Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkDemma
Thanks for the link. One takeaway is that while the Dinan Rep makes a good point, that the person you are talking to at the dealer may very well be misinformed, it could very well just be the "why" - "BMW’s agreement with Dinan is no longer in place". The Dinan rep quoted another poster as saying the reason was "dinan refused to cover warranty work for which they were responsible".
So while carefully crafted, the Dinan response could be read as obfuscation of the issue. As someone that is considering purchasing Dinan products, if indeed it is becoming more difficult to find a dealer that will install / honor warranty for these products that is troublesome. Earlier in this thread a couple of folks posted that dealers in Canada were dropping Dinan due to difficulties in getting them to honor warranty work and that is indeed troubling if it's something that is fairly widespread and not isolated to a couple of dealer. As the Dinan rep points out, dealers come and go and change their minds on these things.
Selling the company and moving it from CA to AL was bound to cause some issues and disruption. The question I'd have as a prospective purchaser is have these changes lead to a decrease in quality of the product and how they will honor warranty work? It's not at all uncommon for new owners to try to cut costs wherever they can and you see things take a downward turn.
I'm not aware of any JD Powers style customer satisfaction surveys for aftermarket parts. Relying on anecdotal evidence from forums isn't the most accurate way to gauge these things. Could use the number of dealers that are still selling Dinan parts as an indication if those data were available I'd think.
Thoughts?
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I guess i haven't seen any data yet in all the posts that the net number of BMW dealers selling Dinan is decreasing. Not saying that is not the case but seems anecdotal at this point from posts. All I saw was the coming and going comment. I think also in the Dinan rep's posting, he refuted the examples of dealers leaving (eg the Canada example) as he stated he had just met with his Edmonton dealers and they were still onboard and he asked for a PM to further investigate.
I can see the reps point about turnover in dealers and getting a consistent straight message when you talk to different dealer staff. Heck, i see this all the time on BMW related topics getting different answers from different folks and also on occasion hearing complete BS on a topic
At my BMW dealer, anything Dinan comes up, they direct to me to a single individual at the dealership that handles Dinan and that has seemed to work ok so far.
Not 100% on this but on the purchase of Dinan point, I thought that the parent company of Dinan has owned them for some time now even when in California and the recent move to AL is just that, a physical move only not a ownership move at the same time.
The real proof in the pudding is when someone has something major go on with the drivetrain while under warranty and we see how Dinan and BMW sort it out and whether the customer ultimately gets screwed or not.