Had an interesting conversation at my local BMW dealer yesterday when I took my year-old 320d Touring in to have the creaks from the loadspace area looked at (and hopefully abolished). They found nothing amiss* and said that because there wasn\'t \"actually a malfunction or fault\" the labour cost of the work would be charged to me, although on this occasion the service manager smiled graciously upon me and waived the charge.
In 25 years of buying new cars I\'ve never come across this policy before. Is this just BMW? Or just this dealer? Or do other manufacturers/dealers take the same view. My stance is that a) it wasn\'t designed to be like this, and if I\'ve paid north of £25K I expect the sort of quality that should go with it. Based on past experience, dealers did their best (or tried to give some impression of doing their best) to keep customers satisfied to protect the brand. Apparently BMW and/or its franchisee doesn\'t give a monkey\'s. People like me seem to be viewed as time-wasters.
I somehow don\'t think my next car will be a BMW.
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*I wasn\'t surprised a) because I\'ve little faith in dealers\' ability to correct such matters, and b) because nearly new demonstrators - 330d and 325i - that I test-drove while I was there had the same problem to much the same or a lesser degree. Incidentally the diesel and the petrol returned almost identical fuel consumptions, according to the readout, on the same test route - same driving style, same traffic conditions.
Edited by Mad Maxy on 06/03/2008 at 09:20
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Bluntly, the dealer is a business and someone has to pay for its time - if they can\'t find a specific chargeable issue then they can\'t charge BMW so they look to you for payment.
It my experience, it\'s a waste of time asking about anything that doesn\'t seem \"quite right\". They\'ll just come back and say either they couldn\'t replicate the fault or \"they all do that, sir\". If you pursue these things then it just becomes morale sapping.
I regard it as the dealer and the manufacturers problem is they\'re prepared to let me drive a car I\'m not happy with.
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Although a business they should have tried to validate the symptom before embarking on any analysis. A quick test drive would have determined if anything was amiss and at that point the dealership could have made a decision to investigate or not without having the start any expensive work and negating the threat to the customer of unexpected charges.
Just taking the customer word for it, starting an investigation and then when nothing found attempting to charge the customer is wholly unacceptable. The dealerships are the experts and therefore should determine the action to be taken.
Carse
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Bluntly the dealer is a business and someone has to pay for its time
Yeah, well running a good business is about satisfying customers profitably. Note 'satisfying'; and I'm not satisfied.
If you build your brand on values that include quality, but you don't deliver on that quality, you've got to expect people to query the product and ask for what they thought they were getting. You've got to build dealing with that sort of query and the necessary remedial work into your basic product pricing.
Otherwise you really hack people off and they won't buy again. And of course there's nothing so profitable as a repeat sale to a satisfied customer.
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I somehow don't think my next car will be a BMW. And of course there's nothing so profitable as a repeat sale to a satisfied customer.
I am with Bill Payer on this one.
:-) Why do I get the feeling that BMW won't miss your custom?
Doing business is a two way street. A no-entry at either end can break the relationship. In this case it seems to be showing a "no entry" at both ends - they don't seem to care for your custom and you don't want to go back to them either.
p.s. at least you got as far as buying a BMW. Many "punters" don't get past the first hurdle at a salesman in BMW glasshouses.
Edited by jbif on 08/03/2008 at 12:34
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"Doing business is a two way street."
Absolutely. Successful businee is about mutual exchanges of value, monetary and otherwise. That way both parties feel they have a fair deal.
Actually, I want to be over the moon - OK, very pleased - with my car and the dealer service. I have been on two previous occasions. I expected to be this time. Looked at objectvely, the rest of the car functions very well. That very satisfactory performance shows up the problem with, I suspect, the loadspace cover. Well I guess I can live with that, but the dealer's (BMW's) attititude is a bit difficult to swallow.
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Buy a nice new Skoda Superb....dealt with two Skoda dealers post sale (putting extra bits on) no complaints at all. Mind you I never had a bad experience with a BMW dealer come to that...now the VW dealers we used are something else....
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If you build your brand on values that include quality but you don't deliver on that quality you've got to expect people to query the product and ask for what they thought they were getting.
BMW would probably agree with you, but the dealers are independant entities. Even within the dealership the service department is a separate cost centre from new car sales.
Ideally there ought to be one person in the dealership who is dedicated to taking care of you - they would sell you a car and then look after any after sales and service issuses that you have. I believe that happens to some extent with "prestige" marques in the US.
Edited by Bill Payer on 08/03/2008 at 19:58
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Thanks, BP. Interesting. I remember about 15 years ago a salesman from whom I'd bought a new Golf GTI giving me the impression that he was some sort of 'relationship manager'. Of course, when I somewhat naively put it to the test he couldn't refer me to someone else quickly enough!
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Further update on this:
The other week I was so annoyed by the creaking and squeaking I took the car to Sytner in High Wycombe. I went out with a technician who agreed there was a problem and that the car should be booked in for two days, during which time they would let me have a loan car.
Faith in BMW and BMW dealers (well, one of them, at least) restored! Hats off to Sytner for taking the problems seriously and for trying.
(As it happens, when I went out with the technician guy, the nosies were much fewer and softer than originally. Over the bank holiday weekend I did c250 miles on a trip to Suffolk and there wasn't really a problem, so I've decided to 'let sleeping dogs lie'...)
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Could be a temperature related problem. Was quite cold & wet over the weekend. See if the noise comes back when the weather improves. Might be a dry bush somewhere in the suspension.
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The warranty work question is a delicate one. I'm told that manufacturers set times and payments for this work at such a level that the dealer has problems breaking even on it. When it comes to something that's a bit harder to trace and fix than, say, a defective alternator the dealer may not be too enthusiastic.
There's also the problem that people are tending to go away from the franchised dealer for service but back to him for problems the fast-fit can't fix. I doubt that's the case with MM, though, and the reason I get servicing done by the franchise is so they will bend a little in my direction when I need a bit of goodwill.
On warranties more generally, if the likes of Hyundai can warrant cars for 5 years why can't the big boys in the business?
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Can't really understand the complaint you have of the dealers here. Both dealers (apparently) didn't charge you, but one mentioned in passing it wouldn't fall under a warranty claim & waived the feee - but both have spent time searching for something you yourself describe as chronic (in the snese of coming & going) - now apparently, it's sort of gone anyway by itself. I don't think you've received bad service, rather the converse, the dealers have spent their own money on this.
Also, the choice of M-sport spec. is hardly conducive (no matter what quality standard is expected or aspired to) to the most cossetting of driving environments for car or driver. As a result jerky movements transmitted through tyre/suspension which will set trim or component rattling or rubbing would seem almost inevitable in some circumstances.
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I wonder how the OP would have been dealt with in a Lexus dealership ?
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The Hyundai warranty is pretty limited in years four and five and the dealer service is very expensive.
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Creaking in a year old "quality" car is unacceptable as is creaking in a year old budget car, but probably less so. If you had this within 6 months you could have reasonably rejected the car. Don't take any verbal from your dealer. Another dealer will probably sort the problem foy you with no verbal abuse. Remind the arrogent dealers that the small claims court is an easy and cheap recourse
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Remind the arrogent dealers that the small claims court is an easy and cheap recourse
Don't bank on that - remember the recent story of the Audi TT drifting left? It ended up in the High Court and the Judge said both sides were being silly but he threw out the case and it cost the owner £100K.
You need to be realistic - a creaking car is not the end of the world. My approach with these things is to try a couple of times them leave it - if the manufacturer is happy to to let its dealers allow me to remain unhappy then I'll tell everyone who rides in it, or asks me what I think of the car. That will cost the manufacturer many sales.
Edited by Bill Payer on 30/03/2008 at 15:35
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Maybe Lemon laws would be appropriate in the Uk ??
Serious question - what do you think ?
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Maybe Lemon laws would be appropriate in the Uk ??
>>Serious question - what do you think ?
What, for a rattle?
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"I wonder how the OP would have been dealt with in a Lexus dealership ? "
Lexus - under a year they'd probably have dealt with under the specific "creak and rattle fix warranty" thingy they have. Also might well have put you in the next model up of what you have for the day, as well as bringing it to you of course.
Crikey, mine even came with Lexus "wash and go", which turned out not to be shampoo but "roll up at the dealer's any Saturday morning and they will wash your car whilst you wait with pastries and coffee" all free for life of ownership.
Sold it now though.
Edited by Dipstick on 30/03/2008 at 16:28
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Crikey mine even came with Lexus "wash and go" which turned out not to be shampoo but "roll up at the dealer's any Saturday morning and they will wash your car whilst you wait with pastries and coffee" all free for life of ownership.
Apparently that's quite common on "prestige" cars in the US - they'll even do a courtesy oil change (Imagine, say, an MB dealer doing that here!) as Americans just don't believe the extended intervals and insist on having the oil changed every 3000 miles.
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Further update:
Noises persisted and were occurring as a result of every bump in the road, so the car was booked in to Sytner High Wycombe as per their offer. Not only have they fixed it by packing/insulating various bits of trim, I learned that this is an officially recognised problem with the E91 3 series and that there's an official fix procedure! Driving pleasure now restored! Along with faith in brand.
Which rather confirms my view of the original, supplying dealer not giving a monkeys. So that particular outfit won't get business from me again for servicing or supply of a replacement vehicle when the time comes. And because my other car is a MINI they won't be getting my business in connection with that either. Sytner, on the other hand, are my new best friends.
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Had a Toyota that was making noises (well out of warranty) - Service manager confided in me that these type of things can take several hours to locate, so that it may cost a significant amount. I found the fault in my Toyota (er 1/2 hour of my time!), but under warranty some dealers will just allocate a small amount of time to finding the fault then say there is nothing wrong rather than we could not find the fault in 1 hour of looking at it.
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