BMW and M Power Owners

mr tommo said:
F10 servicing costs...

I've just called for a price from Knights BMW to service my 63 plate F10 520d, it's on 75k miles now and has had 4 services previously.

£530/540ish - I was too shocked to take in the exact amount, once I heard it start with a 5 my head fell off.

Is this normal? I'll be calling around other dealers on my lunch break if I get chance but this just seems like an absurd amount for an oil service and filters (+ visual inspection).
Am I just behind the times, my 3.0i Z4's and E46 only ever cost arouod £340 for an inspection I!
Click to expand...

To be honest, from going from the BMW Service website it's £454 for the oil, oil filter, fuel filter, air filter, then £79 for the vehicle check. So £530-540 is bang on. I do (not) like how BMW have now made a "visual check" a separate chargeable item - when it used to be a given that this would happen as part of any vehicle service. :rolleyes:

I never used to get it done. I'm not paying £80 for someone to get the torch in my glovebox, check I have enough screenwash and make sure my first aid kit is in date. The only people who I can imagine would be happy with this service are people with huge amounts of money, who also don't know *anything* about cars. Not to mention, most of the things they "check" would immediately flag up on the iDrive if it was low or not right! This is the full run down of what you pay £80 to a main dealer to do - which from what I've heard from people who used to work at dealers, doesn't get done anyway:
  • Checking horn, headlight flasher and warning system - Pretty sure you can do this on your driveway.
  • Check instrument lighting, passenger compartment, luggage compartment and glovebox lighting. - And this.
  • Check function of rear, rear and license plate lighting - Another tough check.
  • Check Seatbelts, including strap, function of reel, locking reel, buckle, clip and clasp. - If you can't do this, maybe a chimp can help?
  • Check windscreen wash and wipe for function and settings. - Sigh.
  • Check Tyres for tread depth, wear pattern, external condition and inflation pressure. - This again isn't difficult.
  • Check first aid box and expiry date, and warning triangle. - 20 seconds work.
  • Check engine coolant level and concentration, top up if necessary. - If you can unscrew a lid from a jam jar, you can do this. Concentration won't have changed unless you've dumped litres and litres of water in.
  • Check headlamp and windscreen washer fluid level and top up if necessary - Apparently BMW felt this needed to be a separate check from "Check windscreen wash and wipe function" above. Almost as though they're trying to make the list of things longer when you glance at it.
  • Check steering fluid tank oil level (if applicable) - Can you wiggle the steering fluid reservoir around to see the level inside? If so, great.
  • Check brake lines and connections for tightness, damage and correct position - MOT's will flag anything up like this.
  • Check under vehicle body, including all visible parts for damage, correct position and tightness - This, at absolute best, consists of a BMW mechanic wandering around under your car for 15 seconds.
  • Check steering components for play, leaks, damage and wear. - An MOT will flag this.
  • Test Drive - Check for road safety, including brakes, steering, shock absorbers and gearbox. - Do your brakes feel sharp? Does your steering turn well and the car generally feel stable? Does your gearbox change gear?
  • Exterior is washed - They do this anyway with a regular service, and normally scratch the paintwork.
  • Interior is vacuumed - They do this anyway with a regular service and miss most of the stuff.
  • BMW Service history is updated....and wallet is noticeably lightened.
If you're desperate to have your car serviced by the main dealer, try calling them back and ask them what the price is as you already have your own approved oil. Used to take about £100 off when I had my BMW serviced at the main dealer, albeit a 6 cylinder one.
 
Last edited:
Christ.

Ok well now I've calmed down a bit I've seen the following on https://www.bmw-service.co.uk/##service-options

Seems theres a a £189 addition for just the air filter and fuel filter.


Engine oil service with microfilter, air filter and fuel filter.
oil.png


Cost:

£454
The oil and oil filter in your BMW are replaced along with the all important microfilter. The diesel fuel filter and engine air filter are also replaced to maintain performance and efficiency.
As part of this full service, BMW trained technicians will remove the used oil from your engine, replace the used oil filter with a new, Genuine BMW filter and then refill your BMW engine using only BMW approved oil. The used cabin microfilter(s) will also be replaced with Genuine BMW filter(s) helping to maintain a clean breathing environment inside your car. To ensure your engine remains at its optimum, the engine air filter and diesel fuel filter will also be replaced with Genuine BMW parts. In addition, your BMW will be returned to you washed and vacuumed with an updated BMW service history.

  • Engine oil is removed
  • Oil filter is removed
  • Genuine BMW oil filter is fitted
  • Engine is filled with BMW approved oil
  • Air filter is removed
  • Genuine BMW air filter is fitted
  • Fuel filter is removed
  • Genuine BMW fuel filter is installed
  • Microfilter(s) is removed
  • Genuine BMW microfilter(s) is fitted
  • Oil and removed parts are environmentally disposed of
  • Exterior is washed
  • Interior is vacuumed
  • BMW Service history is updated
All Genuine BMW parts come with a BMW 2 year fitted parts warranty.
 
Car garages really are masters at trying to make work seem more laborious than it really is. :D That list above is so obviously trying to stretch out the work they are doing to try and justify to a customer who doesn't know any better why he or she should pay nearly £500 for a oil and filter service. If you were to summarise the list of what they do on the service above it would read:

- Drain oil and replace oil filter. Refill with approved oil.
- Air filter checked and replaced if necessary
- Fuel and microfilter filter replaced.
- Environmentally friendly disposal of parts and oil
- Interior and exterior cleaned and BMW service history updated.
- All parts/fluids used are Genuine BMW parts with 2 year fitted parts warranty.
 
Gaygle said:
I do (not) like how BMW have now made a "visual check" a separate chargeable item - when it used to be a given that this would happen as part of any vehicle service. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I'm not going to defend the pricing (and I've got my own rant further down about aspects of that) but it's helpful to understand what they did when they moved from the Inspection 1/2 system to CBS beginning with the E60 in 2003.

Essentially, the 'visual check' is the more involved check of the mechanical components under the car that you used to get with every Inspection 1 or Inspection 2 service. CBS stripped it out of these services and made it a 'once every 37k mile' thing, with the rest of the servicing being taken car of by oil services.

It is fairly cost neutral - an oil service, a vehicle check and an oil service with air/fuel filter comes in at similar money to the equivalent of an Oil Service and an Inspection 1 - at least before all the Inspection 1/2 cars got so old that the pricing had to change, anyway.

I never used to get it done. I'm not paying £80 for someone to get the torch in my glovebox, check I have enough screenwash and make sure my first aid kit is in date.
Click to expand...

Which is fine and is your choice but without getting it done your car no longer has a full service history. I'm sure you enjoy routinely crawling around under your car checking stuff as you are into cars but most people don't and this item - which happens only 3 times every 100,000 miles, is at least documented proof that somebody has bothered.

Check Seatbelts, including strap, function of reel, locking reel, buckle, clip and clasp. - If you can't do this, maybe a chimp can help?
Click to expand...

Be honest - when was the last time you took time of your day to check the interia real function of your middle seatbelt? Come on - be 100% truthful. When did you last verify its functioning?
  • Check Tyres for tread depth, wear pattern, external condition and inflation pressure. - This again isn't difficult.
Click to expand...

It's not difficult - yet it's the most common source of MOT failure and most people only notice the wear pattern is wrong on a tyre when they've managed to wear through one side of the tyre...
Test Drive - Check for road safety, including brakes, steering, shock absorbers and gearbox. - Do your brakes feel sharp? Does your steering turn well and the car generally feel stable? Does your gearbox change gear?
Click to expand...

I see nothing wrong with a tech test driving a car to make sure everything feels right. Some aspects of wear, to somebody who drives the car every day, is a bit like the 'boiling frog' syndrome. You don't notice gradual degradation as readily as sudden failure. Nothing seems unreasonable about an aspect of the cars service regime involving actually driving the thing to make sure everything feels right!

I'm not going to argue that BMW servicing is a bastion of stunning value for money. My biggest hate about it is the absolute obsession with continual microfilter changes which seem to get ever more expensive with every generation of car - an F10 oil service is £140 - which frankly is a bargain. Yet an oil service with microfilter which 90% of dealers will insist are mandatory is almost 300 quid!!! Microfilters make reasonably priced servicing more expensive than it should be.

However you are coming at the service schedule from the point of view of a car enthusiast who takes a pride in his car and enjoys ensuring its in fine fettle. Congratulations, you are representative of 0.01% of drivers on the road. I doubt my next car is for sale by you therefore I'll have to stick to insisting on a full service history...
 
You could try to negotiate the visual check as a freebie, my local dealer offers it free from time to time (probably as in more than 50% of cases it will throw up something needing to be fixed). Also, it's always worth asking if they can offer a 10/15/20% discount on servicing, which they may be inclined to do even if you are not a regular, although I note this is unlikely with an overbooked service centre.
 
Just over a month in to ownership of an F11 535i now and the car is really starting to grow on me. The extra space coming from an E90 is a god send with a 4 month old baby. Only niggle so far is some knocking from the front drivers side when going over slight bumps in the road. Booked in on Monday for it to be looked at, hopefully something covered by the AUC warranty.

Power delivery and throttle response have taken some getting used to as the E90 330i we had previous felt a lot more direct, and I can notice the turbo lag with the 535i which is taking some getting used to. Putting the gearbox in sport mode helps bring the throttle more in line with what I am used to, but then it holds gears longer/higher in the rev range which isn't ideal for economy. Speaking of which, 36.5mpg at the weekend over a 170 mile day trip, really quite surprised at that! Performance generally feels more or less in line with the 330i as well, 40+bhp more but more weight. Still plenty of power to spare which I really would have missed if we had kept the lemon of a 520d we bought and returned a few weeks prior! Might post some photos in the relevant thread later if anyone's interested :)
 
First post in the BMW thread!

It is becoming increasingly clear that our cars are not fit for family life and we require a different solution. My wife is extremely keen on a small SUV type thing but for what you actually get I think they're very overpriced (although I'm guilty of liking the Kia Sportage). For similar money second hand we could drive something that isn't completely hateful and would be just as practical. In typical OcUK fashion I thought immediately of a Mondeo, but that has been discounted on looks. To my surprise she didn't immediately poo poo the idea of a 5 series saloon! This would be a much nicer place to be than Qashqai or similar!

Our budget is at a push £13,000 but ideally £11,000.

I presume the F10 is where our cash should go rather than the E60, although this limits us to either a high mileage M sport example with a few options, or a lower mileage with basic sat nav etc. (you can't buy a new shape Qashqai with sat nav for £11,000!). They are all 2L diesels which will be just fine for our needs and my preference would be an auto box, but a manual would be ok too.

Any essential options? The only built in sat nav that we own is from 2006 and I've only just discovered the joys of heated seats, so I'm not exactly used to every bell and whistle.

It will be more expensive to service than a Korean/Japanese SUV, but fuel consumption and tyres will be similar I suspect with the fashion for ever increasing wheel sizes on your average shopping trolley. Is a warranty an absolute must? If I get a warranty, can I save a bit of cash on purchase price and buy a higher mileage example for example? An online warranty quote for a typical example of a 520d was £1100 per year - is that about right? Presumably annual servicing is not included in this amount.

Anything else I should know? Is buying a 5 series at this price a ridiculous idea? Does a 3 series offer a better, alternative option? Anything with 4 doors is more practical than our current cars!

Thanks for your wisdom!
 
With a budget like that you need to do some serious homework on the N47 diesel engine fitted to 520d and 320d of this age.

The 5 series is a fantastic car but I am not confident of your ability to get a trouble free minter for this sort of money. It can be done but will require time and effort and there is a lot of risk out there.

That is the correct price for the top level warranty on a car under 60k miles.
 
Thanks for the speedy response. It's what I feared really. Are the timing chain issues covered under warranty? Are the engine gremlins the reason why they're relatively cheap? Which engine would be deemed "trouble free" in the F10? We don't need to buy the car tomorrow so we've got some time to do some research at least!
 
My dad picked up a 2010 F10 528i SE for just over £10k earlier this year, albeit not a brilliantly specced one.

Believe it did however come with pro nav and comfort seats, which were the two things he really cared about. Aside from that it was pretty basic with the 8 speed auto, halogen lights etc.

There's much better specced examples out there, to be sure, but a two owner car with 55k miles and the balance of 8 months BMW warranty is no bad thing for £10k
 
Looks like a really clean example... should I be put off by the mileage if it's got a good service history? The £1k saved on the max budget would warranty it for a year. I would obviously prefer a 3L petrol :D M sport isn't too high on my list and I'd be very happy with the SE looks!

EDIT - http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201707307855620?make=BMW&advertising-location=at_cars&postcode=b179en&body-type=Saloon&model=5 SERIES&minimum-badge-engine-size=2.2&radius=1500&sort=year-desc&fuel-type=Petrol&price-to=13000&onesearchad=Used&onesearchad=Nearly New&onesearchad=New&page=1 Looks good too, but again higher mileage.

£1700 a year to warranty... hmm.
 
Last edited:
tom_nieto said:
Yuck, can't believe I didn't notice that! I don't think I would consider a car without Xenon headlights in the modern world.

High pressure fuel pump seems to be a problem on the N53 - have I got the year and engine right?

Even putting an extra £2k on top only yields this:

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201707217589945?make=BMW&maximum-mileage=60000&sort=year-desc&advertising-location=at_cars&minimum-badge-engine-size=2.2&model=5 SERIES&body-type=Saloon&price-to=15000&onesearchad=Used&onesearchad=Nearly New&onesearchad=New&radius=1500&fuel-type=Petrol&postcode=b179en&page=1
Click to expand...
No pro nav on that
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom