on my 2008 528i in mid-July of this year. About 3 weeks before the warranty expiration I took my car to an excellent local independent BMW mechanic that I had used for other BMW's I have owned. They offer, and recommend a warranty expiration inspection. They went over the car, removed the underbody plastic panels, etc. They also took it out for a test drive. They found that my control arm bushings were just starting to crack (46,000 miles), the transmission sealing sleeve (think this is the mechatronics sleeve) and pan gasket were leaking, and that the lift pads were missing from one side of the car. They also found that the steering wheel was slightly off center (I couldn't even see or notice this even after they told me about it. This all took about two hours, while I waited. All this for the very reasonable sum of $66.00.

Two weeks before the warranty expiration, I took the print out of the independent BMW mechanic's findings to my service advisor at the BMW dealership. He had no problem with my doing this and providing him the list. The dealer replaced the bushings, transmission sealing sleeve, pan gasket and lift pads, and also went over the car as well. They didn't find any other issues.

When I picked up the car from the dealer and got the service summary invoice, I did notice that the service advisor had turned my independent mechanics findings into "complaints", like "Customer states there is a clunk from the front end when going over bumps." (This got the bushings replaced). And "Customer states fluid leaking from center of vehicle." (This got the transmission sleeve and pan gasket replaced. The lift pads were replaced by chalking them up to "shop supplies".

The dealer said the car's wheel alignment was just slightly out of spec and that the warranty didn't cover that. They offered to do a four wheel alignment for only $235.00! Yeah right, I declined that offer. I took my car to a highly recomended alignment shop and they did the four wheel alignment for $65.00.

So, that's how I handled it. Very pleased.

Good luck.

tonyb635

Give your car a good looking over and maybe you will find a few things that need repaired. When your there ask hin about the plugs. They changed mine without me asking because they were supposed to be changed at 40000 or miles for the 535. Maybe you get them them changed. That's also a good idea to take it to a Indy shop for an inspection...