2009 BMW 750i: Service Items

I second that! Track test the 328i non sprt package and see if you can get the brakes to smoke.

puh-lease, buick offered loaner cars like 40 years before BMW. Give some credit! Bias!!

+3 on track testing the car! Can you go back? (;

Is it a real loaner (an actual BMW loaner), or do they just walk you over to the Enterprise booth on site? I hate it when they just give you a rental. I did that once when my S60 needed repair work (a common occurrence with that car), and I got put into an Aveo. Isn't it good to know that if your $35k vehicle needs repair that they'll put you in one of the cheapest vehicles for sale in the U.S.? Maybe it was a good thing though... I had forgotten what it felt like to manually roll down a window. Now I just have the dealer's shuttle take me home so I can drive one of our other cars.

jstandefer, please consider the demands on the service department of the dealership as well.

At the BMW dealership I used to work at (Jan 2004 to Jun 2006), we had a fleet of approximately 50 loaner vehicles. Now consider the fact that they were 50-75 (rough approximation) coming in every day for service, plus the fact that several vehicles probably need more than a day for work to be performed on them.

You should it consider an opportunity that you have an Enterprise or other rental vehicle to beat the snot out of. Make Cole Trickle proud!

http://www.thenascarinsiders.com/2008/05/31/rental-car-tomfoolery/

BMW had my e92 for a week while they put a new steering column in and replaced the CCC (no idea how I messed up the CCC) and i got a (Enterprise) 2010 v6 Mustang to tool around in. Kind of a step down in my humble opinion. to add insult to injury, I had more people ask me about the mustang than my car. But, apart from the stupid automatic and the v6, I couldn't really hate the car. It was good looking if you were into that muscle look and it was a very capable highway cruiser. Not my cup of tea, but not as bad a car as I would have thought. Coolest feature - you could change all the ambient lighting to reflect your mood, ie red cupholders and gauges for "I'm angry because my bimmer is in the shop".

^ I meant 50-75 vehicles came in for service/day.

tcd223, sorry to hear about your experience. You did buy a BMW after all. Ultimate driving machine - yes. Driving doesn't always go together with operating properly (Yes, I think BMWs aren't that reliable). I hope you at least got the latest Progman version on your car's DMEs for your trouble.

FFS, all cars have problems. :)

@jstandefer: I brought a Cooper S in for service, and was given a Kia Sedona. Admittedly, I did not expect a loaner since I did not buy the car from that dealership, but I found it pretty funny anyway.

Subytrojan - they did give me the latest dme programming, which not only looks sharper but responds much faster when I'm diving through the menus of iDrive. And despite this service trip, all other services (2 scheduled, 1 unscheduled) have been performed while I waited or took less then a day to complete. Looking forward to getting a 135i when my lease is up in a few months. But I will test drive a v8 stang with whatever uprated suspension Ford offers just for fun.

My BMW dealer always provides BMWs when I bring one of mine in for service. Mazda has been good as well, but they did have to send me to Enterprise one time- I wound up with an Aveo. That was only a bit better than walking.
Ugh.

subytrojan... That Volvo dealership (or any in the area) does not have any loaners. They rely solely on Enterprise, and I think the only reason it's there is because a loaner vehicle is part of Volvo's warranty. But, I digress. Volvo dealerships aren't exactly swimming in profits, and I honestly can't wait to get rid of mine.

My boss has a 1993 Lexus SC300 that she uses as a beater car between work and the train station. Heck, they only paid $4k for it. When she takes it to the Lexus dealer for an oil change, they give her a relatively new ES350 as a loaner... for an oil change! They even detail her beater car (which is in surprisingly good condition despite the 260,000 miles on it).

jstandefer- Lexus sets the gold standard for service, so you shouldn't expect everyone to live up to that. I have been to MB and BMW dealerships that provide better service than Lexus, but that tends to be rare. Lexus is extremely consistent regardless of where you go, and I respect that immensely.

As an aside, whenever I bring my S550 in for service I almost always get a C300 Sport for a loaner. There was one rare occasion when they ran out of Mercedes and had to give me a Hyundai Sonata, but I didn't mind. It was a perfectly nice car as well.

I generally don't care what kind of loaner I get, as long as it gets me to work. The Aveo is probably crossing the line, but a Cobalt would be just fine.

brn,
I agree, a Cobalt would have been fine. The Aveo's engine was so rough that I thought that it was a three cylinder. Nope, just a really crude four; I think that the Kawasaki twin on my ZTR mower is smoother...

"When she takes it to the Lexus dealer for an oil change, they give her a relatively new ES350 as a loaner... for an oil change! They even detail her beater car (which is in surprisingly good condition despite the 260,000 miles on it)."

Jstandefer, my wife had a similar experience with her former 2000 Lexus GS400. She was at work, as she was attempting to leave she noticed a huge bubble on the rear drivers side tire. I was out of town so I couldn't do anything and the Lexus dealer was actually about 2-3 miles away from her practice. She ventured over.

The service manager advised her not to drive the car and he told her they didn't have a replacement in stock. They would have to order the tire and it would be in the next morning. They gave her a RX330 to drive home and the next morning the GS was ready. They fully detailed the car and she only had to pay for the tire. Nothing else.

Ive owned 2 Lexus vehicles, the GS400 and a 96 ES300 and the service alone is almost worth purchasing another. Ive never been to a Lexus dealer where the service was terrible or even decent...never. Top notch in EVERY way at every Lexus dealer Ive sampled.

"relatively new ES350 as a loaner... for an oil change! "

Exactly how long does it take to change the oil in a Lexus?

Don't give me a loaner. Just get my car back to me in under 30 minutes.

It depends on the dealer i guess.
Crevier BMW in Orange County, CA has about 280 loaners. All BMW ranging from 1 series to X5's . depending on your luck you can end up with a z4,335i,cooperS,328i wagon,sedan,coupe,X5,X3 or a convertible 135i.

Does that great Lexus service cost a lot more than other luxury car dealerships?

"We couldn't wait 3,000 miles for the arrival of its next service interval."

Huh? You guys waited like 25,000 miles to have the Cadillac CTS' similar level issues fixed. But the BMW gets fixed IMMEDIATELY.

Now I KNOW you guys are biased.

My BMW dealer gives out BMW loaners which I have always appreciated so that I could try out different models but really which BMW model hasn't an Edmunds Testing Manager tried yet?

I almost always get BMW loaners when I drop my BMWs off for service, but I also make sure to reserve them ahead of time when I make my service appt. I just got my 335i back from its 2nd service and had a base 328i non-sport, ho-hum. Other than 325i/328i's, I've also had X3's, an E46 330i ZHP coupe (best loaner EVER), and an E90 330i. I can only recall one time when they ran out of BMWs and had Enterprise bring a car for me - it was a Saturn Aura. It was interesting being 1487 for a day.

""We couldn't wait 3,000 miles for the arrival of its next service interval."

Huh? You guys waited like 25,000 miles to have the Cadillac CTS' similar level issues fixed. But the BMW gets fixed IMMEDIATELY.

Now I KNOW you guys are biased."

I hate to bring up bias again, but in this case I do feel the domestic fans are right. With the Saturn, you took it to a dealer that wasn't doing the right thing, but you never bothered to take it to another dealer to see if they would do it right. The CTS you didn't even try to get fixed at all. There is an undeniable inconsistency in how hard you try to fix problems on a domestic vehicle vs an import. There ought to be an established policy how many miles a LT vehicle can go before the problem is addressed, and how many dealerships should be tried if the first one screws up or blows you off.

I know this will not make many people happy, but the issues with the CTS were rattles, squeeks, and a glitchy infotainment system. IL has enough experience with cars to know that most dealers simply don't have fixes for these kinds of things. Rattles and squeeks are almost always completely ignored, so why make a special trip for something that in all likelihood won't be fixed? The BMW has issues that are easily resolvable with the simple replacement of a trim piece.

However, I do agree that it is strange that they continue to take cars to subpar dealerships. Any normal consumer would quickly find somewhere else to go if their needs were not met.

@cwc1-

Lexus service does cost a lot more than the rest, but only because you have to service them so much more than say a German luxury car. Each individual service visit is no more expensive than the competition.