[TW]Fox;23852419 said:
I love the whole main dealer experience thing. No idea, but I just do. I know it's all fake and designed to make you feel good so they can extract maximum cash for trivial tasks but I like how nice the showroom is, I like the coffee, I like how polite and professional the service receptionists are, I like the brand new loan car fleet. It's just... nice.
The indy route, which I do use for repairs rather than servicing, is such a pain in comparison. Do they know what they are doing? Have they done it before? No loan car or a 15 year old 318i, are they even 'specialists', etc etc blah blah. It's such a faff. I usually end up on the bus, too. Grrrr.
Next car will always have BMW warranty. It's just nicer.
Having had a reliable, decent specialist (who is genuinely a BMW specialist) and 3 different BMW dealers, i would always go to the specialist if all things were equal.
I hate the whole main dealer experience. I don't like how i'm treated like an idiot, i don't like when they tell me hilarious things that are completely wrong (like the oil filter and the microfilter are the same thing), i don't like the receptionists who look pretty but ultimately don't know anything, i don't like how they wash the cars with what can only be a wire brush, i don't like how the only thing on their TV's is Sky News and i don't like the prices they charge for the simplest of jobs in the hope that i know nothing about cars and they can get away with ripping me off.
Now, from my post, you may mistakenly take away that i'm one of those obnoxious knobs, that everyone hates, who barge into dealers and pretend i know everything about everything and argue with everyone. I'm absolutely not. I let them do their job, i try to keep out of everything they do and i only ask questions when i don't understand anything and never try and be difficult.
The only thing i do do is sit at the MOT viewing station window to watch the guys work on cars in the hope one of the cars will fall off the ramp and i'll be able to get a video of it on my phone which i can upload to YouTube and make myself a few quid, because it is far more interesting than either watching Sky News for 2 hours or looking around a 118d, then a 318d, then a lovely 120d. Sure, i have a poke around, but after 3 minutes of looking around at these cars - i'm bored. And i'm rarely bored of BMWs.
What is far more interesting is going to a decent BMW Specialist, where i can talk to the guys about cars. The other week i took my car to get it KDS aligned, and ended up chatting to the owner for a while about his 335i outside and we got talking about the various tuning options etc. Then he told me about a new method they'd adopted for aligning the vehicles which BMW had rolled out, which means they didn't need to use weights anymore. On previous occasions (when i got the CCV done on my E46 330i) the mechanics had even invited me into the workshop where we've had a chat and he's shown me different things around the engine and tips and tricks of how to fix stuff. And when i call up, there is always someone knowledgeable on the phone, who will always call me back when they say they will and will always do their best. This is because they are a small business who needs business and cares about their reputation because it is the only thing they can rely on. A big BMW Main Dealer? They don't care about their reputation anywhere near as much, because they will always have a stream of customers who don't know any better and who think dealers are the last word in good customer service and mechanical skill. They're far too concerned with how to relieve you of your money for the least about of work and have forgotten about customer service.
I recovered a brand new 120 last week which had been done. Didn't take the car but removed the interior
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
