Just to get it in at the off… this thread has no point at all other than a means to vent and share my experience.
On the 10th June 2010 I picked up my car from Sytner in Coventry after having them change all four brake discs & pads as well as performing a full KDS alignment and an MOT. I also had just had 4 brand new Potenzas put on the car a couple of days before, so had basically spent over a grand on it within that week.
Anyway, the day I picked it up the car was running absolutely perfect, the best it had ever felt in my brief time of ownership, so as you can guess I was over the moon! That same day I had to drive up to Stoke to visit some friends when I was unfortunately T-boned by a car who ran a red light at about 40mph… “MY CAR!!” was all that went through my head at the moment of the accident, I was absolutely gutted to say the least.
Luckily, there was no one hurt in the accident, my car came off remarkably well, (I have photos at home which I can upload if anyone’s curious). The passenger side door was crushed in and it had also slightly buckled the door sill towards the rear and up the frame (it’s a coupe). The other car, an old Corsa, looked to me like a write-off, front pushed in, wheels buckled… but I’m no expert so can’t say for sure. Police came and an ambulance checked out the 4 17yr olds but everyone was alright. Coppers sent me on my way as my car was drivable.
Now to the real point of this thread, the repairs: Direct Line sent my Car to UK Assistance in Birmingham to get my car all sorted. As this was my first ever accident I was quite naive in thinking that repair places used by Insurance companies were all excellent and didn’t concern myself much in it’s repair… at first. UK Assistance said they had to order a whole new side/wing, door, of the car, which took about a month to come. They also had to repair the front suspension along with quite a few other bits. I stated to Direct Line that since I had the KDS alignment done that morning, would it be possible to send it back to BMW to do it again for me, to which they agreed so during the repair UK Assistance sent it to BMW Solihull for this to be done.
They had my car for at least two months and when I got it back I was absolutely disgusted at its condition and I could tell straight away the car was not driving right.
Firstly, I noticed new scratches on the bonnet which looked distinctly like a metal buckle had hit it/dragged on it, suspiciously like the buckles used to attach it to the tow truck(?!) I raised this with them and they stated they had taken pictures of this scratch before they took it in to avoid “things like this”, however there are multiple scratches over my car from the previous owner yet this was the only one they had pictures of?! Either way I couldn’t get this issue resolved so just bit the bullet and will get it sorted myself when I get the car done.
My next gripe was only a small one regarding the tyre pressures ranged which from 19-26psi when it should be 35 & 41! Imagine if they gave a car back to some dizzy housewife who doesn’t check her tyres and can’t notice it whilst driving, that would be a small bill for her to fork out if/when they go.
Other issues I noticed were things such as the boot lid was now wonky, the rear passenger window now closed further inwards (coupe) and went beyond the rubber seal, at speeds above 60 I heard a very load wind noise which came from the passenger side so assumed it was due to the rear window but only discovered it was coming from the front window after I got the car back from them a second time.
Now my main issue was with the road handling, it was disgraceful, it twitched over the slightest bump and at motorway speeds this felt extremely dangerous verging on un-drivable. Considering I drove my car back from Stoke to Nuneaton the day after the accident before any repair was done and it was driving perfectly fine, I was shocked.
I called UK Assistance and told them about all of the issues, this is when they told me they had pictures of the scratch (blah blah ) but they agreed to check the handling and the suspension as well as fix the windows and wind noise, they said there was nothing wrong with their work and the suspension was fine, I argued my case and they sent it back to BMW Solihull who were meant to over the car to find out why it was driving so bad. I received a call stating that BMW Solihull said the car was fine which I could not believe so contacted them directly and they told me they checked their alignment and the suspension and said all was correct, when I disagreed and told them how the car was driving they stated that if they had been given this information from UK Assistance they would have done a full check of all components as the car sounded dangerous, they said I could bring it to them and they would check it again but at my cost.
I contacted UK Assistance and had to argue my case that there was a problem with the car but they wouldn’t believe me and tried to deliver it back but I explained I would not get it back until it was completely fixed as it was a Sport and should never handle like that, it was only until I persuaded one of their mechanics to drive the car above 30mph that they agreed with me that there was a problem. The mechanic in question said to me he would have a look at the alignment and corrected it for me. I then met them at the garage to take it for a test drive and it did feel better but not completely, so once again I bit the bullet and thought I’d just pay again for Coventry BMW to perform the KDS as they did it correctly the first time. I had been told by Coventry Sytner that it is not simply the about the machines used but about the people who use them, which made me think that the Solihull BMW simply did not know how to perform the KDS… I am now unsure whether that is true or not but at the time I was under the impression that if the UK Assistance mechanic could align the car better than it felt after Solihull did then perhaps this was true.
So, I took the car home, this is when I noticed the second wind noise coming from the front passenger window so I immediately contact UK Assistance and they said they would send a guy round to have a look and replace the seal. I also noticed that when they had realigned the boot, they obviously put it down on its side and chipped off paint, there is no way I could do this as it’s on the side of the boot itself but at this point I couldn’t be bothered with any more hassle as I was going to get the whole of the cars paint corrected anyway.
As I work an hours drive from my home and UK Assistance wouldn’t come that far, I left the car at home with my Brother on the day they replaced the seal. that night, when I got home, I took it for a drive and the wind noise was 10 times worse! At this point I had enough, I called the insurance and told them I was fed up and wanted BMW themselves to fix my car properly. They logged this as a complaint (which I did not expect) but ever since then things were on the up. They assigned me my personal Direct Line Complaint Person (probably not her actual title) who is actually wonderful and really helpful, they sent an inspector out to assess everything and they agreed to send it to a BMW garage of my choice. I chose Milton Keynes instead of Coventry as I thought it would be easier as I am here during most of the day and won’t need to miss much work waiting at home.
Turns out the garage Wayside BMW use is not specific to BMW but they still did an excellent job! They had the car overnight, fixed the handling, fixed the windows, realigned the boot properly (apparently it was something to do with the lock not being fitted flush), basically did a really good job. It still did not feel as nice to drive as the day I picked it up from BMW but that could just be in my subconscious.
I got the car back at the end of November from Wayside, it had taken that long since UK Assistance attempted to fix it after the accident in June!
Anyway, I had the car for a week and all was good, I was happy once again… until it rained. I opened the boot and the passenger side plastic tray was full of water! I assumed it was an issue with the realignment of the bootlid so contacted Wayside who said they would book it in, they were fully booked due to the snow/ice and were closed over Xmas so I couldn’t get it booked in until 7th January.
Wayside water tested the car and, after long conversations between them, myself and my insurance company, decided to send an engineer to inspect the damage and see if it was due to the original accident or a bad fix by UK assistance. I needed my car that weekend so I had to collect it and book it in again the next week.
After his inspection. the engineer agreed with Wayside that it was a bad repair and authorised the work. Wayside inspected it (I assume along with the Insurance Engineer) and found the leak was coming from the rear light panel and not the bootlid and had resulted in a few of my LEDs going so Wayside were waiting for the parts to arrive so they could finally fix everything. The expected completion date was set for tomorrow…
So today, I received a call from my Insurance who had contacted Wayside to see if everything was on track… it turns out on Tuesday whilst the car was stripped they had found the repair done by UK Assistance was not done properly, the side which was replaced welded appallingly and was now rusting over!! So Wayside had the engineer around during the week to authorise more work (at UK Assistances expense) and are now waiting on a new near side wing to redo the repair.
I’ve asked my insurance to get Wayside to look over absolutely everything UK Assistance “repaired” and will find out more details tomorrow, but at the moment I am now still driving a courtesy car (a new 1.2 Corsa which I am surprised at how nice and fun it is, but between being 6’4” and having a slipped disc it is not the most pleasant car to drive 2 hours a day in.) whilst in the 7th month of waiting for my car to be fixed!!
I miss my car and am tired of all this hassle. I want my sexy black b**** back!
Anyway, sorry for wasting half an hour of your life, I just needed to vent to others who share affection for their cars.
On the 10th June 2010 I picked up my car from Sytner in Coventry after having them change all four brake discs & pads as well as performing a full KDS alignment and an MOT. I also had just had 4 brand new Potenzas put on the car a couple of days before, so had basically spent over a grand on it within that week.
Anyway, the day I picked it up the car was running absolutely perfect, the best it had ever felt in my brief time of ownership, so as you can guess I was over the moon! That same day I had to drive up to Stoke to visit some friends when I was unfortunately T-boned by a car who ran a red light at about 40mph… “MY CAR!!” was all that went through my head at the moment of the accident, I was absolutely gutted to say the least.
Luckily, there was no one hurt in the accident, my car came off remarkably well, (I have photos at home which I can upload if anyone’s curious). The passenger side door was crushed in and it had also slightly buckled the door sill towards the rear and up the frame (it’s a coupe). The other car, an old Corsa, looked to me like a write-off, front pushed in, wheels buckled… but I’m no expert so can’t say for sure. Police came and an ambulance checked out the 4 17yr olds but everyone was alright. Coppers sent me on my way as my car was drivable.
Now to the real point of this thread, the repairs: Direct Line sent my Car to UK Assistance in Birmingham to get my car all sorted. As this was my first ever accident I was quite naive in thinking that repair places used by Insurance companies were all excellent and didn’t concern myself much in it’s repair… at first. UK Assistance said they had to order a whole new side/wing, door, of the car, which took about a month to come. They also had to repair the front suspension along with quite a few other bits. I stated to Direct Line that since I had the KDS alignment done that morning, would it be possible to send it back to BMW to do it again for me, to which they agreed so during the repair UK Assistance sent it to BMW Solihull for this to be done.
They had my car for at least two months and when I got it back I was absolutely disgusted at its condition and I could tell straight away the car was not driving right.
Firstly, I noticed new scratches on the bonnet which looked distinctly like a metal buckle had hit it/dragged on it, suspiciously like the buckles used to attach it to the tow truck(?!) I raised this with them and they stated they had taken pictures of this scratch before they took it in to avoid “things like this”, however there are multiple scratches over my car from the previous owner yet this was the only one they had pictures of?! Either way I couldn’t get this issue resolved so just bit the bullet and will get it sorted myself when I get the car done.
My next gripe was only a small one regarding the tyre pressures ranged which from 19-26psi when it should be 35 & 41! Imagine if they gave a car back to some dizzy housewife who doesn’t check her tyres and can’t notice it whilst driving, that would be a small bill for her to fork out if/when they go.
Other issues I noticed were things such as the boot lid was now wonky, the rear passenger window now closed further inwards (coupe) and went beyond the rubber seal, at speeds above 60 I heard a very load wind noise which came from the passenger side so assumed it was due to the rear window but only discovered it was coming from the front window after I got the car back from them a second time.
Now my main issue was with the road handling, it was disgraceful, it twitched over the slightest bump and at motorway speeds this felt extremely dangerous verging on un-drivable. Considering I drove my car back from Stoke to Nuneaton the day after the accident before any repair was done and it was driving perfectly fine, I was shocked.
I called UK Assistance and told them about all of the issues, this is when they told me they had pictures of the scratch (blah blah ) but they agreed to check the handling and the suspension as well as fix the windows and wind noise, they said there was nothing wrong with their work and the suspension was fine, I argued my case and they sent it back to BMW Solihull who were meant to over the car to find out why it was driving so bad. I received a call stating that BMW Solihull said the car was fine which I could not believe so contacted them directly and they told me they checked their alignment and the suspension and said all was correct, when I disagreed and told them how the car was driving they stated that if they had been given this information from UK Assistance they would have done a full check of all components as the car sounded dangerous, they said I could bring it to them and they would check it again but at my cost.
I contacted UK Assistance and had to argue my case that there was a problem with the car but they wouldn’t believe me and tried to deliver it back but I explained I would not get it back until it was completely fixed as it was a Sport and should never handle like that, it was only until I persuaded one of their mechanics to drive the car above 30mph that they agreed with me that there was a problem. The mechanic in question said to me he would have a look at the alignment and corrected it for me. I then met them at the garage to take it for a test drive and it did feel better but not completely, so once again I bit the bullet and thought I’d just pay again for Coventry BMW to perform the KDS as they did it correctly the first time. I had been told by Coventry Sytner that it is not simply the about the machines used but about the people who use them, which made me think that the Solihull BMW simply did not know how to perform the KDS… I am now unsure whether that is true or not but at the time I was under the impression that if the UK Assistance mechanic could align the car better than it felt after Solihull did then perhaps this was true.
So, I took the car home, this is when I noticed the second wind noise coming from the front passenger window so I immediately contact UK Assistance and they said they would send a guy round to have a look and replace the seal. I also noticed that when they had realigned the boot, they obviously put it down on its side and chipped off paint, there is no way I could do this as it’s on the side of the boot itself but at this point I couldn’t be bothered with any more hassle as I was going to get the whole of the cars paint corrected anyway.
As I work an hours drive from my home and UK Assistance wouldn’t come that far, I left the car at home with my Brother on the day they replaced the seal. that night, when I got home, I took it for a drive and the wind noise was 10 times worse! At this point I had enough, I called the insurance and told them I was fed up and wanted BMW themselves to fix my car properly. They logged this as a complaint (which I did not expect) but ever since then things were on the up. They assigned me my personal Direct Line Complaint Person (probably not her actual title) who is actually wonderful and really helpful, they sent an inspector out to assess everything and they agreed to send it to a BMW garage of my choice. I chose Milton Keynes instead of Coventry as I thought it would be easier as I am here during most of the day and won’t need to miss much work waiting at home.
Turns out the garage Wayside BMW use is not specific to BMW but they still did an excellent job! They had the car overnight, fixed the handling, fixed the windows, realigned the boot properly (apparently it was something to do with the lock not being fitted flush), basically did a really good job. It still did not feel as nice to drive as the day I picked it up from BMW but that could just be in my subconscious.
I got the car back at the end of November from Wayside, it had taken that long since UK Assistance attempted to fix it after the accident in June!
Anyway, I had the car for a week and all was good, I was happy once again… until it rained. I opened the boot and the passenger side plastic tray was full of water! I assumed it was an issue with the realignment of the bootlid so contacted Wayside who said they would book it in, they were fully booked due to the snow/ice and were closed over Xmas so I couldn’t get it booked in until 7th January.
Wayside water tested the car and, after long conversations between them, myself and my insurance company, decided to send an engineer to inspect the damage and see if it was due to the original accident or a bad fix by UK assistance. I needed my car that weekend so I had to collect it and book it in again the next week.
After his inspection. the engineer agreed with Wayside that it was a bad repair and authorised the work. Wayside inspected it (I assume along with the Insurance Engineer) and found the leak was coming from the rear light panel and not the bootlid and had resulted in a few of my LEDs going so Wayside were waiting for the parts to arrive so they could finally fix everything. The expected completion date was set for tomorrow…
So today, I received a call from my Insurance who had contacted Wayside to see if everything was on track… it turns out on Tuesday whilst the car was stripped they had found the repair done by UK Assistance was not done properly, the side which was replaced welded appallingly and was now rusting over!! So Wayside had the engineer around during the week to authorise more work (at UK Assistances expense) and are now waiting on a new near side wing to redo the repair.
I’ve asked my insurance to get Wayside to look over absolutely everything UK Assistance “repaired” and will find out more details tomorrow, but at the moment I am now still driving a courtesy car (a new 1.2 Corsa which I am surprised at how nice and fun it is, but between being 6’4” and having a slipped disc it is not the most pleasant car to drive 2 hours a day in.) whilst in the 7th month of waiting for my car to be fixed!!
I miss my car and am tired of all this hassle. I want my sexy black b**** back!
Anyway, sorry for wasting half an hour of your life, I just needed to vent to others who share affection for their cars.
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
. Just waiting on a new seat and the car will be back in for round 2
. The dent will also be sorted and he will be refitting the spoiler to save me a job. Watch this space hu?
