Check out what the dealership did

[timothy2001]

Had a very minor dent taken out and repaired by the dealership. Space heater fell off the shelf in the garage and hit the car. While there, I decided to have them replace the shadow line trim as the paint was wearing off the edges.

Well, when I got it back there was substantial wind noise from the drivers side and they said bring it back anytime and we'll fix it. I can't believe I just noticed this but am I crazy or are those clips not supposed to be seen? It's like this on both sides.

Did they leave a trim piece off after replacing the shadow line trim?? On both sides?

Pic is with the door open.

WTF!

[spammysammich]

They didn’t put the seal back. Make them fix it.

[spammysammich]

Should look like this

[timothy2001]

spammysammich thanks man and I apprecaite the picture! It's going back to them next week.

[nick3753]

So frustrating when paying others for work and they do a half ass job or neglect something. Just another reason to try to do as much yourself as possible, or find a trust worthy Indy shop. I just replaced my wife’s brakes/rotors on her S6. Went to remove the wheels to find the shop that swapped the winter tires (Firestone) over torqued half the wheel bolts and completely left one off. Some of that is on me for not double checking when it got picked up. I inspected for damage, but didn’t check to see all five bolts were there.

[e92dud]

Originally Posted by nick3753

So frustrating when paying others for work and they do a half ass job or neglect something. Just another reason to try to do as much yourself as possible, or find a trust worthy Indy shop. I just replaced my wife’s brakes/rotors on her S6. Went to remove the wheels to find the shop that swapped the winter tires (Firestone) over torqued half the wheel bolts and completely left one off. Some of that is on me for not double checking when it got picked up. I inspected for damage, but didn’t check to see all five bolts were there.

I’ve never taken my car to a shop, when I was 16 they handed me my spacers, and cracked my center caps when I had my tires rotated, also tightened the lugs so tight there was no way I could change a flat without an impact. I’ve always figured I no matter how bad I do it’ll be better than them. And it’s a lot cheaper. Plus I don’t like trusting others with my life. I don’t get paying shops to do rod bearings. If you’re doing it for peace of mind, a shop doing it would keep me up at night unless I watched them.

[kolosy]

Had a buddy who’s a pro tech do my rear subframe bushings and arms because I didn’t have time. Drove it home, thought I heard a clunk. Turns out he hand tightened one of the bolts on the trailing arm. :facepalm: now I have to go over every bolt and retorque to make sure it was done right everywhere else. Never making that mistake again.

[Helmsman]

Originally Posted by timothy2001

Had a very minor dent taken out and repaired by the dealership. Space heater fell off the shelf in the garage and hit the car. While there, I decided to have them replace the shadow line trim as the paint was wearing off the edges.

Well, when I got it back there was substantial wind noise from the drivers side and they said bring it back anytime and we'll fix it. I can't believe I just noticed this but am I crazy or are those clips not supposed to be seen? It's like this on both sides.

Did they leave a trim piece off after replacing the shadow line trim?? On both sides?

Pic is with the door open.

WTF!

BMW dealers, screw up every-single-time. Whats wrong with BMW qual process, if they even have one??

[M3SQRD]

Originally Posted by Helmsman

BMW dealers, screw up every-single-time. Whats wrong with BMW qual process, if they even have one??

Techs are paid on book hours for each job so they tend to cut corners to get the job done quicker and this is what results in mistakes. This isn’t just the dealers, indy shops also do this. That’s why it’s so important to find a shop/tech that you trust and know they’ll do the job right. Some jobs you can easily see something was done incorrectly but most jobs you can’t see whether it was done correctly. Leaving off a giant seal is unacceptable!

[nick3753]

Originally Posted by e92dud

I’ve never taken my car to a shop, when I was 16 they handed me my spacers, and cracked my center caps when I had my tires rotated, also tightened the lugs so tight there was no way I could change a flat without an impact. I’ve always figured I no matter how bad I do it’ll be better than them. And it’s a lot cheaper. Plus I don’t like trusting others with my life. I don’t get paying shops to do rod bearings. If you’re doing it for peace of mind, a shop doing it would keep me up at night unless I watched them.

Unfortunately I can’t swap tires at home and rebalance. I will never use that tire shop again though. I couldn’t even break the ones they overtorqued with my impact. I had to use a breaker bar with a nearly 3 foot extension. Infuriating.

[DanMpower]

These are the reasons why I'm scared to let anyone else touch my car, I triple check everything, replace all one-time-use hardware, torque everything to spec and most importantly make sure nothing is left behind. I guess I'm just a bit extreme but even a single broken plastic clip will keep me up at night until it's replaced.

As someone already stated, techs are paid by book hours, and often times it's just not enough for the job if they want to do it right. Warranty work? Forget about it, they get paid even less so corners will eventually be cut, non-essential/visible stuff might be left out and most hardware will just be zipped on using an impact with no regard for proper torque values.

[spammysammich]

The real irony is just about everyone wants a cars provenance preserved, immaculate service history, dealership maintenance records when in reality this is what we’re faced with in terms of workmanship. If I couldn’t turn wrenches there would be no way I could afford to maintain this car given the current uncertainty in the economic climate. But I’m “ruining” the percieved value of my car by not having everything show up in carfax as work performed by an accredited shop. I’m between a rock and a hard place. Plus I ticked over 100k so there goes resale value of my rare car. But I bought it with 96k on it, just breathing on it put miles on and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna own a garage queen. Never have, never will. Sorry that turned into a rant but I’m sure others feel this pinch.

Nobody gives a flying f*ck about my car but me, so it’s up to me to properly keep it on the road with by the book maintenance as much as possible. Who can I trust?

[e92dud]

Originally Posted by spammysammich

The real irony is just about everyone wants a cars provenance preserved, immaculate service history, dealership maintenance records when in reality this is what we’re faced with in terms of workmanship. If I couldn’t turn wrenches there would be no way I could afford to maintain this car given the current uncertainty in the economic climate. But I’m “ruining” the percieved value of my car by not having everything show up in carfax as work performed by an accredited shop. I’m between a rock and a hard place. Plus I ticked over 100k so there goes resale value of my rare car. But I bought it with 96k on it, just breathing on it put miles on and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna own a garage queen. Never have, never will. Sorry that turned into a rant but I’m sure others feel this pinch.

Nobody gives a flying f*ck about my car but me, so it’s up to me to properly keep it on the road with by the book maintenance as much as possible. Who can I trust?

I think people can tell if a car is taken care of by enthusiasts, but I do think it’s funny how people hang on carfax service history. I see it as list of things I have to redo or at least check. No one will care about my car as much as I do when working on it, I think others can see that. I can tell in listings when shops work on something just by how they don’t clean anything when replacing parts.

[Reddevils7]

Originally Posted by spammysammich

The real irony is just about everyone wants a cars provenance preserved, immaculate service history, dealership maintenance records when in reality this is what we’re faced with in terms of workmanship. If I couldn’t turn wrenches there would be no way I could afford to maintain this car given the current uncertainty in the economic climate. But I’m “ruining” the percieved value of my car by not having everything show up in carfax as work performed by an accredited shop. I’m between a rock and a hard place. Plus I ticked over 100k so there goes resale value of my rare car. But I bought it with 96k on it, just breathing on it put miles on and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna own a garage queen. Never have, never will. Sorry that turned into a rant but I’m sure others feel this pinch.

Nobody gives a flying f*ck about my car but me, so it’s up to me to properly keep it on the road with by the book maintenance as much as possible. Who can I trust?

As long as you keep receipts of everything you're buying for maintenance then for me it wouldn't be a big deal, especially if I knew it was a forum car. Your Dakar will always be worth a little extra btw. Bought my m3 recently with sub 20k miles. The plan is to put 100k myself too

[amrazM]

Im surprised the dealer was willing to service that trim for you, that thing is a bit of a PITA to install. I wouldve prefered to take that to someone who does body work.

[timothy2001]

Originally Posted by amrazM

Im surprised the dealer was willing to service that trim for you, that thing is a bit of a PITA to install. I wouldve prefered to take that to someone who does body work.

It was the Dealership's body shop.

[nycplumber]

I had 2 CPO m3s and I took it to the dealer about 8 times for service and repairs. EVERY.SINGLE.TIME they made a catastrophic mistake and also lied multiple times about doing work on my car. The reality is most of the work is done by young kids who have no experience. I understand we all need to learn some where but they should be supervised and the work should be checked.

[Three Pedal Steve]

WARNING- DEALERSHIP RANT
In 2013, to get an M3 with the exact options I wanted, I ordered my M3 from the local dealer. It arrived five weeks later. For the next eight years and 80,000 miles that dealership was the only shop to touch the car (except three visits to the tire shop). At this point I decided to DIY the simple job of replacing the cabin air filters. Much to my horror, I found that all the mounting holes in the plastic air boxes were stripped, and the threaded screws were spinning loose in their holes. I imagine that some junior tech used an impact wrench on a simple screw-driver job.
Following recommendations from other forum members, I switched my business to an excellent independent shop. The next year, my M3 developed a broken valve spring in cylinder #2 and these guys did a great job of diagnosing and replacing the valve springs. I can only imagine what the dealership would have charged for this difficult to diagnose problem since their approach is to start replacing everything until they find the problem.
I think most owners on this forum are passionate about their cars and find them irreplaceable, unlike most of today's BMW owners who consider a car to be a disposable commodity. I know there are some BMW dealers with great service departments, but how do you know? With so many BMWs in the world, most dealerships treat them as commodities.