BMW Motorplan - beware

T

Turbo_Aspiration

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I've seen a couple threads here around buying second hand BMWs so wanted to share my story.

Last September I bought a 2007 320i (E90) with 84000KMs on the clock. Got the motor plan transferred and all was well until around 96000km.

First the aircon compressor blew.. that was fixed in a day under motor plan - awesome service from Sandton Auto.
At 99000km, I took it for a service and noticed an oil leak. Had the car in for two days, main and transmission sumps changed.. all good. Brake pads, air filter, some other stuff changed too. Service was ok - also Sandton Auto. I noticed the oil service reminder was reset.. they guy said the oil was fine.

Now, at 104000km.. the car basically dies. No power, really bad idle, sometimes just cuts out or doesn't start. Took it back to Sandton Auto (now out of motorplan). Was quoted for a new exhaust solenoid, ignition coil and a "tilt sensor".. R6700. When I queried about the tilt sensor, I was told they were all connected and needed to be replaced. I said ok (silly but just wanted a working car) and was told car would be ready the next day (Monday). Monday afternoon.. no word.. I had to call them. They hadn't finished the car yet.. I moaned but ok. Around 6:30pm I get an SMS saying they now need to flush out the engine as the oil has turned to sludge and that would cost an extra R5000. I had it with them (5k for an oil change??) and told them to just stop and I'll pick up the car the next day (Tuesday).

Long story short... the car was only ready on Friday. I get there on Friday.. fork out R6700 and get into the car. The problem is pretty much the same. While driving back I notice cabled lying out the passenger side and the cubby inner lying in the back (wtf I just paid them 6.7k??). Took it back, they put everything back together.

Same day I posted this thread. I'll do the oil change myself. I later just found a recommeneded mechanic and took it to him to do (less hassle, good guy). This is a pic of the oil filter he pulled out:

showphoto.php


WTF??

After an oil change and some solenoid cleaning.. the car is running fine. I'm just R6.7k out of pocket for no reason besides their incompetance. About that "tilt sensor" - turned out they replaced the alarm siren.. smart.

Moral of the story to guys looking for a second hand BMW: the BMW quality check means nothing. I suspect they just wash your car and charge you R1500. After changing the oil tray at 100 000km, why didn't they bother to change the oil.. surely they would have noticed its turning to sludge. BMW only cares about getting your car to 5y/100 00km as cheaply as possible and then its your problem.

Getting my docs together and will confront Sandton Auto about this.
 
Pic for those that can't see it:
http://mybroadband.co.za/photos/showphoto.php?photo=25622&cat=500

Unfortunately poor services are not an issue unique to BMW.

Had similar problems with VW. Got it back with more broken than I started with. Paid 6k for them to break stuff. FFS. Got them to fix that. After they fixed the obvious stuff I drive away and notice immediately something is very wrong....no power, weird noises. That is after the work sheet said someone test drove the car. Blatant lie. No chance anyone test drove it without noticing that. Timing belt wrong...thankfully no engine damage. Or that other time a different VW shop damaged the firewall. Just felt tons of heat venting into the inside of the car & U-turned asap back to shop.

Those BMWs are tricky though. If the electronics are iffy & it doesn't show on the diagnostics then its a nightmare.
 
congrats ons getting your bmw sorted out. I look forward to you cutting me off in traffic.
 
If you had the car serviced at 99000km and the oil looked like tat at 104000km, they fu**ked up somewhere, or never changed the oil.
Query the previous service as well. They obviously did not do what they were supposed to, and that could have seriously damaged your engine. :mad:
 
HavocXphere said:
Unfortunately poor services are not an issue unique to BMW.
Click to expand...

Yup. There are certain dealerships one should never rely on, one of them being Sandton Auto. I service my BMW at JSN Motors in Bryanston (not great) and Cedar Isle Auto (no issues). Noticed that whenever it goes in for something, be it light bulbs or an oil change, they check everything and give me a report. Not all dealers do this however.
 
DarkDenim said:
Yup. There are certain dealerships one should never rely on, ...
Click to expand...

I'm at the point where I don't trust any dealership any more. Last time my car was at a dealership they phoned me to tell me the ABS is faulty (which I actually had kick in that very same morning). So I asked the guy why is the ABS module faulty to which he replied that the ABS light comes on when you turn the ignition on. The ABS light is suppose to come on you tw*t, it's part of the diagnostics. I wonder how many people dealerships have BS'ed and got away with it. I use to mark all the normal service parts before the car went in to check afterwards if they actually changed what they billed me for.
 
DefecteD said:
That sucks!

let us know what Sandton Auto says
Click to expand...

Will do

HavocXphere said:
Pic for those that can't see it:
http://mybroadband.co.za/photos/showphoto.php?photo=25622&cat=500

Unfortunately poor services are not an issue unique to BMW.

Had similar problems with VW. Got it back with more broken than I started with. Paid 6k for them to break stuff. FFS. Got them to fix that. After they fixed the obvious stuff I drive away and notice immediately something is very wrong....no power, weird noises. That is after the work sheet said someone test drove the car. Blatant lie. No chance anyone test drove it without noticing that. Timing belt wrong...thankfully no engine damage. Or that other time a different VW shop damaged the firewall. Just felt tons of heat venting into the inside of the car & U-turned asap back to shop.

Those BMWs are tricky though. If the electronics are iffy & it doesn't show on the diagnostics then its a nightmare.
Click to expand...

Whoa.. what car/dealer?

Dryden said:
congrats ons getting your bmw sorted out. I look forward to you cutting me off in traffic.
Click to expand...

haha :D +1

spiderz said:
If you had the car serviced at 99000km and the oil looked like tat at 104000km, they fu**ked up somewhere, or never changed the oil.
Query the previous service as well. They obviously did not do what they were supposed to, and that could have seriously damaged your engine. :mad:
Click to expand...

It certainly wasn't changed.. just reset the oil service reminder which was requesting an oil change.
 
In my experience

BMW Tyger Valley - sucks, incompitent & rude (will never set my foot there again and they are 5 min from my work area)
BMW Auto Atlantic - EXCELLENT on all fronts
 
Go right back to the Dealer principal with your invoice for the previous service, as well as the invoice for you current "fix" at the other mechanic, and request the Dealer Principal reverse the charge or you will take it further and deal with BMW SA, or BMW in Germany.

I can understand not diagnosing a problem properly (to a small degree), but not doing something and then charging you for it.. unacceptable, its fraud.
 
Don't you want to give us your recommended mechanics details? Maybe a few bmw drivers here that might try him out
 
Turbo_Aspiration said:
Whoa.. what car/dealer?
Click to expand...
Silverlakes McCarthy VW PTA.

Even better: 2 days later their quality control or whatever center phones and asks if I was pleased with the service. Poor call center girl had to endure quite a bit of raging.:o

On a side note, that was like 3 years ago & they had just set up shop so maybe its better now (can't have gotten any worse).

The 2nd garage (firewall issue) I won't mention...they didn't have that pervasive vibe of incompetence about them so don't deserve naming & shaming.
 
HavocXphere said:
Those BMWs are tricky though. If the electronics are iffy & it doesn't show on the diagnostics then its a nightmare.
Click to expand...

I can concur with this. I had a 318I E46. Had 108k on the clock. The central locking wouldn't work properly. Most of the times all 3 the passenger doors would dead lock. Only way to get in or out is through a windows or through driver door. Then it would misfire, replace coilpack in no 1, all fine. Then misfire, no 2 is dead. Replace it with old one from No 1. Works again.

Had the car with BMW Pinetown for a week. They could not figure it out. The wanted to change some control unit @ R16000. I just said no ways.

A few weeks later the fuel pump packed up. A German car specialist in Pinetown replaced the pump with a reconditioned one for R4k. Guess what?.... ALL the other problems vanished. No more locking of doors, missing etc etc.

So the fuel pump was faulty after all and caused other electrical problems.

Sorry for the hijack.
 
pjjdp said:
I can concur with this. I had a 318I E46. Had 108k on the clock. The central locking wouldn't work properly. Most of the times all 3 the passenger doors would dead lock. Only way to get in or out is through a windows or through driver door. Then it would misfire, replace coilpack in no 1, all fine. Then misfire, no 2 is dead. Replace it with old one from No 1. Works again.

Had the car with BMW Pinetown for a week. They could not figure it out. The wanted to change some control unit @ R16000. I just said no ways.

A few weeks later the fuel pump packed up. A German car specialist in Pinetown replaced the pump with a reconditioned one for R4k. Guess what?.... ALL the other problems vanished. No more locking of doors, missing etc etc.

So the fuel pump was faulty after all and caused other electrical problems.

Sorry for the hijack.
Click to expand...

Thats important to note.. the machines are more an indication of whats going on. There are deeper electronic and actual physical tests they could do but they don't.. they'd rather just replace what the computer tells them too and hope for the best. I mean.. they replaced my alarm siren??
 
Turbo_Aspiration who is the recommended mechanic that you used. I got quoted for a replacement air flow meter by BMW Bavaria when the actual problem was the air filter that was not seated properly. They work like robots and just change the parts that the diagnostics pick up.
 
I hope a few people will read this and see why I always tell people to stay away from a BMW out of Plan! ;)


YEE GODS!! :eek: I have just looked at the picture!!

See what happens when you wait for an idiot light to tell you when to have a service? I am totally against the car deciding when it needs a service. Rather do the damned thing every 15000k's and know that you don't have an engine full of sludge! No wonder the poor thing was running badly :(
 
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Fazda, no offence, but there is nothing wrong with a BMW out of plan.. I've had 2 and they've been looked after properly and never given me a days trouble. I now have a Merc thats out of plan, and it too gets look after properly, no issues.

The issue here seems a stealership thats billing for work that they're not actually doing.
I very definitely think Turbo_Aspiration needs to give that dealer a proper uitkak session, and report the dealer to BMW SA as well as BMW Germany (as suggested above) for billing for work that was NOT done.
 
pjjdp said:
They could not figure it out. The wanted to change some control unit @ R16000. I just said no ways.
Click to expand...
My dad got similar story (traction control issues). Car would fall back into failsafe mode & crawl @80kmh. Easy way to get it out of failsafe mode is to take out the fuses...but that also wipes the diagnostics data so when you bring it in they can't see anything wrong. :( Anyway he replaced that 16k control unit...3 months later same thing and they wanted him to replace it again.

Why its not a more modular design is beyond me. That control unit seems to handle absolutely *everything*.
 
Fazda said:
See what happens when you wait for an idiot light to tell you when to have a service? I am totally against the car deciding when it needs a service. Rather do the damned thing every 15000k's and know that you don't have an engine full of sludge!
Click to expand...

The thing is, the service reminder was telling them to change the oil.. they didn't and just reset the reminder to 30 000km. (Yes BMW changes oil every 30 000 km.. )

ToxicBunny said:
Fazda, no offence, but there is nothing wrong with a BMW out of plan.. I've had 2 and they've been looked after properly and never given me a days trouble. I now have a Merc thats out of plan, and it too gets look after properly, no issues.

The issue here seems a stealership thats billing for work that they're not actually doing.
I very definitely think Turbo_Aspiration needs to give that dealer a proper uitkak session, and report the dealer to BMW SA as well as BMW Germany (as suggested above) for billing for work that was NOT done.
Click to expand...

To be clear, I was not invoiced (motor plan or otherwise) for an oil/filter change. At the 100 000km service, the service agent told me they checked the oil and everything was fine so they reset the reminder. This should have sounded some alarm bells but, having changed the oil pan, I assumed they did actually check. What I was invoiced for (after motor plan so I paid) was parts that didn't seem to need changing because thats what their diagnostics hinted at. All I really needed was an oil/filter change.
 
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