Is there an alternative to paying astronomical car repair charges? My local dealer wanted over £7100.00 for repairing my car. I did the repairs myself for just £419.00
Reminds me of the time I took an Austin Maestro to Kwik-Fit for a new tyre, many years ago. I was told it also needed four new shock absorbers. When I told him I'd had all four of them replaced the previous month for its MoT test, I enjoyed him trying to wriggle out of it. Something along the lines of "erm, well, sometimes the replacement parts aren't very good", or some such rubbish. I do (almost) all my own work now, as my confidence and skills have increased over the years.
Really good video Jerry. I have had similar experiences, and had a Beamer previously, got put off by excessive diagnostic charges and found a brilliant local independent BMW guy. Unfortunately the main dealers (and I think this is most big names) are really only interested in selling you a new car, and these ridiculous quotes are designed to make you think **** better buy a new one. Most folks are wiser than that I hope. I value the time spent under dodgy eastern block cars, I may not maintain my own these days but always remind myself it is just a case of suck wheeze bang blow (or some variation of) when my offspring have issues. BTW - the 6 cyl sounds nice but I still think the 5 cyl Audi beats all!) - Have an ageing tail to explain that one.... J Always good to see honest sensible content.
Yes I think that is part of the problem. It always strikes me that dealerships have a major conflict of interests. They are trying to sell new cars as their primary goal so why would they try hard to support them once they are sold. Independent service agents who do not sell cars want to retain customers so do a better support job. Unfortunately for BMW their approach does not work on anyone with any sense. Following the poor support I have received since moving to this area I will never buy another new BMW and non at all unless I can find a good service support company.
I am disappointed, Jerry! I expected you to rigg up the logic analyser and upgrading the ECU to a proper Z80! 😬 Nice car btw! I had a 324d in 1992! 78hp 6 cylinder diesel, no turbo! 😂
💷7K, wowza. That's a lot. I remember the video on the lawn mower when you got the clutch plate, and discovered the manufacturer was charging 250 for new, while you could get the same size/dimension/spec clutch plate OEM for much less than that was it 65? Anyways good on ya' mate! 👍You did it.
Every car I have taken to a dealer for work always ends up with "something else." Margins are so thin on sales that they need to pad them on the maintenance.
Yes, same here. Sadly it is not just a single dealer franchise, It seems to be the same with all of them. They also always seem to refuse to accept responsibility when they damage the car.
i went to a dealer one. They told me i had to pay to replace a part that they replaced the year before that was STILL under manufacturer warranty..... suffice to say i didnt go back and i didnt have to pay and it never appeared on my MOT cert :D. i reported them to DVLA @@JerryWalker001
Genuine BMW parts can be extremely expensive. If I can, I try to find out the original manufacturer of for example brake pads and buy those. If that’s not an option, I’ll compare the BMW prices with some reputable other manufacturers. Another example: gear box oil from BMW was twice as expensive as the ZF oil. Brake pads were 5x (I’m not kidding) more expensive than just about every other brand for one car. For another (more performance oriented) BMW, the differences were not that much so I stuck with BMW disks and pads.
@@Conservator. I think it probably varies but I have owned BMW's for decades and have never found BMW parts expensive as long as you do not buy from dealers. For example the front coated disks and pads for this car (400Hp 4WD performance car) were only £160.00 including the wear sensor and bolts and shipping. This is more than something like a 1.6 Focus but they are not really comparable. I agree that BMW branded oil is a crazy price but there is nothing special about it so any good quality brand of the correct spec should be fine. What really pushed up the repair cost was dealer labour at £180.00 per hour plus VAT and something like an engine loom swap is fairly time consuming. The main thing was ignoring the 'not required' items or replacing a 10p o-ring instead of a fuel tank (plus labour).
I remember my old man telling me a tale about a garage he’d used for 20 years for his MOTs. They claimed he needed a new number plate. My dad walked up to said number plate and scraped a small amount of paint off with his fingernail (he was a decorator by trade). Even small business don’t reward loyalty, it seems.
Independents seem to vary a lot but I will never use dealers again. I used to get my BMW's serviced at a company called Bartlett and I have to say that they were fantastic. Very fast and efficient and never any silly charges or made up work. I moved to a new area 10 years ago so started using the local dealer but I am seriously considering driving 120 miles each way to Bartlett for future work.
@@JerryWalker001 For the presumably small amount work you choose not to do yourself, it might be worth it to make the trip to Bartlett's. Besides, you would get to enjoy a lovely drive. We have a local mechanic here in Toronto who is helpful, friendly, competent, and honest. I would guess that they have no trouble with margins.
@@MichaelEhling Unfortunately there is no such thing as a 'nice drive' in the UK any more. The state of the roads guarantees that you will hit a number of large pot holes and need more repairs. Speed traps, closed roads, Idiotic traffic calming schemes, and so called smart motorways etc etc mean that a 240 mile round trip is likely to take up to 9+ hours. Our government is trying very hard to force people out of cars so they make journeys as 'painful' as they possibly can and irresponsible policing makes things much worse. 20 years ago then absolutely I would use Bartlett.
Typical dealer scam. You take an older car in for service, and they invent an absurdly high estimate thinking you're sure to want to buy a new car from them rather than pay an arm and leg to get the work done (90% of which was not needed.) They do the same thing if it seems like a difficult/intermittent problem; invent an absurdly high estimate to dissuade the owner from getting it fixed and save themselves from actually taking the time to diagnose it properly and it also removes their liability for the shoddy diagnoses they did. As another RUclipsrs says: "BMW = Big Money Waster". I own a BMW product and I am NOT impressed...
Yes I agree although it is not just BMW. The wife had a C3 which developed a serious miss fire. It was a fairly new car and in very good condition. She took it into the local dealer and after several days they said that they could not fix it. She went to pick it up and when she got back there was diesel running out from the engine (A lot of it). I took a look and found that they had failed to reconnect the injector return line. The entire car was covered in diesel but it had also run into the clutch housing and ruined the clutch which then slipped badly and never recovered. We complained but the dealer said it was not their fault. I have no idea who they thought was responsible. I fixed the miss fire myself which took 10 minutes (poor ground connection under fuse box) but I also had to change the clutch which was a MUCH bigger job. We eventually gave up trying to get the dealer to accept responsibility because they came up with a different story every time we spoke to them.
@@JerryWalker001 Interesting that dealers play the same games no matter the country. I tend to do my own work but have a local, independent shop do the odd job now and again. They do good work and are honest.
From what I have been able to figure out over the years I think that the reason dealers do not like working on older vehicles is because of materials used and impact drivers. In the video I mentioned that I had repaired a few other issues I had found. One was that I noticed the water pump had been replaced during the recent visit because the brass insert had been ripped out of the original. I know it happened because the insert was still on the bolt and it was just flapping around. They had replaced the pump with a new one although they never mentioned it to me. I think that this sort of thing becomes more common as the cars age so dealers do not like having to replace parts at their expense (and they want to sell new cars). Oddly the workshop manual even says that the emission test can damage the transmission during an MOT (This is a 4WD car). The entire thing seems a bit contrived to me, maybe I have become too cynical.
One of the front springs on my E90 BMW 330D M-Sport broke last week at 70mph, and the sharp end pierced the side of the tyre with a bang!........so I can see where they are coming from in terms of liability as they probably don't trust the cheap steel they used to make them! Search online, BMW front spring breakage is definitely a thing!
I had something similar happen on my Focus. Luckily, the tyre burst while moving the car on the driveway, as the spring had broken while the car was parked. Unluckily, the tyre it destroyed had exactly 2 miles of wear on it.
@@JerryWalker001You are probably right, and in your shoes I wouldn't replace it either........but just to say my spring had no real corrosion either, especially where it shattered. Anyways, i'd much rather have my BMW than my wife's Corsa.....which was recalled for a front subrame (holds the engine in) which was so badly corroded it was deemed a safety hazard. £1000 of subrame changed out free of charge!
Nope, Like I said in the video there is no ski opening in these cars. The rear seats are also bolted in from inside the boot. BMW designers must have had a day off when they thought of this one.
You have been far too polite Jerry. Looking at the map, there are not too many BMW dealers in your area. You might be doing folks a favour by naming them. My suggestion to anyone having the same experience and not feeling confident about doing the work themselves (as none of this work requires a BMW specialist skills or.tools) would be to get a few local trustworthy small independent garages to quote for the work.
If I named them then you would probably never see the video as YT would probably pull it. I have looked for a good independent and may have found one. I have heard good things about them and if they are good then I will most likely post a follow up. When I lived near Cambridge I used one called Bartlett and they were excellent but I live too far to use them any more (although I have been tempted to make the journey to avoid the local dealer). I also suspect that this is not an isolated dealer and naming them could imply that others are better. I would rather wait until I can find good support and then support them and in turn vote for the local dealer by taking my money elsewhere. I ran my own businesses and we had a name for excessively high quotes which were intended to ditch customers. However I am surprised that BMW allow it to continue because it gives their cars a bad name. They seem to be working on the infinite market principle (happy to drive away current customers because they believe there are always more).
"European cars" seems like a very broad brush. My 2002 Ford Focus is European, and in the last year, covering over 15,000 miles, it's needed nothing but two tyres, an oil change, a pair of wiper blades and a couple of bulbs.
Развлечения
The Stealer, the same place that promotes extended service intervals and lifelong trans fluid.
Reminds me of the time I took an Austin Maestro to Kwik-Fit for a new tyre, many years ago. I was told it also needed four new shock absorbers. When I told him I'd had all four of them replaced the previous month for its MoT test, I enjoyed him trying to wriggle out of it. Something along the lines of "erm, well, sometimes the replacement parts aren't very good", or some such rubbish. I do (almost) all my own work now, as my confidence and skills have increased over the years.
Really good video Jerry. I have had similar experiences, and had a Beamer previously, got put off by excessive diagnostic charges and found a brilliant local independent BMW guy. Unfortunately the main dealers (and I think this is most big names) are really only interested in selling you a new car, and these ridiculous quotes are designed to make you think **** better buy a new one. Most folks are wiser than that I hope.
I value the time spent under dodgy eastern block cars, I may not maintain my own these days but always remind myself it is just a case of suck wheeze bang blow (or some variation of) when my offspring have issues.
BTW - the 6 cyl sounds nice but I still think the 5 cyl Audi beats all!) - Have an ageing tail to explain that one.... J Always good to see honest sensible content.
Yes I think that is part of the problem. It always strikes me that dealerships have a major conflict of interests. They are trying to sell new cars as their primary goal so why would they try hard to support them once they are sold. Independent service agents who do not sell cars want to retain customers so do a better support job. Unfortunately for BMW their approach does not work on anyone with any sense. Following the poor support I have received since moving to this area I will never buy another new BMW and non at all unless I can find a good service support company.
Very nice to see that you have the inline 6 engine. 👌
I am disappointed, Jerry! I expected you to rigg up the logic analyser and upgrading the ECU to a proper Z80! 😬
Nice car btw! I had a 324d in 1992! 78hp 6 cylinder diesel, no turbo! 😂
I forgot to video that bit.
It is easy to run these 3 litre 6 cylinder engines up to 400+ Hp. I am not saying I have done that :)
💷7K, wowza. That's a lot. I remember the video on the lawn mower when you got the clutch plate, and discovered the manufacturer was charging 250 for new, while you could get the same size/dimension/spec clutch plate OEM for much less than that was it 65? Anyways good on ya' mate! 👍You did it.
Every car I have taken to a dealer for work always ends up with "something else." Margins are so thin on sales that they need to pad them on the maintenance.
Yes, same here. Sadly it is not just a single dealer franchise, It seems to be the same with all of them. They also always seem to refuse to accept responsibility when they damage the car.
i went to a dealer one. They told me i had to pay to replace a part that they replaced the year before that was STILL under manufacturer warranty..... suffice to say i didnt go back and i didnt have to pay and it never appeared on my MOT cert :D. i reported them to DVLA @@JerryWalker001
Genuine BMW parts can be extremely expensive. If I can, I try to find out the original manufacturer of for example brake pads and buy those. If that’s not an option, I’ll compare the BMW prices with some reputable other manufacturers.
Another example: gear box oil from BMW was twice as expensive as the ZF oil.
Brake pads were 5x (I’m not kidding) more expensive than just about every other brand for one car. For another (more performance oriented) BMW, the differences were not that much so I stuck with BMW disks and pads.
@@Conservator. I think it probably varies but I have owned BMW's for decades and have never found BMW parts expensive as long as you do not buy from dealers. For example the front coated disks and pads for this car (400Hp 4WD performance car) were only £160.00 including the wear sensor and bolts and shipping. This is more than something like a 1.6 Focus but they are not really comparable. I agree that BMW branded oil is a crazy price but there is nothing special about it so any good quality brand of the correct spec should be fine. What really pushed up the repair cost was dealer labour at £180.00 per hour plus VAT and something like an engine loom swap is fairly time consuming. The main thing was ignoring the 'not required' items or replacing a 10p o-ring instead of a fuel tank (plus labour).
I remember my old man telling me a tale about a garage he’d used for 20 years for his MOTs. They claimed he needed a new number plate. My dad walked up to said number plate and scraped a small amount of paint off with his fingernail (he was a decorator by trade). Even small business don’t reward loyalty, it seems.
Independents seem to vary a lot but I will never use dealers again. I used to get my BMW's serviced at a company called Bartlett and I have to say that they were fantastic. Very fast and efficient and never any silly charges or made up work. I moved to a new area 10 years ago so started using the local dealer but I am seriously considering driving 120 miles each way to Bartlett for future work.
@@JerryWalker001 For the presumably small amount work you choose not to do yourself, it might be worth it to make the trip to Bartlett's. Besides, you would get to enjoy a lovely drive. We have a local mechanic here in Toronto who is helpful, friendly, competent, and honest. I would guess that they have no trouble with margins.
@@MichaelEhling Unfortunately there is no such thing as a 'nice drive' in the UK any more. The state of the roads guarantees that you will hit a number of large pot holes and need more repairs. Speed traps, closed roads, Idiotic traffic calming schemes, and so called smart motorways etc etc mean that a 240 mile round trip is likely to take up to 9+ hours. Our government is trying very hard to force people out of cars so they make journeys as 'painful' as they possibly can and irresponsible policing makes things much worse. 20 years ago then absolutely I would use Bartlett.
Typical dealer scam. You take an older car in for service, and they invent an absurdly high estimate thinking you're sure to want to buy a new car from them rather than pay an arm and leg to get the work done (90% of which was not needed.) They do the same thing if it seems like a difficult/intermittent problem; invent an absurdly high estimate to dissuade the owner from getting it fixed and save themselves from actually taking the time to diagnose it properly and it also removes their liability for the shoddy diagnoses they did.
As another RUclipsrs says: "BMW = Big Money Waster". I own a BMW product and I am NOT impressed...
Yes I agree although it is not just BMW. The wife had a C3 which developed a serious miss fire. It was a fairly new car and in very good condition. She took it into the local dealer and after several days they said that they could not fix it. She went to pick it up and when she got back there was diesel running out from the engine (A lot of it). I took a look and found that they had failed to reconnect the injector return line. The entire car was covered in diesel but it had also run into the clutch housing and ruined the clutch which then slipped badly and never recovered. We complained but the dealer said it was not their fault. I have no idea who they thought was responsible. I fixed the miss fire myself which took 10 minutes (poor ground connection under fuse box) but I also had to change the clutch which was a MUCH bigger job. We eventually gave up trying to get the dealer to accept responsibility because they came up with a different story every time we spoke to them.
@@JerryWalker001 Interesting that dealers play the same games no matter the country. I tend to do my own work but have a local, independent shop do the odd job now and again. They do good work and are honest.
@@HeyBirtSame for me, Jeff. I find that asking around almost always leads to a referral to someone who cares.
That's why I suggest using Halfords for MOTs, they are not reliant MOT money. Possibly a naive statement, on my behalf but that's my experience.
From what I have been able to figure out over the years I think that the reason dealers do not like working on older vehicles is because of materials used and impact drivers. In the video I mentioned that I had repaired a few other issues I had found. One was that I noticed the water pump had been replaced during the recent visit because the brass insert had been ripped out of the original. I know it happened because the insert was still on the bolt and it was just flapping around. They had replaced the pump with a new one although they never mentioned it to me. I think that this sort of thing becomes more common as the cars age so dealers do not like having to replace parts at their expense (and they want to sell new cars). Oddly the workshop manual even says that the emission test can damage the transmission during an MOT (This is a 4WD car). The entire thing seems a bit contrived to me, maybe I have become too cynical.
One of the front springs on my E90 BMW 330D M-Sport broke last week at 70mph, and the sharp end pierced the side of the tyre with a bang!........so I can see where they are coming from in terms of liability as they probably don't trust the cheap steel they used to make them! Search online, BMW front spring breakage is definitely a thing!
Yes car suspension springs break but the minute amount of corrosion on my springs would certainly not be a primary cause of failure.
I had something similar happen on my Focus. Luckily, the tyre burst while moving the car on the driveway, as the spring had broken while the car was parked. Unluckily, the tyre it destroyed had exactly 2 miles of wear on it.
@@JerryWalker001You are probably right, and in your shoes I wouldn't replace it either........but just to say my spring had no real corrosion either, especially where it shattered.
Anyways, i'd much rather have my BMW than my wife's Corsa.....which was recalled for a front subrame (holds the engine in) which was so badly corroded it was deemed a safety hazard. £1000 of subrame changed out free of charge!
@@Zeem4 Spring failures on the Focus are fairly common. We have had two fail.
There may be access to the boot through a breakout section behind the rear seats. That's how the mechanic got into my E36 back in the day.
Nope, Like I said in the video there is no ski opening in these cars. The rear seats are also bolted in from inside the boot. BMW designers must have had a day off when they thought of this one.
B.M.W. aka Bring My Wallet
You have been far too polite Jerry. Looking at the map, there are not too many BMW dealers in your area. You might be doing folks a favour by naming them. My suggestion to anyone having the same experience and not feeling confident about doing the work themselves (as none of this work requires a BMW specialist skills or.tools) would be to get a few local trustworthy small independent garages to quote for the work.
If I named them then you would probably never see the video as YT would probably pull it. I have looked for a good independent and may have found one. I have heard good things about them and if they are good then I will most likely post a follow up. When I lived near Cambridge I used one called Bartlett and they were excellent but I live too far to use them any more (although I have been tempted to make the journey to avoid the local dealer). I also suspect that this is not an isolated dealer and naming them could imply that others are better. I would rather wait until I can find good support and then support them and in turn vote for the local dealer by taking my money elsewhere. I ran my own businesses and we had a name for excessively high quotes which were intended to ditch customers. However I am surprised that BMW allow it to continue because it gives their cars a bad name. They seem to be working on the infinite market principle (happy to drive away current customers because they believe there are always more).
European cars are money pits.
My 23yo car costs $100/yr to maintain myself
I wonder whether you are familiar with the European car market or just with the brands and models present in the USA.
"European cars" seems like a very broad brush. My 2002 Ford Focus is European, and in the last year, covering over 15,000 miles, it's needed nothing but two tyres, an oil change, a pair of wiper blades and a couple of bulbs.
@@Zeem4 i meant the upper market euro cars like bmw