BMW servicing

[Wile E. Coyote]

Couldn't agree more Norman - and each one of those practices has lost the dealer (and in one case the marque) any chance of future business.

 

Astonishingly, item 2 (the scratch) only got resolved when I wrote to both the Chairman and CEO of the group to which the marque belonged - the dealership was quite happy to resolutely stick with the "vandal damage" line even though I spotted it within 90 minutes of picking the car up (I'd skipped work for the afternoon so had driven straight home to give it a further wash/good coat of wax and found it on the last panel I got to!).

 

Mind you, it was those same individuals who declined to provide details of the oil capacity.  Maybe if they'd treated their customer base as a whole a bit better then they might still be in business today.  I still won't be buying from elsewhere in the group. 

[M444TTB]

My uncle was in the car business until about 2005 when he shut the business and sold the premises to a bank (thankfully when the commercial property market was good). The business (Len Hunt Motors of Monmouth) had been going for nearly a century and it was the manufacturers ever increasing demands that sent it on its way.

I think a few years prior to winding it up they finally have up their Kia franchise as Kia wanted to grow in the UK and demanded they invest crazy sums of money in equipment.

[jeff oakley]

Some of the dealer groups, like Pendragon were so overstrecthed on the borrowing that they were in deep **** when the economy took a dive. Their share price IIRC was something like £1.35 and when it all went wrong they went down to a penny. I was told to buy as many as I could as Barclays where into them for Millions and could not afford to let them go. Shares are now 45 pence and growing. Other groups were pulled down by Pendragon, Lookers, who are the parent company og who I work for, saw their price go down from £1.86 to 30 pence, nothing had changed except the market was jumpy. Now back up to £1.25.

 

Dealers are dictated to by the Manufacturer. As Norm says what furniture uniform etc all shoves the costs up which we have to pay for in aftersales as the margin on new cars is so low. Tying people in with service deals is the way they see getting retention.

 

In 1976 a Ford escort had a PDI, a first service at 1500, 2nd service at 6000 and then a service every 6000 with the 12000 being a big one. Each service took 3 hours chargeable time, so a dealer saw a car for 9 chargeable hours in the first year. Now it is 24000 mile intervals on most, that is why they have to hit you hard on every visit.

[Doug Dastardly]

I remember visiting a BMW garage a few years ago and finding someone sitting in the entrance, which was a small gap between inner and outer doors about 4ft by 3ft. 

 

They looked ridiculous so I asked them what they were doing....apparently BMW insisted on having someone just to welcome people into the garage! 

 

I'm very lucky in having a good local garage that do my stuff.

 

On a side note, BMW do offer discounted rates on older cars, but not M cars. Still didn't stop me finding the under engine panel on the back seat after a leaking oil cooler.