krackenvette

My wifes MB has a brake pad sensor, right sides only. Well, she tells me her brakes are squealing. So, I pull wheels off to find rears shot and front barely anything left. I call dealership and ask WTF, she just had it serviced. They said brakes were fine.
I said they were shot, nothing much left on rear and fronts. He said, "The sensor didnt show it as needing brakes" I ask, you rotated the tires, correct, and you tell me the mechanic looked at them? Apparently not. 1300 to do all four brakes and rotors. I did it it for 330 with MB parts.
If out of warranty, I could do all the work they require. But in warranty, they kill ya with over the top maintenance.
Do you need brake fluid flushed yearly, or 7500 miles. Fuel filter yearly, or 7500 miles
Tire rotated by them, even though you bought them somewhere else, alignment checks etc etc every or 7500 miles?
But if you dont, warranty voided.

Tom400CFI

Wait....so which is it? Never had a problem or you did have some problems. I can't believe one could own ANY car....especially any late model European car, and never have a problem. That seems incredibly unlikely to me. It's not just the CAR either...it's the way they're handled by shops that repair them. My mom's car:
no dipstick
leaking a LOT of oil at 150k miles (A very common problem with that engine)
Dealer mis-diagnoses the problem "Turbo shaft seals on both turbos"!?
Then there is the cost; $7k for turbos.

The whole scenario us totally unnecessary and unacceptable, from point A to point Z.

81c3

Thats an MSNB HEE HAW move Tom.... Heres the rest of my words.....

worst problem I ever had was needing a radiator expansion tank on one of our 740li with 100k miles on it.

None of the 6 BMW's ever stranded me or my wife and the nor did the C300. I don't consider regular maintenance items problems.... The one thing that was out of the ordinary was the cracked expansion tank which I found out was a fairly common failure point on the 5's and 7's (E38 & E39) of the vintage. Another issue was the control arms wearing out... but again, not a huge problem and fairly easy for a DIYer... Easier than a C4 for sure.... The key with BMW's is to find one that was owned by someone who kept the maintenance up and even better yet an enthusiast.... Very much like what the C4 consumer looks for actually.

I did have an 07 328xi which was the same situation as your moms car... no dipstick. I thought that was pretty lame myself.

scorp508

Tom400CFI

Sorry. I wasn't trying to "pull a move", and I saw ALL of your words....It was just weird that you claimed "Never had a problem" in one sentence, then started listing problems in the next. I agree; they weren't major. It's cool that you had good results w/those cars....I don't wish bad car-ma on anyone, that's for sure. My experience w/European cars has been dramatically different than yours. I've never owned one, but sure have repaired enough of them.

aklim

I think he is mistaken. The sensor shows when the brakes are at minimum wear and all he depended on was the sensor. He should have had visual on it. I don;t care if it is MB, Audi, Porsche. There is a common denominator. The human being. They all have lazy and incompetent parts replacers. That is the reason that whatever car I own, I watch the mechanic until I build up confidence in them. Problem is you drop it off and hand them the keys. It goes to whomever they have handy. I usually specify "I want John to work on it. If he is not available, we don't do anything till he is.".

Doesn't sound that outlandish to me when you consider buying the parts from the MB parts counter plus labor and if they flush the brakes.

I'm unsure of what the warranty needs you to do. I would imagine if you were leasing, that could be an issue. I would imagine that you can replace it with whatever you want but if the item causes a failure, you are on your own. At least that was the last time I owned a car under warranty.

I think that is incorrect. AFAIK MB wants brake flushes every 2 years or 24k which I don't have an issue with. None of my cars are under warranty and I do that. It was 2.5 years since I had the C4 flushed because things got away from me. Last month, I checked the brake fluid and there was something that look like someone hocked up a loogie in it. I don't know about the rest.

I think you need to check the warranty again. If it is a lease program, IDK but based on the 2 Can Am Spyders I have bought in the last 10 years, you can't void my warranty because I use aftermarket brake pads or tires, etc. They can, however, refuse to cover problems caused by the aftermarket stuff or lack of maintenance. Say I put an aftermarket bulb and it burns the housing, that is not covered. OTOH, if my alignment is out and I didn't get it fixed, you are going to have a hard time saying that the coolant leaked because of (insert ridiculous reason here)

topfuel67

My neighbor was a tech at one of the dealerships. He explained warranty repairs and how it works against the consumer. Warranty work is like hmo insurance. The dealer bills the manufacturer and the manufacturer pays a fraction of what is billed, often barely enough to cover costs. They use software that calculates what should be paid. The techs get bonus for how much actual revenue they bring in. So basically the dealer does not want to do warranty work as they don't make much on it. The techs don't want to either so they'll look for a way to void the warranty or say its fine. Once you come back out of warranty the dealer is happy to do the repairs and make up a few more.
I fear bringing my car to a dealership when there are recalls. They do not take care of it and always make up urgent repairs needed.

aklim

Excellent reason for not trusting the parts replacer. Some of these people are better than the rabble and will work better. Observe them and keep them in your circle of friends

PatternDayTrader

I don't know how the typical person gets his/her vehicle fixed. You really have to know what you are doing or you get ripped off most of the time. This applies to everything mechanical these days, and not just cars. It seems there are no skilled people in any skilled trades anymore. Instead everyone is looking for a shortcut of some sort. Seven grand for new turbos, lol, they might as well be asking a million.

Renfield

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/18/a-bu...other-car.html

My "boss" (v.p.) could buy a dozen of these cars each year at $1.7M each, and pay cash. I and all 70+ of my co-workers could each afford to finance ONE oil change over 7 years. But it would be a struggle that would likely involve lots of Ramen Noodles.

Make Gatsby Great Again.

aklim

Disassemble the car to drain all the oil from 16 plugs. I think if you top off the oil and drive the car into the ground, it will be cheaper to get the new motor after a certain number of years.

Gibbles

I got quoted over $600 to replace the radiator at a GMC dealer for my wifes saturn aura...

So i ask them "how much is just the radiator?"
them: about 160

so i get home after successfully keeping a straight face and look up the job in my gm service software...
yup, you have to completely dissemble the front end of the car!!

Long story short, i did it my self in under an hour as i was able to seperate the un removable grille from the bumper cover.
two bucks worth of hardware and a slight redesign would have saved many people that have both the auras and the Malibu's a ton of money.

also that tech found a leak that no other tech could find, including while it was still under warranty... @%#%!..

also that car does not have a dipstick for the trans fluid.. thanks GM! (4t45)

i before that car, my wife talked me into a 2002 landrover freelander.
that car had a slight design flaw thanks to it's BMW engine.
they glued the cylinder into the aluminum engine block with something that breaks down in the coolant they used...
= water and oil mixing in the pan.
After that the rule is american or Japanese cars only.
10k for a new engine with the same problem... lol

Jeffwilson34

I have bought 1 foreign car in my life (51 years old) I was looking for something easier to get in and out of when I knew I was going to have surgery on my stomach and healing time was 3 months. I had a Vette and a Fiero.

I found a Jaguar X type AWD. at a local lot in great condition low miles and dirt cheap. I looked at it and it ran fine but nothing on the dash would work. He said he had 3 shops look at it and noon could get it working. and the Jaguar dealership said they could fix it for $2000 because the whole dash had to be replaced.
It would blow fuses as soon as they were installed. I figured I could drive it as it was because I only needed it for short trips when the wife was not home. I happened onto a Jaguar forum like this one and ask if anyone had the same issue. I was answered right away with instructions to remove the driver sun-visor and look at the wires fir the vanity light. Sure enough they were frayed and grounding out on the roof. I had it fixed in 15 minutes and everything worked fine.
I paid $1000 for it and drove it for a year and sold it for $5000

aklim

I'm curious. What would have happened if the dealer tried to fix the dash and was unable to solve it with their parts? Who pays? I've never run into that situation myself on that scale. In my case, the Ford dealership said it was a module that failed in the backup system. Surprise, Surprise. It WASN'T. I paid for the diagnostic fee and it wasn't successful and I had an eBay module in my hand that didn't solve the problem. They refunded the diagnostic fee in spite of me showing them exactly where the Ford scanner said to go based on the code and the tech, aka parts replacer, did NOT. I made about $50 on that deal.

Absolutely. Fixed it is worth way more than with a failed dash. You made $5000 for 15 mins labor and say 45 minutes research. Your hourly rate was $5000 and hour for that job.

Jeffwilson34

I would be willing to bet that the tech at the dealership would have just done what I did. That was a very common issue in those cars. What I do not get is why the vanity light would affect the dash and HVAC

84 4+3

In my experience you're shafted with it. "Why is the oil still leaking?" Well you see you have an oil pan leak. "Well tell me how it moved a foot and a half forward and 2 feet up?" Well that's it. "Well that's funny because the oil cooler lines you replaced last time are still leaking it seems and the drip is still in the exact same spot it was in my driveway when you said it was 100% the lines." Oh well okay, then maybe that's it. Then I got a call a day later saying they replaced the pan. I made it to work that morning and the thing was dripping in the same spot. According to them all sales are final even though I didn't agree to it and it didn't fix the problem. Then they replaced the lines again and guess what? That's what fixed it. If it weren't a company vehicle and paid for by the fleet service I may have had a few choice words to say to the tech...

The circuit was probably tapped into that switched feed so that you can't kill the battery and or it was the easiest one to feed off of.

aklim

If he knew it, sure he would. NFW would I believe that most will be honest and say "I found the $5 fix as opposed to the $500 fix."

Maybe they designed it on the same circuit?

aklim

IDK if that is fleet repair policy or not. I'd have to look closer. I know a tech at MB got fired for "too many returns" so not sure how that works. IF you are right, it sounds like an "insert credit card and drop off car" deal where it might be fixed sometime or maybe not. Maybe the techs are failed psychologists? You lay on the couch for an hour and maybe it will fix you, maybe not. If not, come back again but pay again?

Tom400CFI

I read this and thought, "Oh dear lord....this one isn't going to end well."



I'm not sure about that Jag in particular, but we had a similar issue with an '05 Silverado at work recently: Turn the truck off, Radio and Cluster don't turn off...ever. Battery eventually goes dead. One of my techs tested both door switches, the harness from both door switches to the BCM...all tested good. We tried grounding that circuit directly from the BCM, no change. We replaced the BCM with a known good one, symptom remained.

In the end, the problem was a short in the wiper control module. WTF?? Apparently, the short drew power. IDK why, but that draw "told" the BCM that the truck was still "on", so the BCM wouldn't shut down RAP. Why didn't the "battery saver" function over ride it all? IDK.

On all these modern cars, every thing is controlled by modules/computers that are all slaves to the BCM. Communication occurs through a CAN bus. In this case, as short in one module caused an interpretation by the BCM that was wrong, and it kept the truck turned on.

This stuff is DUMB. This is a rubber floor, crank window, manual door-locks, work truck. Communication/data lines, BCM's, slave moduels....on a WORK truck? That's "**** ya don't need on a huntin' rig!"

aklim

Maybe it is easier, and hence cheaper to simply make one base model and slap ascessories like auto door locks and electric windows as needed instead of making a separate line? Also, it might be easier to train the parts guys and techs on 1 system as opposed to 3?