Full BMWSH - How Important

MrLOL said:
so you have to be a ***** to not want to get ripped off then ?

I assume the "***** tendancies" extend to not shopping around for your car insurance either ? Likewise you buy all your electrical items from the highsteet stores and not online ?

Wanting to not be ripped off and get the best price doesnt make you a *****.
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:confused:

You quoted my first paragraph, but how on earth did you miss my second where I go on to qualify my point and state that I'm not saying it is ***** to try and save money?

Having read and agreed with many of your posts in the past, I thought you would be the last person to pick me up on my contribution :p
 
I think it is really interesting the way this discussion has developed.

What I think we need to take into account here is two things.

1 - using an Independant shouldn't be seen as cutting corners. Just because a mechanic isn't working for a main dealer it doesn't mean that they will do a worse job. However, in the same breath, there is, at least in my mind, as significant difference in using a specialist (for this discussion lets use DMWorx) than using Bushey Road Automechanics.

2 - In using a specialist, you need to accept that there will be (as seen in this thread) people who may not appreciate that in the service history. As a result of this, you might not be able to do this without impacting future buyers.

In my personal experience I bought an S2000 with full Honda Main Dealer Service History. I continued servicing at my local Honda dealer because they had a mechanic who was known to the UK Owners club as being capable of doing the job properly. He left the dealership, and at that point I used a specialist (NSX and S2000 specialist) recommended through the owners club.

As a result of doing this when I sold the car and detailed all the history the person who eventually bought the car was very happy with the previous history, not least because I didn't just have a book with some stamps in, but because I had an A4 lever file full of reciepts from previous Honda garages (from everything including tyres (ouch) to wiper blades that previous owners had bought from there).

I guess overall if I went to buy a nearly new BMW and it had a folder full of BMW main dealer servicing sheets and a book full of BMW main dealer stamps, with all the 'optional' work carried out at great expense I wouldn't be worrying about split suspension bushes or whatever else might be out there on the car (no real idea what goes on them !)... however equally if it had been serviced by a well known specialist, I wouldn't be too worried either.
 
DiamondMark- You're talking about owning a car and I agree with everything you've said about it. Fox is talking about buying a car though.

FBMWSH is a standard and by and large you know what you're getting. Stuff will have been replaced before it was really required and it will have cost more to do it.
FSH ranges from the back street morons all the way up to the great Indys that are better than the Main Dealers for less money.
Trying to filter out the ones that have been taken to really good indy's is way more hassle than just sticking to FBMWSH. Motors tends to be about getting the best for your money and part of that is surely maximising on other people's naivety and/or stupidity.
 
DiamondMark said:
No that just makes the previous owner stupid with money, nothing else.
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And that's a bad thing why? if he paid through the teeth for the service you know he always took the top option at the car wash, etc. BMWFSH means the next owner of the car knows it was kept to a higher standard by its owner than a car that went to indys.
 
monkey_boy said:
DiamondMark- You're talking about owning a car and I agree with everything you've said about it. Fox is talking about buying a car though.

FBMWSH is a standard and by and large you know what you're getting. Stuff will have been replaced before it was really required and it will have cost more to do it.
FSH ranges from the back street morons all the way up to the great Indys that are better than the Main Dealers for less money.
Trying to filter out the ones that have been taken to really good indy's is way more hassle than just sticking to FBMWSH. Motors tends to be about getting the best for your money and part of that is surely maximising on other people's naivety and/or stupidity.
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All i am saying is that i wouldnt walk away from a car with a full specialist history rather than a BMW history.

Because that book of stamps is meaningless if the rest of any other work was carried out at a specialist anyway.

Maybe that's just me i dont know.
 
DiamondMark said:
All i am saying is that i wouldnt walk away from a car with a full specialist history rather than a BMW history.

Because that book of stamps is meaningless if the rest of any other work was carried out at a specialist anyway.

Maybe that's just me i dont know.
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No I'd be with you on this, you take the car as a whole not by just looking in the service book for who stamped it when.
 
ubersonic said:
And that's a bad thing why? if he paid through the teeth for the service you know he always took the top option at the car wash, etc. BMWFSH means the next owner of the car knows it was kept to a higher standard by its owner than a car that went to indys.
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No it dosent, it means he stuck it in BMW for a service, stop thinking further than that.

Also lets think about this for a minute most BMW start life as a company car anyway so yes it did go back to BMW for every nut bolt and wiper blade, it didnt stop it being ragged to death by the driver that didnt care because it wasnt his.

All i want to see when i buy a car is that it got what it needed when it needed it by someone who knew what they were doing, exactly the life every car i own leads, and believe me you could not buy a car from a better person than me.
 
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DiamondMark said:
All i am saying is that i wouldnt walk away from a car with a full specialist history rather than a BMW history.

Because that book of stamps is meaningless if the rest of any other work was carried out at a specialist anyway.

Maybe that's just me i dont know.
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I agree with you Mark and I doubt fox would walk away from something like that, because it would be obvious that an enthusiast had owned the car and demonstrated that he'd taken better care of it than a dealer had.

But, you do have to generalise and while you're wading through the hundreds of ad's picking out ones to visit, making the trip to see a car that is listed as FBMWSH isn't going to disapoint as often as ones listed as FSH.
 
ubersonic said:
BMWFSH means the next owner of the car knows it was kept to a higher standard by its owner than a car that went to indys.
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I agree with Mark, it would be wrong to assume the car has been kept to a higher standard, you can't tell that from just knowing it has a FBMWSH.
 
monkey_boy said:
I agree with you Mark and I doubt fox would walk away from something like that, because it would be obvious that an enthusiast had owned the car and demonstrated that he'd taken better care of it than a dealer had.

But, you do have to generalise and while you're wading through the hundreds of ad's picking out ones to visit, making the trip to see a car that is listed as FBMWSH isn't going to disapoint as often as ones listed as FSH.
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Yea ok i concede that :D
 
Ah too many people agreeing with eachother, need to readdress the balance, this is Morors afterall....

Mark, you're talking complete gubbins :p
 
I trust my local garage, more than any main dealer spanner kid.
Most main dealers have 14 year olds working on your car.

but I would prefer a Main dealer service history on an exotic car, than spanner Joe from down the road.
 
eatcustard said:
but I would prefer a Main dealer service history on an exotic car, than spanner Joe from down the road.
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Yes me too, but i would rather see a full Surrey Jag history than a Stratstone Jaguar one for example, or at the least i wouldnt care which it had.
 
I too wouldn't buy a BMW (over 10k) without a FBMWSH, nor would I buy one that wasn't from a BMW main agent no matter how good the deal was.
I agree with Fox's reasons but there is also another good reason to go with a FBMWSH car.
If the car has a catastrophic failure at some point down the line when out of warranty, it's much easier to get BMW to give a "good will" gesture towards the cost of repairs with a fully stamped up, BMW main agent history than if you have the stamps from an indi/specialist.
 
Better be careful buying from a main agent then as they are selling cars as BMW Approved without full BMW Service History
 
J1nxy said:
Better be careful buying from a main agent then as they are selling cars as BMW Approved without full BMW Service History
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Buying from a main agent is no guarantee of a minter. A dealer I visited recently had a considerable number of cars on the forecourt with window stickers from people like Drive Assist and Accident XChange. Basically ex hire cars..
 
Rilot said:
If the car has a catastrophic failure at some point down the line when out of warranty, it's much easier to get BMW to give a "good will" gesture towards the cost of repairs with a fully stamped up, BMW main agent history than if you have the stamps from an indi/specialist.
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On my list of considerations thats about on a par with what colour is the underside of my boot carpet, because they just as likely to say no as yes to goodwill gestures.
 
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