[Finnegan]

reclem05 and Lucid, good points (and good suggestions). Warranty work does indeed require prior authorization for the dealer or it's on their dime. The shop foreman idea is a good one too in terms of suggested approaches. Lucid, I think your right on there--if the whole engine goes that's a lot better than having them half-ass it back together (like shitbrownMcoupe is unfortunately discovering).

Given the kind of issues I see owners having these days it reminds me very much of the degradation in service quality I saw when our IT Operations were outsourced to "save money". B.S answers that don't make sense, a workforce that just follows scripts and won't listen, incompetent work, when things do work they "sort of work", and a response to most things that is "it's working normally". Maybe what we're seeing with BMW has a similar basis: perceived (but not real) cost savings. (Although I haven't heard anyone at the dealership put "kindly do the needful" on the service order....yet).

I wonder if the "free maintenance" program turned into huge money loser for BMW and the dealerships? Perhaps the dealerships being reimbursed at a lower rate for this "free" work? Typically, as I understand it, warranty work doesn't provide the same reimbursement level as customer-paid work--and I'd bet that's true for the "free maintenance" work as well. As a result, has this put pressures on the dealership (add in the economic issues around sales) resulting in workforce degradation? I wonder if dealerships have either cut salaries for experienced/seasoned workers--or simply laid them off--and/or if training/hiring standards have been lowered in an attempt to cut costs. (This would be analogous to the IT situation I described above.)

In any case, it's not doing the brand or value of the free service/warranty a lot of good. Maybe it's not affecting the overall brand that much (although I doubt that, as no one wants to come back several times for the same issue) but I think it's taking a toll on the ///M brand. ///M owners are more likely to be enthusiasts and actually know a thing or two about cars....