BMW E60 - BMW Dealership Diagnostics

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Thu 9 Mar 2017 16:50
BMW E60 - BMW Dealership Diagnostics - BobbaFett

Hi there,

Looking for some help / advice regarding BMW dealership diagnostics. To cut a long story short my car went into a dealership for investigation concerning a rattle on startup, this investigation came back with a £7k bill for correcting it.

I have the BMW fully comprehensive warranty however, the dealership / warranty team have said that looking at error codes in the cars memory, the issue happended before expiration the 30 day period once you take out a warranty with them - during this 30 day period no issues are covered.

What I wanted to ask is, are BMW dealership diagnostics able to pull out date & times for codes logged in the vehicles error history log as I would need to find out when these errors where actually logged? When I took the car in for investigation the car had no faults.

Many thanks

BobbaFett

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Thu 9 Mar 2017 16:56
BMW E60 - BMW Dealership Diagnostics - RobJP

You say " When I took the car in for investigation the car had no faults" but also say "my car went into a dealership for investigation concerning a rattle on startup"

All warranty policies have clauses that exclude faults within a certain time period of inception of the policy. Every single one. It's to stop people with broken cars from 'trying it on'.

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Thu 9 Mar 2017 17:06
BMW E60 - BMW Dealership Diagnostics - BobbaFett

Hi RobJP,

Thanks for your reply, what I mean't to say is no warning messages or Engine Managment Light illumination apparent.

What I'm actually trying to ascertain is if the logged errors occurred at the time the car was with its previous owner / garage who then sold the car onto myself (in which case I may have some recompense from them) or did indeed fall outside of the warranty.

Many thanks

BobbaFett

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Thu 9 Mar 2017 16:58
BMW E60 - BMW Dealership Diagnostics - SLO76
How long have you owned it?
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Thu 9 Mar 2017 17:08
BMW E60 - BMW Dealership Diagnostics - BobbaFett

Hi SLO76,

Under 12 months but over 3 months.

Many thanks

BobbaFett

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Thu 9 Mar 2017 17:50
BMW E60 - BMW Dealership Diagnostics - SLO76
Not all warranty companies do this at all. Any dealer warranty should cover from day one as it should and any warranty we put on used cars was always active from day one though they did frown on shelling out for claims shortly after activation. We parted company with RAC warranties over this, we made too many claims. A pity because their cover was excellent with an unlimited claims limit.

If you bought the warranty yourself then yes these sort of privately bought warranties often do have some sort of terms to stop you buying one for a car that had an existing fault which is fair enough. Check the terms on your warranty documents and look at what claims limit is on it too.

The history log in your BMW should show the dates and times if you have the right equipment to read them.

There are 2 logs in the ECU for fault codes. One is always active, one is a pure history dead log.

The active one is always searching and changing, thats why if you repair the car sometimes the fault code will clear itself and be made redundant and placed into the history log.

Sometimes the fault code doesn't clear itself and needs to be cleared manually, people with the diagnostic kit will clear the fault code thats in the active.

No one ever has a reason to go into the history log and clear anything. It won't remove any lights, it won't do anything but I believe it can be cleared with the right know how.

You need to pay a main dealer to print off the history log for you before you act further, you'll need proof.
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