Your story about Irvine BMW service does not surprise me in the least.
...sad part is that there are NO good dealership service departments in Orange County. I've been told first hand stories of Irvine BMW techs stealing scheduled maintenance/warranty parts & selling them back to the parts dept. He told me people on his "team" did it with the lead/master tech's knowledge. Oh, I forgot to add, "Ron" @ Irvine BMW is the WORST SA I have EVER ENCOUNTERED working for any dealership/brand. The guy is incompetent, lazy, and I suspect mildly mentally handicapped. Stay away from him @ all cost. I pointed out his failures to the service GM on a couple of occasions...I'm amazed he is still employed there. Which in turn reinforces my belief that Irvine BMW does not give a cra* about their level of service. Only reason to visit Irvine BMW for me is to buy my quart of "top-off" oil every 3-6 months since they are the closest dealer to my home.
Crevier is even worse then Irvine BMW...I had them try and bill me for "rotating my tires". It was written up under the work order as performed etc...staggered tire sizes, wtf right? Another time I got the "you need to flush your tranny as part of the maintenance...your lease says you gotta do all recommended maintenance on the car"...I had to ask em to show me ANY manual from any model year of any BMW that required a transmission fluid replacement @ 12,000 miles (this is back when BMW did not force bundle maintenance into their cars). Made a scene asking very loudly why he is defrauding customers lying about required maintenance...10-15 other customers stood around looking & listening intently. GM shuffled me into his office apologizing profusely & wiping out the service bill while paying me lip-service. In the end it was probably the GM telling his SA's to "push optional services".
Sterling in Newport Beach is avg. At least in my experience the SA's pickup the phone, call you back, etc... I've had issues with them dinging my car while working on it, but they seem to be more in-tune with customer service requirements being a smaller dealer catering to snobbish clientele...and they never tried to sell me a transmission fluid flush @ 12,000 miles
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I gotta tell ya, I'm amazed that people are not up in arms about BMW "scheduled" maintenance being forced on the consumer. Its monopolistic & highly anti-competitive behavior by BMW. It leads to dealership service departments being unaccountable for sub standard service.
On a side note, I'm not sure how many of you own or used lexus dealership service departments. I took my wife's ride in a couple of times to different dealerships and my jaw was on the floor in shock of how pleasant the whole thing was. Free Krispy Kream donuts, bagels, gourmet coffee in the morning...subway catered lunch food...lexus branded loaner cars (vs enterprise rental which seems to be the norm @ BMW in OC these days). Its just amazing to me what having to compete for service business in the luxury segment does for customer service.