Rule no. 1 for BMW dealers
Discussion
Never, ever, let a customer out of the dealership without levering at least 100 quid out of them, even for what should be the simplest thing.
My car got trailered to the dealer with an immobiliser fault: it had lost its mind and needed recoding.
£120 quid, sir.
The charge for removing the back seat, to get at some of the gubbins of the system, was £13.50+VAT. Now, unless I'm very mistaken, the gubbins are under the seat base which just lifts out in all of 20 seconds. Scoobyzoom, can you confirm this? 1993 E34 540i, with the alarm that's retrofitted by BMW (seperate transmitter on keyfob, not integrated with the key, i.e. pre-EWS).
My car got trailered to the dealer with an immobiliser fault: it had lost its mind and needed recoding.
£120 quid, sir.
The charge for removing the back seat, to get at some of the gubbins of the system, was £13.50+VAT. Now, unless I'm very mistaken, the gubbins are under the seat base which just lifts out in all of 20 seconds. Scoobyzoom, can you confirm this? 1993 E34 540i, with the alarm that's retrofitted by BMW (seperate transmitter on keyfob, not integrated with the key, i.e. pre-EWS).
All too familiar...
Howevr my last visit was a revelation. Somehow I had managed to misplace my locking wheel nut splined bolt. - So I went to get another expecting to pay the wrong side of £25.
£3.06 later. - sorted.
Anyway - I digress, I had a very intermittent overheating problem about 2 months ago, and BM said they thought it was the water pump and can they invesigate? £350 later(JUST FOR LABOUR!), no it is not the pump and we cant find the fault. At the weekend all hell lets loose and the water pump siezes. Snaps the drive belt and I am bolloxed in a pool of coolant.
Any way I am so hacked off I decide to do the pump myself.Lets face it no chance of warranty from BMW. It takes me a fair few hours as there is loads of gubbins to take off, but I manage it, two newbelts, new pump, anti freeze, all from german and swedish for less than the £100 BMW "minimum charge".
>> Edited by Alistair H. on Thursday 27th January 12:27
Howevr my last visit was a revelation. Somehow I had managed to misplace my locking wheel nut splined bolt. - So I went to get another expecting to pay the wrong side of £25.
£3.06 later. - sorted.
Anyway - I digress, I had a very intermittent overheating problem about 2 months ago, and BM said they thought it was the water pump and can they invesigate? £350 later(JUST FOR LABOUR!), no it is not the pump and we cant find the fault. At the weekend all hell lets loose and the water pump siezes. Snaps the drive belt and I am bolloxed in a pool of coolant.
Any way I am so hacked off I decide to do the pump myself.Lets face it no chance of warranty from BMW. It takes me a fair few hours as there is loads of gubbins to take off, but I manage it, two newbelts, new pump, anti freeze, all from german and swedish for less than the £100 BMW "minimum charge".
>> Edited by Alistair H. on Thursday 27th January 12:27
Well, update...
Car got me home from the dealer. Car got me to work this morning.
This evening... do you think it'll respond to the alarm/immobiliser keyfob? Will it f***. And it was just gone six so all the service people had buggered off, so I've just called out the RAC again.
Words
will be had. Especially given the blatant p***-taking on the bill from last night.
Car got me home from the dealer. Car got me to work this morning.
This evening... do you think it'll respond to the alarm/immobiliser keyfob? Will it f***. And it was just gone six so all the service people had buggered off, so I've just called out the RAC again.
Words
will be had. Especially given the blatant p***-taking on the bill from last night. Marshy said:
Well, update...
Car got me home from the dealer. Car got me to work this morning.
This evening... do you think it'll respond to the alarm/immobiliser keyfob? Will it f***. And it was just gone six so all the service people had buggered off, so I've just called out the RAC again.
Words
Well? - did you have words???
Final resolution... for now.
Car went back to dealer after first aborted attempt at a fix. They came back and said the system was basically shagged, and was going to be the thick end of 300 quid on parts alone. I asked for a quote to just disable the system so I could go elsewhere and get something cheaper/better value for money.
Fast forward to this week and they seem to have fixed it (without my asking for more time to be spent on it) but at least they had the decency to not bother invoicing me this time around.
So, for now, they've redeemed themselves and they also cleaned it (hey, I have alloy wheels, who'd have guessed?
The alarm system is behaving slightly differently now though, which is a bit confusing: it now beeps twice whenever I close a door or the boot. Anyone know what that's all about?
DavidD: I have an indie that I've used for servicing, the only downside being that he's in Royston and doesn't have a courtesy car to offer. Pity, he seems quite good, but it's a real arse getting to and from Royston sans car.
Car went back to dealer after first aborted attempt at a fix. They came back and said the system was basically shagged, and was going to be the thick end of 300 quid on parts alone. I asked for a quote to just disable the system so I could go elsewhere and get something cheaper/better value for money.
Fast forward to this week and they seem to have fixed it (without my asking for more time to be spent on it) but at least they had the decency to not bother invoicing me this time around.
So, for now, they've redeemed themselves and they also cleaned it (hey, I have alloy wheels, who'd have guessed?
The alarm system is behaving slightly differently now though, which is a bit confusing: it now beeps twice whenever I close a door or the boot. Anyone know what that's all about?
DavidD: I have an indie that I've used for servicing, the only downside being that he's in Royston and doesn't have a courtesy car to offer. Pity, he seems quite good, but it's a real arse getting to and from Royston sans car.
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