[Saejin]

So, had a scratch/gouge on my driver side window. Not sure where it came from, but car was one week old. Sales manager offered to replace it for free...perfect! Body shop is doing the work and not service...probably to keep the cost down and internal to the dealership.

Bring it in and the glass is replaced. Looks great, works like new, however the door panel is t fully secured over the top where it meets the glass. A quick lift and nudge it falls into place...a few days later I’m driving at night and realize the lower ambient lighting strip does not work. I call and they say to bring it in.

I come in and explain what’s going on. Car is taken to body shop and is returned in 20 minutes. They say nothing was wrong with the lighting...uhhg! I take the service advisor out to sit in my car and show her exactly what’s wrong. She personally drives the car to the body shop and shows them.

1 hour later my car is back and cleaned up. Svc advisor says all is good.
I go out and inspect the door pretty throughly given the past issues of the panel fitment.

So, right off the bat I see the speaker panel is loose. So that’s an easy fix and I go to snap it into place. It doesn’t stay out. I then pull it back and see they’ve broken all the tabs that lock it into place. Basically they forced the panel into place and didn’t even look to see how it went back together.

I inform the service advisor and show her. She’s clearly not happy too. She’s taking the car to the body shop to show them how they screwed up and to have them order the part.

I asked her for full documentation of all the work since it may not be reflected on my service record since all this work is being done in house. Just don’t want any issues down the road with another dealer if there’s a problem with my door panel and lighting.

I keep telling myself they know what they’re doing but obviously not. Sales manager says dealers makes money off the service dept and body shop I assume. I will be telling him after this I don’t plan to bring my X3 anywhere near the body shop. He’s lucky I’m even considering using the svc dept for an oil change.

“This is getting ridiculous”...quote from service advisor.

[Saejin]

One more thing. All this work and parts is being paid for by the dealer...it’s not warranty work.

I plan to inspect the whole panel when I get it back. Any issues and they’ll need to order a whole new panel.

I appreciate the fact the sales manager replaced the glass which was maybe a few hundred. This job may now cost the dealership quite a bit more.

[ClaretFozzy]

I had a similar thing with my at the time one month old M135i.

It went in for a loose rear window trim and they messed it up so badly that it ended up having the N/S/R quarter panel resprayed, the back seats re-leathered, a new roof lining and a new alloy wheel, as well as a new window and window trim that it originally went in for!

Total time for repairs - 5 weeks!

[Saejin]

5 stars for the service advisor!!!

She personally took the car back to the body shop, explained to them what happened, spoke with the manager, spoke with the tech who did the work, and got it fixed. They ended up pulling one that was going to be used on another car or something. Either way she got it fixed with a new part within an hour.

She told me they discussed the issue with the tech and used it as a teaching moment. Basically if something breaks when you’re working on a car don’t ignore it just let the svc advisor know and they’ll work to make it right. The worse thing they can do is to try and hide it and then let the customer find it.

I got to say much better customer svc here than I’ve had on my other cars.

[b.guggenmos]

Not a BMW problem but pretty much all service departments in any brand. Sad but I was a service tech from 1983-2000. I make a terrible customer. I have friends still at dealerships. As the labor rates have risen to ridicules levels the money does not trickle down to the technicians like it used to. Most dealers have a select few guys who have all the certifications and get the difficult problems and good pay. The low paid guys get all the warranty BS as well as a lot of the routine service work that is so expensive for the customer. It is a messed up system. The dealers figured out a long time ago that they could make a nice tidy profit in service after internet shopping took some profit from sales.

[MADBMWX5MC]

Which BMW dealer out of curiosity? Since I live in Virginia, but purchased my X3 in MD