Bmw Recalled for 5 weeks - What are my rights?

Ambs08

Thank you so much for sharing this, it has been so helpful.

They’ve currently had my vehicle 5 weeks and no sign of it being ready anytime soon!
I’ve sent a formal complaint in, I rang my insurance after I saw your post and you are correct - I am not insured to drive the hire car! I am completely gobsmacked, I cannot believe they allow this and don’t even tell you. They just keep it quiet.

Not only this but I now have a chip in the windscreen and I’m expected to pay the excess of £250, which BMW say is between myself and Enterprise and nothing to do with them, even though I never set up the hire car, I have no documentation and no agreement/ no insurance documents from them or anything. Absolutely everything was arranged internally by BMW.
My vehicle was recalled by BMW through no fault of my own, I shouldn’t be out of pocket.
I understand these things happen and I’d be more than happy to pay the same price it cost me to replace the windscreen on my own bmw because that would be like for like. But £250 is not like for like.
Don’t get we wrong these things happen and I know there’s policies in place, but the price to fix it should be the same as my own vehicle because it should be like for like.

I’m assuming everyone else also had to pay the £50 deposit for the hire car in the first place too? Despite the fact this is absolutely not your fault that your car has been retain by BMW. I just can’t believe the way they’re treating people and thinking they can get away with it.

You can’t just take people’s vehicles away (which may I add if anyone is like me, still paying the monthly payments for just to drive round in a ford fiesta!) and then expect them to also be out of pocket with the hire car!

I’m glad I’m not the only one but sad that we are all having this awful experience.

P1Fanatic

Mine took 6 weeks. Got the car back now. No I wasn’t charged £50
Deposit but then I had the dealers car not enterprise. They did say I had to £10+vat to reduce excess but I never got charged it. It seems that experiences differ greatly dealer to dealer which is strange as surely they are all just claiming this back from BMW UK?

Mine handled it well and I have never bought a car from them just used for servicing. I did think what if something happens to the loan car eg tyre puncture - am I liable? I would have thought a hire car would normally cover you for windscreens, tyres etc but maybe thats wishful thinking.

If you dont have signed paperwork with enterprise then tell them
To jog on and speak to the dealer.

Manxman_in_exile

Re the hire car insurance question:


We got a hire car from Enterprise (through our insurers) when our car was written off five years ago.


As I recall, Enterprise told us that their insurance did not cover third party if that insurance was "available" to us elsewhere. Not sure what available meant.


It did, however, say in small print in their T&Cs that their fleet insurance would indemnify us in the event third party cover was not "available" to us. (Not sure if their T&Cs still the same).


In fact this was one of my questions in my first post on this forum, but I don't think anybody addressed it, preferring to focus on the issues of what was a suitable replacement hire car and mitigating our losses.


I can't remember if third party was "available" to us through our insurers (I assume it was) but I would advise anybody getting a hire car organised by somebody else to satisfy themselves completely that they are covered third party, one way or another.

Adimac187

Hi, my 520d has been held by BMW as well. It’s a licensed private hire taxi and with out it I can not work at all and therefore have no income. I have no complaints (yet) about the customer service I’ve received so far, it’s only been a few days, they have provided me another car to use which is perfectly fine but I cannot use it for work.

Does anyone have any advice about claiming loss of earnings please? Are there any restrictions as I think I would need somewhere around £100-£150 per working day.

The thought of not working for up to 8 weeks and how much I could improve my golf is great but not being able to pay any bills is frightening. I do have a motor legal policy through my insurance but this will only cover me for a replacement taxi in the event of a fault or non fault accident.

Thanks for reading.

Aylesbury_Duck

Adimac187 wrote: »

Hi, my 520d has been held by BMW as well. It’s a licensed private hire taxi and with out it I can not work at all and therefore have no income. I have no complaints (yet) about the customer service I’ve received so far, it’s only been a few days, they have provided me another car to use which is perfectly fine but I cannot use it for work.

Does anyone have any advice about claiming loss of earnings please? Are there any restrictions as I think I would need somewhere around £100-£150 per working day.

The thought of not working for up to 8 weeks and how much I could improve my golf is great but not being able to pay any bills is frightening. I do have a motor legal policy through my insurance but this will only cover me for a replacement taxi in the event of a fault or non fault accident.

Thanks for reading.

If you're going to try and claim something, you have a duty to minimise your losses.What would you do if the car broke down and was off the road for a lengthy period?

Adimac187

Genuinely I haven’t thought about it before now, in 10 years I’ve never had this sort of problem. A week at most before and I’ve just had to swallow the loss, but in this situation it’s a much longer time scale.

It’s almost impossible to rent/hire another licensed taxi in this situation, they are only seem to be available in relation to insurance claims.

BananaRepublic

Mercdriver wrote: »

I think BMW owners in this position should get together and raise public awareness if they want to use leverage against BMW on this.

However, you have to be reasonable. You have been provided with a hire car. You cannot expect that to be free of charge as you would have had to make payments for it if you had the car and you cannot reasonably expect to have a car for nothing. You could find out how much the car you are driving would cost and try and claim the difference, but I think you would have more leverage if you were leasing rather than purchasing.

At a minimum they should extend your warranty by at least the period of time you are without the car.

You will be relying quite a lot on goodwill rather than legal rights since BMW have provided you with alternative transport.

I really don't understand the logic here. BMW are providing a temporary replacement car. He/she is paying for their own car anyway assuming it has a loan outstanding. The fact that there is a recall should not mean that the OP is out of pocket. All expenses due to the recall should be repaid by BMW. They should not pay any more though, as long as they provide a comparable car. If however the OP has to hire another car because the one provided is unfit for purpose (not enough seats) whereas their own car would have been fine, then in principle they could claim from BMW, or go through the courts. Easier said than done though.