Bmw Recalled for 5 weeks - What are my rights?

MissHarvey

Our 530d went in for a routine service on 8th March. When I rang to book it in, the dealership informed me about the recall and said they would need to check my car whilst it was in for the service work. I had not received a letter about this, so I asked what the recall was for, the gentlemen explained it was the EGR cooler.
We had the EGR cooler and valve replaced last year because they failed and the car was flagging up a coolant low warning on an almost daily basis, despite topping it up. A local mechanic diagnosed the issue as being the EGR cooler and valve- a common fault he said! And here we are 10months later having it recalled under BMW!
The car went in and surprise, surprise! It needs to be replaced under the safety recall as it is one of the defective parts.
I was offered a BMW service loan car for the day, and when I was later told the car was not able to be driven... I was offered to keep the loan car until the Monday when an Enterprise hire car would be arranged for me...
In the meantime I researched a lot of threads on the web about this recall and the hire cars not being like-for-like and a particularly worrying thread about the insurance being insufficient!
When enterprise rang to arrange the hire car on Monday, I questioned the insurance arrangements.. and it turns out that enterprise cover the hire car ONLY. The insurance being offered by Enterprise for the hire cars is not fully comp! It assumes that any third party cover would be met by the “ROI” (renters own insurance). I checked this with Enterprise when they first offered me a hire car, and they confirmed that the contract they hold with BMW-UK over this recall is that Enterprise provide a hire car, and insure that car, and that car only!… the 3rd party cover is to be covered by your own personal insurance policy...!! So essentially, if you had a crash and it was your fault… Enterprise would cover the cost of the repairs to the hire car, and your insurance company would have to pay for the damage to any other person/car/property.
This didn't sound right to me at all, so I checked this with our insurance company (Adrian Flux) and they confirmed that they would NOT cover the hire car, fully, or 3rd party, and said that was what hire car insurance was for. You take out insurance with the hire car company. Now, when I went back to Enterprise with this information, they seemed surprised that I had bothered to check with my insurer and said they couldn’t offer me any “top-up” insurance to cover me fully, because that would be outside of the contract they have with BMW.
I refused the hire car under those conditions and luckily for me, my local dealership have sorted me out with one of their demonstrator vehicles with fully comp BMW insurance, but I had to threaten legal action to get it.
I would hate for anyone else to fall foul of this and find themselves insufficiently insured or personally liable for any third party damages.
I was assured verbally that if my insurance company refused to cover any third party damage then enterprise would have to claim of their own fleet insurance policy... but they WOULD NOT put this in writing!!
When I threatened to seek legal advice my local dealership (BMW Cooper Colchester) caved and offered me a choice of 3 BMW Fleet vehicles instead – covered by BMW fully comprehensive insurance, so I am now in a fleet car, and fully insured- for the foreseeable future, but I know of at least two people that I have spoken to since that didn’t realise this and were also un-insured! I bet there are hundreds if not thousands of others. This recall is reported to be affecting 268,000 diesel BMWs in the UK, with 1.6 million vehicles affected worldwide!!
People need to be aware of this potential flaw in the hire car agreement!!

DoaM

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AdrianC

So lemme be sure I've got this right.

You think it's unfair that your insurance should have to pay if you bend the car you're driving whilst yours is in dock.

neilmcl

MissHarvey wrote: »

Our 530d went in for a routine service on 8th March. When I rang to book it in, the dealership informed me about the recall and said they would need to check my car whilst it was in for the service work. I had not received a letter about this, so I asked what the recall was for, the gentlemen explained it was the EGR cooler.

We had the EGR cooler and valve replaced last year because they failed and the car was flagging up a coolant low warning on an almost daily basis, despite topping it up. A local mechanic diagnosed the issue as being the EGR cooler and valve- a common fault he said! And here we are 10months later having it recalled under BMW!

The car went in and surprise, surprise! It needs to be replaced under the safety recall as it is one of the defective parts.

I was offered a BMW service loan car for the day, and when I was later told the car was not able to be driven... I was offered to keep the loan car until the Monday when an Enterprise hire car would be arranged for me...

In the meantime I researched a lot of threads on the web about this recall and the hire cars not being like-for-like and a particularly worrying thread about the insurance being insufficient!

When enterprise rang to arrange the hire car on Monday, I questioned the insurance arrangements.. and it turns out that enterprise cover the hire car ONLY. The insurance being offered by Enterprise for the hire cars is not fully comp! It assumes that any third party cover would be met by the “ROI” (renters own insurance). I checked this with Enterprise when they first offered me a hire car, and they confirmed that the contract they hold with BMW-UK over this recall is that Enterprise provide a hire car, and insure that car, and that car only!… the 3rd party cover is to be covered by your own personal insurance policy...!! So essentially, if you had a crash and it was your fault… Enterprise would cover the cost of the repairs to the hire car, and your insurance company would have to pay for the damage to any other person/car/property.

This didn't sound right to me at all, so I checked this with our insurance company (Adrian Flux) and they confirmed that they would NOT cover the hire car, fully, or 3rd party, and said that was what hire car insurance was for. You take out insurance with the hire car company. Now, when I went back to Enterprise with this information, they seemed surprised that I had bothered to check with my insurer and said they couldn’t offer me any “top-up” insurance to cover me fully, because that would be outside of the contract they have with BMW.

I refused the hire car under those conditions and luckily for me, my local dealership have sorted me out with one of their demonstrator vehicles with fully comp BMW insurance, but I had to threaten legal action to get it.

I would hate for anyone else to fall foul of this and find themselves insufficiently insured or personally liable for any third party damages.

I was assured verbally that if my insurance company refused to cover any third party damage then enterprise would have to claim of their own fleet insurance policy... but they WOULD NOT put this in writing!!

When I threatened to seek legal advice my local dealership (BMW Cooper Colchester) caved and offered me a choice of 3 BMW Fleet vehicles instead – covered by BMW fully comprehensive insurance, so I am now in a fleet car, and fully insured- for the foreseeable future, but I know of at least two people that I have spoken to since that didn’t realise this and were also un-insured! I bet there are hundreds if not thousands of others. This recall is reported to be affecting 268,000 diesel BMWs in the UK, with 1.6 million vehicles affected worldwide!!

People need to be aware of this potential floor in the hire car agreement!!

That's better

AdrianC

'course, you really would want a floor in your hire car. A flaw would be less welcome.

MissHarvey

Not at all, I think it’s unfair that BMW are offering out hire cars that people are not insured to drive... if no fleet car was available then I would have been left without a car entirely... because I wasn’t insured fully on the hire car

Mercdriver

MissHarvey wrote: »

Not at all, I think it’s unfair that BMW are offering out hire cars that people are not insured to drive... if no fleet car was available then I would have been left without a car entirely... because I wasn’t insured fully on the hire car

Every hire car that goes out in the UK has third party insurance. They are not allowed to do otherwise. What you mean is that you are getting only third party insurance and that comprehensive cover has to be met by your own insurance. You should check whether your insurance will actually cover a hire car as not all do.

MissHarvey

Mercdriver...
I spent the best part of two hours on the phone backwards and forwards to enterprise and BMW UK to clarify my understanding.
Yes, you are right- if I personally go to enterprise and hire a car then it would be covered third party as a minimum. However, this agreement was set up between BMW UK and Enterprise and it was clearly explained to me (branch manager read out the contract agreement over the phone) that enterprise cover the hire car only and that and third party liability is to be covered by ROI which according to him means Renters Own Insurance, and he went on to explain that by signing the hire agreement I would be agreeing to those terms. Which is why I refused- because as you rightly said- my insurance doesn’t cover that. I rang and checked.

Just raising awareness because most people possibly wouldn’t notice that on the hire agreement, or know what ROI stands for in that context... and sign the hire agreement regardless.

I could of course just hire a car from them personally - then I would be covered third party at least- but there was no guarantees that BMW would reimburse me for the rental fees.

P1Fanatic

It does seem a bit of a lottery what you get. I took my 63 plate X3 30D in for this recall check last Monday. I was given a 118D for the day and then told that my EGR cooler was leaking so needed replacing and that I should not drive my car. I was preparing my case for not being left with the 1 series for weeks/months. But when I got to the dealer they told me that normally they sourced a rental car from Enterprise (did not specify what type of car) but as it was late in the day they did not have enough time to turn it around so they have given me a loaner from their lot which was a ’68 plate 530D M Sport Touring with 30 miles on the clock so I am more than happy to use that. Initial loan is for 1 month during which I hope they can get the new EGR on back order. If not I will be keeping this car until they do.

Insurance wise I have same BMW cover as with the courtesy car which is Full Comp (well actually it just says Comprehensive Cover) and £50 Excess.

I feel sorry for those that are running around in smaller / lower class vehicles than your own. It’s a bit of a minefield as to what BMW need to provide especially on out of warranty vehicles. Some of it seems to depend on your local dealer. Mine is via Marshall Hampshire whom I have never bought a car from but have used for servicing (after using Cooper Reading before that were rubbish). They seemed to want to help me as said I got the 530D Touring as its got a decent boot size like my X3 and 3L diesel engine. They also asked if I had a dog (as apparently a lot of SUV owners have them) as the contract says not pets but if I had one they should be able to do something.

P1Fanatic

suki1964 wrote: »

Im just gobsmacked its taking them so long

We got the letter the week after Christmas, I rang and booked an appointment that suited me, 3 weeks later the car was collected, we got a x5 in return for a few hours till ours was returned, sorted and valeted

Others like myself got the letter later and now there is a back order on these EGR valves because the recall is so large BMW's suppliers can't keep up with demand (this is worldwide a a couple of hundred thousand vehicles affected from memory).