OK-

I realize I have heard of this in other threads but it actually happened to me!!!! I guess I shouldn't be mad becase my service folk love me and don't really care but....

the beauty went into the shop for a new flywheel and throttle bearing last week (under warranty of course) and because of the lowering I needed to get it re-aligned. They were good enough to put on the h-sport rear camber control arms that Eric from Helix (so rocks by the way!) was great enought to ship out super fast to get done during alignment.

Well I went to pick it up on Wednesday (1 week later because I am patient and there was a holiday in there somewhere) and my service guy (whom I have gotten to know very well) let me know the a-hole BMW rep ( there are several for my area and it happens that this one is a total *****) saw my ride and all the mods (yes there are many especially the oh so sexy m7 DFIC, I know he was druling and leaving large white spots on the floor, installed) and he wrote down my VIN for further reference!!!

What in the .... (you know what Im talking about). I know it happens but puuulease.

I realize you work for the man and want to cover your insignificant a$$ but give me a break! I am fortunate to own my company and am happy to stretch warranties for customers and do what I can to get things serviced even when it is somewhat abused!

Yes I realize it is the dealer who will ultimately take care of me and knowing them like I do I won't have issues but why make a big deal of it like he did?

I'm a big boy and know that if a mod is directly responsible for a problem that I will pay for it so I don't want to hear anyone say... "you mod it you pay for it!"


anyway... I thought I would rant and see if anyone else has had this problem!

here's to a few (alright who's kidding here, a bunch) of cocktails and an internet forum that has no choice but to allow me to rant!

chris

 

Man, sorry to hear! We can only hope that they're gonna shoot a wicked feature with people and their hot MINIs and that is the "future reference" of which they speak. Lol.

Really, though, what ever happened to BMW saying no?
"The ability to say no to compromise is a rare thing these days. Many companies would like to be able to say it, but so few have the autonomy to actually do it. As an independent company, BMW can say no. ... No, we will not do it the way everyone else does it."

Of course, in marketing everything's all good and dandy as long as it sounds cool.

 

Everytime I take my ride in the tech freaks when they see the M7 Nitrous. Some have no idea what it is and mistake it for some sort of water cooling system. Come on. They spend an inordinate amount of time making sure they write down that the car is "highly modified", haha. But you'll love this. My starter went out and ripped up my "aftermarket" flywheel and they covered their starter, but not the damage it did to my flywheel simply because it was not factory. I appealed to MINIUSA and of course you know what side they came down on. I offered to buy another flywheel and have them only pay the labor. No dice. I was on a trip when this happpened so I could not practically contest it. $1000 down the drain. Dealership name withheld.

Oh yes MINI service . They dare you to take them to court . I really unloaded on them when customer service called to follow up with their "go through the motions" survey .

 

Why?

 

I'm not here to bad mouth anybody as these sort of dealerships expose themselves very quickly. And besides, if you don't live near Towson, it doesn't matter anyway .

 

I'm sorry if I'm a little thick on this, but I don't understand what the problem is? He wrote down your vin, so what. Or are you afraid that your vin will end up on some sort of blacklist?

In the bigger scheme of things, you would think that BMW would want people to customize the car, as long it it didn't screw up OEM parts under warrenty. Good looking mods draw attention and create potential future sales. But, like I said, maybe I'm just being thick.

 

Why would you expect MINI to cover an aftermarket part?

 

SIGH.....No they dont. Thier brand and sales depend MUCH MUCH more heavily on a reputation of reliability. By far most people buy brand new cars so they DONT have to work on them. Mods destroy reliability and re-sale...and modders are always slow to actually blame thier mods for any failure. I am consistently baffled by those who have little to no experience in the engineering of a car, talk so expertly how everything works by just turning wrenches and cohorting with gearheads

Look, a mod doesnt even have to be directly responsible....If they say you mod, you pay before the sale (As MINI does) you were not led on by the dealer that you can mod away....you accepted those terms and now you whine that they recorded your vin as a modded car.

Shoot if a dealer wanted to say that you cant drive your car on sundays or we void your warranty....they are within rights to do so, as long as they are clear about the terms(we all know that thier sales would hurt).....You knew the terms!

Bottom line ......NO, the dealer would rather not have modders buy thier cars. They are a small percent of the actual customers and that small percent has higher incidents of repair and hassle with argueing about who pays for something you knew that you were not supposed to do in the first place

 

I was not expecting them to cover the cost of the after market part cost, of course. But their stock part, which they acknowledged failed and they covered it, caused damage to a flywhheel that IF it was stock, they certainly would have had to to cover (they acknowledged this). So all I expected them to do is pay for the labor for covering what damage their part caused. I buy the part, they change it out. Very simple and straight forward. Let's be clear here. An OEM part did damage to an aftermarket part, NOT the other way around. Tell me where the responsibility lies with that one!

 

Hmmm, while I'm simpathetic about dealer coverage of aftermarket parts damaged by warrantied OEM parts, I think you've got it backwards...

I think the dealer in this case should pay for the aftermarket part, then you would be responsible to get it properly installed by someone who knows what they are doing.

The reason I think this is practicality -- the dealer service people have enough serious trouble trying to keep up with properly installing their own parts, we can't in fairness expect them to also be able to properly install aftermarket parts. There may be some good wrenches among their ranks, but many of them are just playing dot-to-dot and don't have (or perhaps are not allowed to have) the imaginative flexibility to deal with other than OEM parts.

But if their warrantied part damages an aftermarket part -- and especially if by their admission they would have paid for that part had it been an OEM part -- my opinion is that they should pay for the purchase price of that part.

That's just my opinion though, and it's only worth $.01 (adjusted for inflation).

P.S. I wonder if they would have replaced the damaged aftermarket part with a new OEM part???

 

An OEM part failed that came in direct contact and interaction with your aftermerket parts.....I think the dealer was quite generous in replacing the starter under warranty. I don't think that you can definitively state that your parts or installation had absolutely no affect on the OEM part failure. I think you were quite fortunate

 

you have it backwards, the law states that a dealership must definatively prove the aftermarket part caused the damage, otherwise its covered under warranty

 

My last post here on this. Quite generous. That's funny. I'm glad they covered their part like they are supposed to. They also said they would cover the OEM flywheel because the damage was DEFINITELY caused by their part. Duh! They simply did not have the mechanism to cover the aftermarket part. Wake up the phone is ringing. They should therefore have covered the labor for what they would have otherwise had to do. They were just being greedie, that's all and sticking it to me when I was on the road and in a pinch. Good thing I can afford it as I have come to expect this sort of gouging by dealers.

The starter shaft/gear failed to retract fully and failed mechanically according to the dealer, which is how my aftermarket flywheel, or OEM flywheel supposedly got chewed up. Anyhow the nice thing is now they said they would cover even the after market flywheel that's in there now, if it happens again. See how nice they were. They acknowledged fault for it the NEXT time it happens...but not the FIRST time. Do what?

 

Hey - get it in writing! Might come in handy next time...

 

If the failure of an OEM part took his arm off, would you think MINI should be liable? What if an OEM part failure caused the vehicle to burn, destroying all the contents of the vehicle, do you think MINI should be liable?

 

No ....I look at it from the perspective of if I sell a screwdriver to someone and tell them not them not to stick it in a light socket....and they do anyway.....Not only do I not intend to replace thier melted screwdriver I am not going to compensate them for their melted brain!

Go ask Skiploader about the MM Act....

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...t=49580&page=7

Quote from that thread

 

See https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...477#post823477

 

What the law states and how it works in practice are two totally different things. Unless you are willing to push the issue with a lawyer on your side and potentially in court, don't count on Magnuson Moss working for you.

 

IMHO, your way off base. That dealer happens to be one of the MOST mod friendly dealers in the area, if not the country. They willing will install MiniMania stage kits and yearly host an annual MiniMania track day at the local raceway.

IMO, your lucky they paid anything as NOX is way over the line. They easily could have said that the extra HP "caused" the starter to fail ... OK, that would have been a stretch ... but you get the point. I think they paid for exactly they should of and see no reason for MINI to pay for the labor to replace your flywheel.

 

I don't .... if all that they paid for was the starter AND it's silly [which it is] to say that the starter failed from abnormal wear from the nitrous, then I don't get the point- either way, they'd have to pay. Now, I agree that nitrous is straining, but...

 

I know they were real friendly while, they raped me.

Actually I'm not the one off base. The Nitrous has never worked correctly and is not used. Not once. Not never. But it is still on the car but the wires are disconnected. So you jumped to the same wrong conclusion anyone who thinks that a NOS bottle could ever cause the damage my car had.

I brought this up as an example of how dealers simply use the presence of mods to get away with what is UNREASONABLE. You proved my point as well. Thanks for jumping to the wrong conclusion about my Nitrous. They did not POE anything. They simply took a side and dared me to take the time to resolve it in arbitration when they knew I was 1500 miles from home.

 

But you see, people's perceptions are their reality. If they see the stuff, they think you use it and of course I concluded you had used it ... what else could anyone think?

I can't justify the dealers actions but I can see their POV.

 

The starter was a stretch, and we both agree about that. The point is that on other mods, for example you may not think one thing is linked to another but they could say it is. For example, you TC the car, get more than twice the HP the car was designed to handle and some suspension part breaks. You figure the engine got NOTHING to do with suspenion. MINI says wrong. More HP means more strain on the other components of the car which are not designed for those levels of HP so the part failed. No warranty.

Thats my POV.

 

Have you or anyone you know ever been a member of NAM or drive a modified MINI?

JM

 

Is it possible that the gear teeth on the flywheel were not quite the right shape causing the starter gear to bind? Or perhaps the aftermarket flywheel diameter was slightly larger than oem? Something like that would be almost impossible to verify especially after it was damaged. From the dealers point of view its an argument that would be easy to make,and use to deny any warranty coverage. On the other hand, I can see were you would feel violated, knowing that an oem part damaged your car and you were stuck paying for it. The fact that the engine/trannie have to be separated to replace the flywheel makes it very expensive and all the more galling, but I think most dealers would probably deny any warranty coverage at all. It just sucks all around.