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Originally Posted by Jaggu Yup it is newer 5 and its covered in secure package, 2 tyres per year also IIRC. But i understand for tyres its pro-rated based on kms it has done. |
Yes, the current set of tyres and rims are covered, they are of course on pro-rata basis.
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Originally Posted by sagarpadaki All 4 alloys bent at same time is definitely fishy.Are you sure that the dealership has not swapped your car alloys with some other car.Have a close look at the alloys to make sure that they indeed belong to your car.Before you remove any of the wheels park the car and observe if all four bends are at the same spot relative to each other(Mark with a white chark the position of the bend). If true, then the only possibility is that the lift failed and your car has come crashing down .If this is true then you have all the rights to confront them with this info!!! .Take lots of pics and a detailed video too of the damage in broad sunlight before you proceed !
If the damage is very less then you can get the alloys repaired.Its quite reliable too.Many of the members here have done it and are satisfied with the results.You can get all 4 alloys repaired for 2K bucks.Cheap! |
There definitely seems to be something fishy.
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Originally Posted by Nikhilganju Jaggu - The tyres might be covered in the package, but the alloy rims are not. In fact you might be referring to the new BMW Secure package (for the new 5 series cars) which probably includes the alloys as well. My car is the previous version of the 5 (the Chris Bangles design) and was bought in May 2010, just about the time the new 5 was being launched in India. I checked the warranty as well (in hindsight of course!) and the alloys are not covered for 'user induced damages'. Beautiful inclusion by very smart lawyers obviously - allows them to blame everything on ambiguous 'user induced damages'!
Drpullockaran - Thanks for the insightful suggestions. I'm absolutely certain that the BMW workshop guys are not capable of investigating the bends with such thoroughness. They simply and easily recommended that I buy new ones. Almost making one suspicious that they might be doing this just to make people buy expensive spares. Even if that were not the case, as a customer, I'm nervous about the prospect of spending 1.3 lacs every 18 months on new alloys! whats to prevent the new alloys from getting bent again due to 'user induced damages'?!
To your point about german reliability - i agree that i wasn't buying a tank, after all it is a car only. But when one pays so much, one just expects it to be built a little better than other cars I've driven before. Never faced this with a much cheaper Honda Civic I drove for 4 years! And that also had alloy wheels! |
What is the current status, any updates from BMW ?
Had i been in your place i would have just lost my temper (and that sometimes works with these lazy guys). Within a week of purchase i had an issue with my steering column (some kind of jarring noise) and i took it to the service center guy for check up and the service manager on hearing the problem immediately told me to get a job card done as this was a known problem with the vehicle batch of which mine also belonged, was a two hour wait before they changed some parts and gave it to me. They gave back the vehicle, now i checked and the noise is gone. When i started driving, now some other noise is coming from the bonnet side, i was just on the gates of the service center, called the service manager, he came up with a mechanic and fixed something inside the engine bay after which the noise vanished. Checked couple of times myself, no noise, then i proceeded further, after a kilometer the noise cropped up, i just lost myself after that, picked up the phone and gave mouthful to the service manager as well as the AGM Customer Service on the issue and i said, i am just leaving the vehicle right in front of the main gate of the service center and lock it up and go home, when you are ready to repair call me up and i will come. He said he will get it checked first thing in the morning, i said nothing doing, i want it to be repaired then and there, immaterial whether it is 9 or 12 in the night. He got the message that this customer is not going to relent, to my surprise, two mechanics came in a roadside assistance BMW X3 to my home at 1230 in the night and repaired the issue, as they say the engine bay cover had a missing screw, i just smiled and said, "
at least next time onwards you wont forget the screw since you had to put one at 1230 in the night".
One has to understand that Indian customer is treated badly by any brand, forget about BMW, you pick any brand in any area of industry, so let us be Indians with them and that works wonders, just my 2 cents. I am not saying you go and bash them up, but be curt and behave like an a** (mods sorry, i could not find a better word other than this) and that sometimes works, decency do not work always, after all you paid 40L. It is not the company which do not want to respect you for having given the business, but it is those idiots with polished shoes and black ties representing the company who are not ready to acknowledge you and your business, well treat them the way they need to be treated and you get your respect, else they consider you another passing guy, this is just the Indian mindset, it is just another job for him, well i am not the one who can be passed over. Since the issue that happened with me 4 months back, once every month that AGM Customer Service, rings me up to find if everything is OK with me as well as my X1, he wants to keep me in good humor, well i don't mind it.
To add more insight into this, my wife who was in customer service industry for 10 years gave good inputs to me, every company and their sales department categorizes customers into passive and difficult, the airline industry even tags the frequent flier number with difficulty versions and that helps the crew to understand the specific needs of the customer, and he gets better looked after, so it pays to make yourself difficult to those guys, i have learnt it the hard way over the years, now this policy does work in my favor most of the time.