Since I bought my R56 with a salvage title, it's no longer covered by a warranty. Would there still be an advantage to going through a "stealership" for the repair rather than my local shop, or would it not matter at all?

I don't want to pay a premium to go through the dealer if I don't have to. Any insight/advice is welcome!

 

Do you have a local club that can recommend a quality independant shop? If not, it may be a crap shoot on a non dealer.

Have you asked a dealer if you have any warranty on a repair if you have them do the work?

Is your car an MC or an MCS?

 

If it is a timing chain, than the one thing I can say a dealer will have is all the special tools required to do the job (correctly) I can think of 4 that are needed. (cam holding brackets, flywheel pin, front main seal installer, Timing chain pretension-er) Not to mention the motor mount supplementary bracket and documents needed for torque procedures.

If the central crankshaft bolt is not torqued correctly, or not replaced. The engine can skip 'time' and cause serious engine damage.

Also the timing chain rattle has come to be that programming is involved also per the Service Bulletin.

If its only a tensioner (which the special tool is needed to determine if its a chain or just a tensioner) than maybe an Indy could handle that. As long as it doesn't roll timing while the tensioner is being replaced.

 

Sooo what makes you think that salvage title voids warranty? If the damage was to the body and had nothing to do with engine you may have a case. Plus it's not like dealer looks at the title when they fix them (as opposed to buying them).

 

I would try for sure! Bring it in print off as much as you can from online. There is a petition as well on my site as well as some good links you can use to help fight your case.

 

The main issue is that the salvage title is tied to the car's VIN, which is also how they would look up warranty coverage. More than likely, they would punch in the VIN and an alert would come up about the salvage title on the car.

 

Doesn't hurt to try Keep in mind that service dept's don't really need to access titles nor would they run something like CarFax against your VIN unless they have a reason to. Don't know about Mini/BMW specifically but I have witnessed warranty work being done on a car with a "repaired" title, but it was on the engine, car was salvaged due to to frame damage initially.

Why was your car salvaged?