[longodj]

Hey,
I bought my 2007 335xi Sport at Prestige BMW last May. It was a poor enough experience to get me to immediately rip anything even remotely related to them off of my car and never return to them unless required. The salesman I dealt with was pushy and yet new little to nothing about the car. I answered most of the questions I asked him myself and he said I was wrong and then corrected himself on everything. From the size of the engine and turbo setup to folding rear seats, he knew nothing. Well, last week the day I had to return to Prestige came.

My car fell off of a floor jack puncturing some coolant piping in the engine bay. This was after I was at the track and was getting overheating AFTER Holtz BMW (great shop) retrofitted an oil cooler to the car. So, when the car was told, I told Prestige that the car fell off a jack and to be careful and not start it and they were fine with that and very timely in their responses and the like. I also told them that the car was feeling sluggish and was going into limp mode and I suspected it may have something to do with a misfire. My car is pretty heavily modded but has no engine related mods. My only engine mod is a dual cone intake...which is properly installed and has nothing to do with anything, it's just an intake.

They fixed the car in about a week as the part was on national backorder, but that was fine and expected. Everything was fine until I picked up the car. I talked to the SA and he said the car was ready to go and mentioned nothing about the overheating and limp modes I asked about. So I asked him if they were able to get around to looking at the spark plugs and he responded by saying well yes, yes we did. He went on to tell me that the Service Foreman took the car out for a ride and said the car felt sluggish but due to the number of mods on my car he would go no further. He opened the hood and immediately deemed the problem due to the intake. He also said I had a chip among other things on the car. Furthermore, the SA then began questioning my desire to modify my car in any way and said that in order for them to even begin diagnosing the problem they would have to bring the car back to stock and charge me for every hour of labor. So I said fine, whatever, have a nice day, I'll bring it to a real shop, you did your work on the coolant pipe and that's ok. Yet, when I went to sign I noticed that on the record they put the following message:

CUSTOMER STATES WHEN SHIFTING FEELS SLUGGISH SPECIALLY 4TH GEAR VEHICLE GOES INTO LIMP MODE FOUND VEHICLE WITH MULTIPLE MODIFICATIONS - AFTERMARKET ITEMS INSTALLED IN VEHICLE - UNABLE TO DIAGNOSIS COMPLAINT

Beyond that, in the packet of information they keep and I just sign, under modifications it lists all of my obvious mods (coilovers, sway bars, brakes, intake) and also chip. I don't understand where they get off claiming I chip my car as I was very upfront with them about everything else, why would I lie about a chip? Bottom line is, they are a great shop if you are a 50 year old woman driving your kids around in your shiny BMW. If you are an enthusiast, stay FAR away from Prestige. Their salesmen know nothing, their SAs are very mod unfriendly. I tried my best to be discrete with them regarding my use of the car and they refused to go along. At Holtz BMW in Rochester, NY I acted in the same way and the SA came out and gave me advice about track use and protected me on his message to BMW regarding my brakes, and they also went out of their way to fight for an oil cooler retrofit.

Hope this helps someone,
Dave

[David 12]

Sorry about the experience Dave - Seeing that we now have things like 29.2 to think about, this type of scenario may become even more common across dealerships.

So no diagnosis from the SA on the misfire - Did they actually inspect the plugs?