BMW extended warranty, costs and repairs

Soldato
Joined
22 Jun 2005
Posts
9,066
Location
Nottinghamshire
My thoughts too.
Running this car without extended warranty is a recipe for financial disaster IMO. A major engine or gearbox issue can spit out a five figure repair bill and even some of the indies (I did my research beforehand) say that some jobs need to be done by BMW and that they do not have some of the diagnostics and software tools.

I concur about Lexus, I was very impressed and this 5'er maybe my last German car.

advantage of Lexus IS that they don’t have technology for technologies sake so most mechanics have no problem working on them.
I bought my last German car too and I bought an Infiniti which was actually pretty good.
 
Associate
Joined
28 Oct 2005
Posts
732
My parking sensors on my 535 failed front and rear. "Please park manually and visit a service centre" flashed up on iDrive. I checked the fuses etc but this was a hard fault.

BMW diagnosed a faulty control module after having traced the wiring. They even had the cheek to say beforehand that if the wiring was broken due to a mouse or insects then this would not be covered. Seriously.... I thought I was dealing with BMW here, not Bill and Bob on the dodgy back streets....

Anyway, after them keeping it for four days and a load of back and forth they repaired it under warranty. £1886.76 inclusive. I can't believe that BMW repairs cost what they do as per my recent encounter. The part in that case would have been £532 + VAT. The module, a common component across all BMW cars, has to be programmed according to the car it is fitted in (different lengths/widths etc) and that takes two hours and it likewise charged at the hourly rate.

I am on extended warranty so in the end it just cost me my excess of £100. But seriously.... the thick end of £1900 and labour rates of £180 per hour plus VAT?

Is this a chicken and egg of repairs being so high that you have to have the warranty that forces the warranty costs up that in turn make it that everyone has to have the warranty to save themselves from ludicrous repair bills like that which in turn creates a situation where BMW can charge more. Is this a cartel? A deliberate rig and price fix to drive maintenance costs up?

I asked the Sytner service advisor who said about 90% of the cars are under extended warranty. I can see why. No way would I not haver this car covered. And I see why that BMW/Audi etc only offer 3 years standard new car warranty and not 5 and 7 years like the Japanese and Koreans do.... It must be a massive money earner for BMW.

I paid extended warranty on my 5 series for two years and didn't need to make a claim. That two years cost me £1700 in total. I was tempted to not bother this year but reluctantly continued on the monthly plan (at £91 per month). I am glad I did.

Just sharing an experience. Apologies for the War and Peace.

You could have had the repair done for probably half that price though if you had a good local independent specialist. That would have saved you a lot of money over what you’ve paid for the warranty over the last couple of years.

My F30 330d is now just over 5 years old and I run it without a warranty, but use a very good local specialist (with access to update the cars service history correctly) for all servicing and any repair work that’s required. I did the same with 2 previous E90’s and reckon I’ve saved a load of money over paying for a BMW extended warranty, ..in fact the single biggest repair bill I’ve had so far after running 3 out of warranty BMWs is around £400!
 
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