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Comment by cloudwalking | Hacker News Reader

I bought a new BMW in 2012. I've had a lot of problems with it (including an entire new engine, covered under warranty), and I've always had to wait for BMW to service it. The wait is anywhere from a few days (car towed in and nobody looked for a few days) to two weeks (30k and 60k mile maintenance).

I feel like everybody is being hyper-critical of Tesla because most people dislike the auto industry and see Tesla as a major disruptor of the status quo.

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At least with BMW, if you can afford to pay for service, despite being in-warranty, you have the option of going to an independent shop.

My car is out of the factory warranty now but I purchased a third party warranty that allows me to go to independent mechanics.

My local dealership has a 100% failure rate with my car. Every service action they took has resulted in an egregious misdiagnosis or future failure of a part due to improper service.

I'm not sure if I will ever buy a new BMW unless I can be reimbursed for the factory warranty that I will never use. The single most dangerous place to take your BMW is a BMW service location.

God, this. I had my car drift one month out of warranty when the alternator failed at 45,000 miles. Was not happy. Was MUCH LESS HAPPY when they called me to tell me "this is weird, but the B post under the hood has melted. Do you know anything about that?" "Do YOU know anything about that? I never jumped the car. I drove it to your driveway and you told me you had to jump it to get it into the service bay." "Well, it's about $600 to fix." "That sucks for you. You guys nuked it. I dropped it off with a working B post. See: HOW DO YOU THINK YOU MOVED IT FROM YOUR DRIVEWAY?" "Oh. Well, we'll take care of it this time."

I haven't ever left a BMW service center NOT feeling like I was being fleeced.

I did have my Model S throw a 12 V Battery Needs Service error 3,000 miles in. Called them on the way to work, they remote diagnosed that it was NOT the HVLV connector (Tesla's take on the alternator, effectively), and offered to have a Ranger out to my office to swap the battery later that afternoon. Done and done. Though I've heard plenty of complaints for very long waits for more complex fixes, I've also heard of those for every manufacturer.

When my car was in being diagnosed they put 40(!) miles on it then told me that it was impossible that they did any engine damage, even though they cleaned the intake ports which involves removing the intake manifold and media blasting the parts they claim were damaged and would cost $15,000.00 to fix. They also claimed it was impossible that they caused the wheel damage that wasn't there when I dropped the car off "because there are no curbs here".

Right, because car dealerships are always built in perfectly smooth fields and you put 40 miles on it using a treadmill. /s

They also told me that if I brought the loaner car back with less than a full tank they would charge me $5.00/gallon(!!) to top it off. They put 40 miles on my car and didn't reimburse me.

Franchised dealer service departments really are the worst. I am very impressed with the engineering and build quality of my BMW but the service is so bad the rest doesn't really matter. I hope Tesla is able to improve the level of service and forces others to do the same.

Anyone who can afford and BMW can afford to lease one to avoid all this crap.

Based on my experience with BMW franchised dealerships your engine replacement may not have been necessary. They told me I needed the same and it turned out the problem was two spark plugs they didn't install properly. Part of that ordeal involved unnecessarily replacing fuel injectors under a BMW extended warranty after an incorrect diagnosis of the misfire.

I had tons of issues with my 135 but they always gave me a loaner of similar value.

Typically the loaner is part of the warranty. Beyond that, service managers can approve loaners for good customers (repeat buyers, high value cars or long service history).

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