posted 09-06-2001 09:06 PM            

Just got stranded at Sonic (a local drive-in eatery) by this wonderful car. Car did the same thing. Started okay, I put on the lights and the radio quit...then the car died and would not re-start...just clicking and snapping. After 20 minutes, it started and I got it home (thank God...I had my 2 y/o with me and she was getting cranky...to say nothing of her old man). when I got it home, I tried to put the top up and no go. not even the shaking from last night. Put it up manually and now I can't wait to see the dealer tomorrow. Oh boy!

The icing on the cake:

I arrived home earlier today to find the car back in the driveway as promised...and cleaned and shined from the dealership...my anger was giving way. Then UPS came by and dropped off the CD changer from Circle BMW. Man, i was happy. Went to look at how hard the installation was an that's when i noticed the two 8 inch scratches on the deck lid. Drove down to the dealer to show them. Sales manager wanted to fight with me and told me that the car left his dealership without those scratches.....then he demanded an apology about how I treated him this morning and the course language I used (no profanity...but it was close) and how everyone at the dealership was "spun up" because of my car....my response was " yeah, so?" I told him I was glad everyone was spun up and could share in my "pain". Also, i told him he did a fine job of handling me, but I had no regrets about the conversation we had had earlier and he would not get an apology from me (I didn't know that car salesmen were so sensitive)....that's just the good parts, there was lots more. Anyway, he gets to see me again tomorrow morning and if he thought I was a bastard this morning......

posted 09-07-2001 02:16 AM            

i can't imagine what the problem could be...this is the first time i have heard of this.

my starter was bad but the car never left me stranded or anyting. what it did was the first time i try to start it, it would sound like how it sounds if you mistakenly try to start a car that's already running...kind of a grinding noise...i would have to try to restart at which point the car started up. im sure it would have completely gone at some point if i had left it that way.

my experience with the E46 M3's have not been the best. but i can't say it's all BMW's or their dealer network as a whole. all my other BMW's from the first 318is to my last E36 M3 never gave me ANY problems and much driving pleasure...that's why I keep buying them and why I built this website. and from my experience with the corvette and the prosche, bmw is fairly attuned to their customers' issues. little things like a loaner program where they put you in another bmw if they can. I NEVER got another corvette to drive when i took it in for service...nor the porsche..and whenever my brother takes his MB CLK430 in for service, i see him driving a ford taurus as a loaner!

there are obviously instances like the one you are experiencing where it makes you reallly wonder. the sales manager saying what he said is completely unacceptable. if he can't understand that a customer with a brand new M3C..most likely someone who's waited close to or over a year for the car...is upset about having such crazy problems with it, particularly so soon from purchase, then he obviously is not someone you can deal with. I would speak with the GM..then the DM...and so on. Hopefully it's a public company so there's always someone above you can go to.

So what happened with the scratches? I probably would not have let them pass possession back to me without some sort of inspection of the car. Hopefully it can be buffed out without repainting? But if it has to be repainted, it's not as bad as having to repaint a panel and if it's a good job you should not be able to tell.

also, if you're not happy with it at this point, ask them to buy it back for what you paid for it...that probably would not cost them too much, particularly if it's a large dealership, and it would satisfy a customer...but then...whatelse is really out there in that price range with this car's numbers and attributes.

are you happy with the driving characteristics of the car? over the long-run, this is what's probably going to matter the most.

sorry it was so long.