A friend has a mini, bought at 6mths old and 5,000 from BMW Dealer (ex-demo) it has the TLC cover and has been serviced by a another BMW Dealer @ roughly 20K & 35K miles.
It is now 3 years old and needed an MoT and they take it to the local friendly independent round the corner and it fails.
Reason? Brakes - a piston in a rear caliper has seized and only one side of the disk is contacted by the brake pads. Result - poorer braking (not noticed by the driver as ABS etc looks after this aspect and driver does not brake heavily normally)
The result of this is a corroded disk and a a re-test after it is fixed.
Challenged BMW service garage as to why this was not picked up at the last service 6 weeks ago (rust is much longer than 6 weeks worth - many many months according to the local garage))
The BMW dealer service dept responded - The last service was essentially only an oil change - we only look at the brakes @ 30,000 miles not every 15K.
Surely a service is as much a check on Brakes as it is an oil change - and of course this should have been the 30K service?
Will writing to BMW & the dealer do any good or does the owner just shake her head and forget it.
The piston seizing will allow the BMW dealer to get the disk done under the remainder of the warranty - all 10 days of it!
If the dealer missed the brakes what else did they ignore?
Does the BMW TLC cover actually deter dealers from actually servicing the car as they get less from BMW than the £85 + / hour they charge a punter?
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This in a nutshell is why I don't regard dealer servicing as adequate. I know when I have my cars serviced very by my one-man-band mechanic at 10/12000 that he will always remove the wheels, clean and check the brake action. The dealers only seem ever to check the pad/disk thickness, so if you don't wear the brakes out often enough they will inevitably seize up.
My guy will generally charge book time but as his hourly rate is less than £30 per hour I always ask him to do what he would want done if it was his, and charge me the extra time if necessary. I still save a fortune and get a proper job.
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The cynic in me says that a lot of garages try and get away with doing as little as possible, and that the only way of sorting the wheat from the chaff, is a) luck and b) other peoples experience. I have no personal experience of the TLC servicing, but one again the cynic in me suggests that as they are being paid less than with a car not on TLC, they may well spend less time on it and thus pay less attention, in the hope that nothing goes wrong during that time.
I would phone the dealership, ask to meet with their service manager, and have a reasonable discussion with him about the series of events, i.e. none of the "it is your fault" and "you are incompetant" sort of thing. I would also explain that the vehicle is still under warranty and ask if the problem will be covered by this.
If you hit a brick wall there then i would contact BMW uk via the phone and explain the situation to them and get them to log the complaint.
If all else fails try another BMW MINI dealer ASAP, to see if they are more ameinable to this.
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SWMBO's High mileage 01 MINI went for an MoT, this had the TLC pack in its first three years, thereafter dealer serviced. It went to the local BMW garage for its test. It passed. Bearing in mind that the only time this thing is even cleaned is when it goes there. Its not cost anything over consumables and flew through its test. Actually not a bad deal 44.00 for an MoT and a full valet...(even the outragiously dirty alloys)
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