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BMW nightmare - your advice desperately needed!
bartsimpson
Posts: 745 Forumite
in Motoring
So I bought a used (2010) BMW X5 just over a year ago from a main dealer. It was back in the dealership within a week with a fault which they fixed by installing a new transfer box.
14 months later, on Saturday it broke down at random on a main road. Completely innocuous, no speed bumps or anything. My wife & 3 young kids had a nightmare day waiting 4 hrs to be recovered & taken home with the undriveable car on a flat bed truck.
The next morning it was taken to a main dealer, whose technicians diagnosed the fault as follows:
"Transfer prop broken off at the transfer box end & auto gearbox sump has a hole in it, which is leaking oil badly. The hole in the sump has been made by the prop (not the gearbox). 2 of the sump bolts have snapped off."
To me, a non-mechanic, the fact the transfer box was changed only a year ago suggests that it was installed incorrectly or at the least is somehow involved in this large mechanical breakdown. Surely catastrophic breakdowns do not happen in cars as new as this (with a new transfer box) for no reason?
BMW have offered to pay parts & 30% of labour costs, which they have quoted as £700 plus possibly more once the full extent of the damage is revealed.
My feeling is that the transfer box job last year is implicit here, and that all of this work ought to be covered as a result. But I need some help and advice from someone who knows a bit more than me about cars and warranties. BMW are refusing to contribute further.
Do I have a case??? I'm EXTREMELY !!!!ed off with BMW but most of all shocked that this kind of failure has happened.
14 months later, on Saturday it broke down at random on a main road. Completely innocuous, no speed bumps or anything. My wife & 3 young kids had a nightmare day waiting 4 hrs to be recovered & taken home with the undriveable car on a flat bed truck.
The next morning it was taken to a main dealer, whose technicians diagnosed the fault as follows:
"Transfer prop broken off at the transfer box end & auto gearbox sump has a hole in it, which is leaking oil badly. The hole in the sump has been made by the prop (not the gearbox). 2 of the sump bolts have snapped off."
To me, a non-mechanic, the fact the transfer box was changed only a year ago suggests that it was installed incorrectly or at the least is somehow involved in this large mechanical breakdown. Surely catastrophic breakdowns do not happen in cars as new as this (with a new transfer box) for no reason?
BMW have offered to pay parts & 30% of labour costs, which they have quoted as £700 plus possibly more once the full extent of the damage is revealed.
My feeling is that the transfer box job last year is implicit here, and that all of this work ought to be covered as a result. But I need some help and advice from someone who knows a bit more than me about cars and warranties. BMW are refusing to contribute further.
Do I have a case??? I'm EXTREMELY !!!!ed off with BMW but most of all shocked that this kind of failure has happened.
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Comments
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bartsimpson wrote: »So I bought a used (2010) BMW X5 just over a year ago from a main dealer. It was back in the dealership within a week with a fault which they fixed by installing a new transfer box.
14 months later, on Saturday it broke down at random on a main road. Completely innocuous, no speed bumps or anything. My wife & 3 young kids had a nightmare day waiting 4 hrs to be recovered & taken home with the undriveable car on a flat bed truck.
The next morning it was taken to a main dealer, whose technicians diagnosed the fault as follows:
"Transfer prop broken off at the transfer box end & auto gearbox sump has a hole in it, which is leaking oil badly. The hole in the sump has been made by the prop (not the gearbox). 2 of the sump bolts have snapped off."
To me, a non-mechanic, the fact the transfer box was changed only a year ago suggests that it was installed incorrectly or at the least is somehow involved in this large mechanical breakdown. Surely catastrophic breakdowns do not happen in cars as new as this (with a new transfer box) for no reason?
BMW have offered to pay parts & 30% of labour costs, which they have quoted as £700 plus possibly more once the full extent of the damage is revealed.
My feeling is that the transfer box job last year is implicit here, and that all of this work ought to be covered as a result. But I need some help and advice from someone who knows a bit more than me about cars and warranties. BMW are refusing to contribute further.
Do I have a case??? I'm EXTREMELY !!!!ed off with BMW but most of all shocked that this kind of failure has happened.
Hmmm
Sounds like the prop moreso than the transfer box itself?
Several things :-- The transfer box was replaced over a year ago
- The car is 5 years old
- BMW are offering a contribution
- Its a £50,000 new extremely complex car with high running costs
- Common thinking is to buy them from a BMW dealer and get the AUC warranty and then keep extending it.
Personally,- i'd appeal to BMW UK and see if they will up their offer
- See if the dealer will contribute (assuming its the same dealer)
- See if the dealer will do it at a reduced labour rate / parts rate.
Do what you can with the above, then accept their offer.
Get the full blown BMW AUC extended warranty on the car or i think its Mondial who do it for them and offer the same warranty.0 -
Sounds like something failed fairly quickly as you have not made any mention
of a noise that appeared shortly before the incident.
New cars breakdown, with minor issues and major ones.
Sounds like the prop may have seized and broke free causing the other damage.
Who serviced it?Censorship Reigns Supreme in Troll City...0 -
Where was the car serviced last ?
Standard service is to silicone grease the UJ on the propshaft.
Like most prop failures, poor maintenance leads to the prop locking up and jumping the mount, this time its done it at the transfer box.I do Contracts, all day every day.0 -
It sounds like the prop shaft has snapped, and flailed around, smashing into the transfer box and main box, wrecking both. The question is why the prop snapped...0
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It sounds like the prop shaft has snapped, and flailed around, smashing into the transfer box and main box, wrecking both. The question is why the prop snapped...
One blob of grease costing pennies is often the answer...
The UJ locks and its snapped or the mounting snaps.I do Contracts, all day every day.0 -
Usually any repair work by main dealer is warranted for 1 year.
So, if you have exactly same problem what they repaired then you can argue that it should be within warranty.
However, if it is a different problem, then you are out of luck. Still, getting parts + partial labor cost from BMW is good thing (many people don't get that).
BMW X5 is an expensive car to maintain. Just keep it in mind.Happiness is buying an item and then not checking its price after a month to discover it was reduced further.0 -
bartsimpson wrote: »
BMW have offered to pay parts & 30% of labour costs, which they have quoted as £700 plus possibly more once the full extent of the damage is revealed.
.
I think BMW have offered you a good deal, it won't be cheaper elsewhere. As others have said its not necessarily the transfer box so BMW do not have to contribute.I'd rather be an Optimist and be proved wrong than a Pessimist and be proved right.0 -
I know for a fact that all parts sold by a BMW dealer have 2 years unlimited mileage warranty and I was under the impression that that applied to the repair work cost too.
But the car needs to have an absolute complete service history.
They will try their hardest to find fault with another part which was not replaced at the same time as the transfer box - like the prop-shaft.
The deal that you have been offered is likely as good as you'll get IMHO.
Of course if you had gone for the optional BMW extended warranty, which is offered on all Approved Used Cars at the end of the years warranty you get anyway, then you would have had no problems with a prop-shaft failure, as long as the services had been done correctly and in time.
I certainly wouldn't risk an X5 with no warranty.
My current 320d - yes, the one with the timing chain probs - has an extended warranty so I can sleep at nights.0 -
Why do people think a used, 5 year old car would be trouble free?
Brand new ones aren't!0 -
Silversurferz wrote: »typical of BMW poor quality
Oh, I don't know. The Mighty M3 is literally the best car ever, according to one of our regular forum posters. Although when his 'son' bought an M3 CSL for 36K, he wasn't impressed.0
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