New M3 E92 from The BMW Store - Vancouver

[MrM3]

Bought an 2011 M3 E92 from The BMW Store recently. Love The M3 E92. The DCT is amazing! Sound of the V8 is sweet music to the ears. This is my first BMW and first M3 and I finally realized why BMW is the ultimate driving machine!

The car itself is great. The negotiation with The BMW Store is NOT! Let me start off with the buying process. Amazing how responsively the SA during the buying process. I would leave a voicemail and get a response within minutes. Ditto with emails. When it is time to meet the SA and get the deal done, the process turn into some nightmare from hell. It was painful. Wasted a good 3-4 hrs at the store because the sales manager wanted a few hundred dollars from me. I was not going to give in, and was even ready to walk out the door until the SA decided to "give it a try again by talking to the Sales manager". I think I smelled BS! Eventually the SA came back and said that the Sales manager approved the deal. Deal was done and SA told me that it will be at least 3-4 weeks before I get the car. I told him to keep in the loop, ie where is the car and when the car will arrive at the. One week, no update. Two weeks, again, no update. Sent the SA an email, no response. Called him, and left VM, nothing. Finally, got a hold of him on the 3rd week and he had no idea where the car is. For goodness sake, I order a $40 book from Amazon and Amazon sent me a tracking number so that I can track my book. How is it possible that a dealer does not have any sort of tracking on a $80K car???

Finally got the car in the 4th week. Everything was all good again, except there was some damage on the car. SA told me that he will get everything fixed up as soon as possible and he will call me the following week to arrange an appointment. I have the car for over 2 months, and still the damages have not been repaired. Finally, I decided to send him an email, no response (not surprise there), called him, and he said he will call me back and yet he did not. Finally, got a hold of him recently, and instead of apologizing, he told me that he has already arranged somebody to fix those damages, and sounded very surprise that his service monkey did not call me.

If you buy a car from BMW Store and if they somehow manage to make lots of money from you on the deal, you WILL GET great service. Look at all those 5 stars review on their website. If you buy a car from them and you tried your best to the very best deal, you can forget about service after. They will treat you like dirt. They certainly treated me like dirt, this is after spending $80K on a car...

Lesson learned...I will never ever buy a car from BMW Store again. I will never recommend them to anyone. It is too bad that they will get away with this, and stay in business.

Thanks for reading!

[schnell325]

I have not had issues with their sales department, BUT I WILL NEVER EVER get service at their service department. Absolutely completely 100% unprofessional and almost everyone is a liar. The only ones I don't know are liars are the ones I did not deal with during a simple warranty fix for my wife's 335xi.

[schnell325]

Check out this thread for my experience. I'm at the top of the list.

http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=560411

Feel free to add your thoughts too.

[MrM3]

Thanks Schnell...I wish I read your review before dealing with them...I only came across your review after I had bought the car...oh well...again, lesson learned...

I guess I will be taking my car to Autowest for servicing...

[Chowster]

Welcome MrM3. I would recommend purchasing and servicing at Jessel. I've been problem-free there for 4 years so far. Two purchases, countless referrals to buy, and service without issues. PM me when it's time for your next car if you like.

I didn't have much success with my one and only service experience at AutoWest. Went south immediately after I answered "no" to their first question: "Did you purchase your car here?"

Enjoy your car!

[MrM3]

Originally Posted by Chowster

Welcome MrM3. I would recommend purchasing and servicing at Jessel. I've been problem-free there for 4 years so far. Two purchases, countless referrals to buy, and service without issues. PM me when it's time for your next car if you like.

I didn't have much success with my one and only service experience at AutoWest. Went south immediately after I answered "no" to their first question: "Did you purchase your car here?"

Enjoy your car!

I just don't understand these dealers...if they give good service, people might be more than willing to entertain the idea of buying a car from them...instead they gave you that stupid reason...

[Prince_of_Persia]

Sorry to hear that MrM3! I had similar experience with one of the dealerships in Calgary (BMW Gallery) when I purchased my previous car. I negotiated a lot for purchasing my current M3 from another dealership in Calgary (Calgary BMW) as well but have received awesome service there.
Calgary BMW is much further to my house but I still always go there. Funny thing is that these dealerships are both owned by the same person lol

Anyways, welcome and enjoy your car!

[Lay-Z M3]

Originally Posted by MrM3

Thanks Schnell...I wish I read your review before dealing with them...I only came across your review after I had bought the car...oh well...again, lesson learned...

I guess I will be taking my car to Autowest for servicing...

Auto West Rocks for service - well the Mini dept anyway!!! Stephen and Angelo are excellent

If thats any kind of indicator........

[wkndwrrr]

I actually got great service from Sales at BMW Store.
I've bought a few cars from my SA, but I assure you they've hardly made any money off me
Who was your SA, and the Sales Manager you were dealing with?
I haven't had any problems with the Service Dept. at BMW Store yet, but I haven't had anything other than basic work done there yet. Nonetheless, I'm pretty choked to hear that the Service Dept is bad.
I had actually switched from Brian Jessel to BMW Store after a series of horrible incidents with their Service Dept. That and my SA moved from BJ to BMW Store as well.
I hear good things about the service dept. at Park Shore, but I hear less good things about servicing your car at a dealership you didn't buy your car from

[BMW Fanatic]

Originally Posted by Prince_of_Persia

Sorry to hear that MrM3! I had similar experience with one of the dealerships in Calgary (BMW Gallery) when I purchased my previous car. I negotiated a lot for purchasing my current M3 from another dealership in Calgary (Calgary BMW) as well but have received awesome service there.
Calgary BMW is much further to my house but I still always go there. Funny thing is that these dealerships are both owned by the same person lol

Anyways, welcome and enjoy your car!

+1.

OP head to Brian Jessel from now on, heard great things about them from the forums and my own friends who buy cars from there all the way in Calgary.

Post pics!

[Yvette]

there is reasons why bmw store sells car 1/4 of Brian Jessel bmw do.
When I went there to shop for 335, I saw couple I liked *CPO. I told one of the sa, I would put non-refundable $2000 cash deposit if you could give me $2500 discount, he said "no go to brian jessel bmw" lol. I simply walked out and headed to brian jessel and bought one. He wouldn't even try to deal with me, is $2500 for used car too much to deal?
I was like "okay bye good luck selling a car with the attitude." not to mention, they don't even have enough cars to give out as a courtesy cars for servicing appointment.
@ brian jessel, if you are serious a buyer or a previous buyer, they give you a full day rent. I was happy with the car so I bought my car from them.

[redline9001]

congrats on the purchase

[604subtlestylez]

I've never had an issue with BMW Store. When I bought my car October 2010 I just had 3 dealers quote me on approximate pricing and I mentioned to all of them that lowest initital price quote will get my money.

My SA at BMW Store had the best price. When I came in to buy he lowered the price even more by $2k. He needed 3 days to prep the car, so while I was waiting he lent me an X3 which I used for a week.

The business office person was annoying though as he prolonged the process and did not make me feel good whenever I declined an optional product.

I've not had my car serviced at BMW Store, but I did come in yesterday just to get my washer fluid refilled. They took my keys, showed me the lounge and I ate the free food and cafe mocha there. In a couple minutes service tech found me, gave me the keys and drove off, no charge! BJ wanted to charge me $5 for washer fluid. Which is no big deal, but the fact that BMW Store treated me well just for a washer fluild top up was awesome. And they didn't charge me for it.

I do get my car serviced at Brian Jessell, only because it's closer to where I live. Never had an issue, except they replaced my BMW Store license plate with a Brian Jessell one. BJ should be paying me for advertising for them. They do give you a courtesy car for free, but it's usually a 323i sedan, which I hate.

I think customer satisfaction has nothing to do with entire organizations. It has everything to do with the individual people you are dealing with.

[Lay-Z M3]

Originally Posted by Chowster

Welcome MrM3. I would recommend purchasing and servicing at Jessel. I've been problem-free there for 4 years so far. Two purchases, countless referrals to buy, and service without issues. PM me when it's time for your next car if you like.

I didn't have much success with my one and only service experience at AutoWest. Went south immediately after I answered "no" to their first question: "Did you purchase your car here?"

Enjoy your car!

I agree, in my line of work I deal with all the BMW dealers in BC and AB and I have made great contacts/friends and seen increadible profesionalism at Brian Jessel, Auto West (Mini service in particular) and also the 'New boys' BMW Langley - though I do appreciate the last one is a bit of a trek for some.....

[BMWSpeedFreek]

Wow.

I have my own experience with them as well (short version, happy ending):

Bought a CPO local lease return 2006 M5 with 13,oookm two years ago from BMW Store with a trade in of my very clean 03 530iA M-sport Exec AG pkg with 60,oookm (requiring only new rotors/pads to be CPO`d itself). I lived in Cold Lake AB at the time and this was my fourth CPO purchase but first from BMW Store.

Purchase experience was unbelievably HORRIBLE! Got there at 10:00am on the Fri morning expecting to get out of there by noon so we could drive to Kamloops for an overnight on our way back to AB. Shockingly, we didn`t leave until almost 4 pm!!! Smack-dab in rush hour traffic. Great start.

2 days later, after a wonderful drive through the rockies (May timeframe), we made it to Edmonton where I dropped the car off (sched`d) at Bavaria BMW for an Out of Province inspection ($200). 10 mins later, the SA approached me and asked me if I knew the car had been in a recent accident.

WTF!?! I was pi$$ed, and my wife was downright livid!

SA showed me the brand-new right rear wheel, suspension, rotor and associated nuts and bolts, indicative of a car that has slid sideways into a curb at a significant speed.

Immediately called our salesman in Vancouver who claimed to know nothing about what I was talking about. I told him I wanted to talk to his boss. It took an hour before I finally got a hold of him - same response, but said he will investigate. I told him he can have his car back, that I want my deposit and my trade-in back. Several days later, after leaning on the salesman, he admitted that the car was lease-returned in early Dec and 'a senior salesman' had taken it home one snowy night, slid into a curb at about 30 km/h. As it was on a dealer plate, he said there was no need to inform ICBC of the accident given that their shop could fix it to 'as good as new'. Sure. (Easily >$3000 damage incl labour, according to Bavaria BMW SA).

I was, and am still, pretty sure M5 diffs are not meant to take a sideways bang of 30 km/h. I paid for a CARFAX report, it showed clean of course, so I informed them of the details as related to me - they thanked me, and refunded my cost of the report.

Long story short, it took almost a month and many calls and emails to both the used sales manager and dealership general manager to rectify this to my satisfaction...though just imagine if a BC'er bought the car - they would have had no idea of the stresses imparted to the axle and diff and their shortened life (unless they paid for an inspection of a dealer-certified pre-owned car. And who does that?) ...I wonder what a new diff installation would have cost...?

Of course, once rectified, I was very concerned my very understanding wife would nix any future purchase of my dream car based on this experience.

Bless her heart, and Jack Goodman and his superb staff at Edmonton BMW, for they found our 'perfect' 2008 Sepang Bronze M5 and she let me buy it.

Will never, ever deal with BMW Store again. BJ BMW only when in Vancouver. Sorry I didn't share earlier...

SF out.

PS. Our next car purchase is an M3 Coupe scheduled for a May '12 delivery here in Germany - can't wait!! So far the experience has been absolutely superb!

[Lay-Z M3]

Originally Posted by SpeedFreek

Wow.

I have my own experience with them as well (short version, happy ending):

Bought a CPO local lease return 2006 M5 with 13,oookm two years ago from BMW Store with a trade in of my very clean 03 530iA M-sport Exec AG pkg with 60,oookm (requiring only new rotors/pads to be CPO`d itself). I lived in Cold Lake AB at the time and this was my fourth CPO purchase but first from BMW Store.

Purchase experience was unbelievably HORRIBLE! Got there at 10:00am on the Fri morning expecting to get out of there by noon so we could drive to Kamloops for an overnight on our way back to AB. Shockingly, we didn`t leave until almost 4 pm!!! Smack-dab in rush hour traffic. Great start.

2 days later, after a wonderful drive through the rockies (May timeframe), we made it to Edmonton where I dropped the car off (sched`d) at Bavaria BMW for an Out of Province inspection ($200). 10 mins later, the SA approached me and asked me if I knew the car had been in a recent accident.

WTF!?! I was pi$$ed, and my wife was downright livid!

SA showed me the brand-new right rear wheel, suspension, rotor and associated nuts and bolts, indicative of a car that has slid sideways into a curb at a significant speed.

Immediately called our salesman in Vancouver who claimed to know nothing about what I was talking about. I told him I wanted to talk to his boss. It took an hour before I finally got a hold of him - same response, but said he will investigate. I told him he can have his car back, that I want my deposit and my trade-in back. Several days later, after leaning on the salesman, he admitted that the car was lease-returned in early Dec and 'a senior salesman' had taken it home one snowy night, slid into a curb at about 30 km/h. As it was on a dealer plate, he said there was no need to inform ICBC of the accident given that their shop could fix it to 'as good as new'. Sure. (Easily >$3000 damage incl labour, according to Bavaria BMW SA).

I was, and am still, pretty sure M5 diffs are not meant to take a sideways bang of 30 km/h. I paid for a CARFAX report, it showed clean of course, so I informed them of the details as related to me - they thanked me, and refunded my cost of the report.

Long story short, it took almost a month and many calls and emails to both the used sales manager and dealership general manager to rectify this to my satisfaction...though just imagine if a BC'er bought the car - they would have had no idea of the stresses imparted to the axle and diff and their shortened life (unless they paid for an inspection of a dealer-certified pre-owned car. And who does that?) ...I wonder what a new diff installation would have cost...?

Of course, once rectified, I was very concerned my very understanding wife would nix any future purchase of my dream car based on this experience.

Bless her heart, and Jack Goodman and his superb staff at Edmonton BMW, for they found our 'perfect' 2008 Sepang Bronze M5 and she let me buy it.

Will never, ever deal with BMW Store again. BJ BMW only when in Vancouver. Sorry I didn't share earlier...

SF out.

PS. Our next car purchase is an M3 Coupe scheduled for a May '12 delivery here in Germany - can't wait!! So far the experience has been absolutely superb!

Hmmm disturbing!!

[schnell325]

Very.....

[wkndwrrr]

I'm surprised by all the positive comments about Brian Jessel...
Completely opposite from all the other local forums

[Chowster]

Originally Posted by wkndwrrr

I'm surprised by all the positive comments about Brian Jessel...
Completely opposite from all the other local forums

I think there are always reports of both positive and negative experiences at all dealerships. Depends greatly on the particular CA and your demeanor. A little respect goes a long way (usually!) wherever one goes.

[Bateman]

I've had my car 3yrs now from Brian Jessel and had never had any issues. After one of my service appointments I was actually given a 5 series as a loaner. Parts come quick and they are pretty good with update phone calls.