[540Island]

It was time for my first oil change, also had to take in my 540 because the sunroof wasn't flush with the roof (came up a little) and the seatbelt notification kept coming on when nothing was in the passenger seat.
Since they haven't figured out my ac issue I was told they would just flush out the coolant and add new.. ok fine
They had my car since Monday
This morning I decided to track my car's location.... was about 6 miles away from the BMW dealership, gave it a little time and didn't move, so I got up, got ready and noticed it was there for about an hour. I drive toward where it was parked and see it driving down the road now so I flip around and followed back to the dealership. Guy tried to avoid me and go in thru the back of service and realized he messed up (I'm sure) so he parked in the front and walked in quickly. Followed him inside and asked why he was driving my car away from the dealer for an hour. He proceeded to say it was to duplicate the problem, finally got him to talk he said "I was at my Dr appointment I got a shot in my a**, you can check" at that point I asked for his manager and she was sitting right there. She didn't even care she proceeded to say that yes they take cars on test drives to duplicate the problem. She obviously didn't care either. Finally got to talk with the director of service at BMW Palm Springs, was told he was sorry and they shouldn't have took the car to a DR appointment and the service writer should have asked if they could take it for a test drive.
Still don't believe they took me serious as I'm only 20, what would you guys have done?
Be careful and always take advantage of the fact we can track our cars especially when in service

[Ryno 27]

whats the difference? he drives around the block repeatedly or he runs an errand, miles are miles.

[visualguy]

That's the culture at US car dealerships, unfortunately... Taking cars for personal errands, joy rides, mis-handling cars and damaging them, etc. It's very hard to change that culture. All you can do is complain, but ultimately nothing really changes.

The best approach is to stay away from them as much as possible, and if you must deal with them, supervise and monitor what they're doing as much as possible.

Avoiding having to deal with service and maintenance as much as possible is one of the reasons I lease, and I never bring in the car for anything minor that I can live with.

[540Island]

Originally Posted by rynomi6

whats the difference? he drives around the block repeatedly or he runs an errand, miles are miles.

Miles aren't the point of this post, I really just posted it so people would be more aware when they take their car into somewhere they should be able to trust. But I don't agree with you, I don't think he should have took the care on a personal errand and definitely could have handled it different. But hey we all are entitled to our own!

[Nivarox]

As long as the owner is notified or informed about a test drive and providing the owner gives go ahead for it then it should be no problem however if a something nasty has come to happened then the dealer must take all the responsibility for it .
It's OK for me to drive my car but I must be informed first and foremost

[Roger_M]

Originally Posted by 540Island

Miles aren't the point of this post, I really just posted it so people would be more aware when they take their car into somewhere they should be able to trust. But I don't agree with you, I don't think he should have took the care on a personal errand and definitely could have handled it different. But hey we all are entitled to our own!

Totally agree with you - no way should dealer staff go joyriding with customer cars period. No excuses.

[Ab3_Fr0man]

I had my sunroof do the same thing, just re-initialized it and it sits flush again.

How To Re-Initialize a BMW Sunroof
https://youtu.be/wkIqKQRtZNg


That's a shitty deal about the dealership using your car like a free rental. I know how I drive rentals....I would write a formal complaint to BMW North America.

[mobilejo]

Originally Posted by rynomi6

whats the difference? he drives around the block repeatedly or he runs an errand, miles are miles.

Difference - on a test drive, the car isn't left unattended. If a dealer employee took my car on an errand and the car got a parking ding in some Dr's parking lot or similar, I would be super p*ssed. Parking ding = dealer has to repair my car = inconvenience to me while the car is being repaired and panel repair where there wasn't one. I would be p*ssed because the whole thing would have been avoided if said employee didn't treat MY property like his.

They need to just do the job I'm paying them for (and yes, you have 'paid' for your warranty work in the price of the car - nothing is free) and use their own vehicles for running errands.

[540Island]

Originally Posted by Ab3_Fr0man

I had my sunroof do the same thing, just re-initialized it and it sits flush again.

How To Re-Initialize a BMW Sunroof
https://youtu.be/wkIqKQRtZNg


That's a shitty deal about the dealership using your car like a free rental. I know how I drive rentals....I would write a formal complaint to BMW North America.

It was a little different, it would close but if you looked on the roof it would pop up some so it would be flat with the roof.
Thank you tho!

[540Island]

Originally Posted by mobilejo

Difference - on a test drive, the car isn't left unattended. If a dealer employee took my car on an errand and the car got a parking ding in some Dr's parking lot or similar, I would be super p*ssed. Parking ding = dealer has to repair my car = inconvenience to me while the car is being repaired and panel repair where there wasn't one. I would be p*ssed because the whole thing would have been avoided if said employee didn't treat MY property like his.

They need to just do the job I'm paying them for (and yes, you have 'paid' for your warranty work in the price of the car - nothing is free) and use their own vehicles for running errands.

That is exactly how I see it. I don't mind them taking it around the block to see the issue but its a whole different story to take a customers car to your own dr appointment and leave it unattended.

[steve090619]

dealer scuffed my front bumper when it was in for service. resprayed the part they scuffed, I can't tell where they scuffed it but they are NOT CAREFULL with our cars.

[Ab3_Fr0man]

Originally Posted by 540Island

It was a little different, it would close but if you looked on the roof it would pop up some so it would be flat with the roof.
Thank you tho!

That's exactly what mine was doing, just popping up slightly not sitting flush. re-initializing it fixed it for me.