[Kerr]

Trying to do a deal for a new car, which is some distance away.

The guy has given me the disc thickness readings and they are well under what people say is the minium.

Has anyone the official approved used stance and manufacturers spec for Z4M coupe discs?

[DavS1]

what measurements is he giving you? iirc the fronts are min th 26.4 on an E86

ofcourse, you should always take into consideration the condition not just the thickness...could have lips, corrossion, warped, pad marks from being stuck on causing judder, scored etc...

[Kerr]

24mm and he's arguing they are ok. That's 4mm of brake disc wear, which is way out of spec for any car I've read before.

Pads are near shot at 5mm too.

26.4mm is what I see online. It's also what Pagid give as their minimum.

[DavS1]

If the car is AUC BMW they should be replaced as they are below min thickness.
pad sensors make contact at 4.2mm so theres roughly 800 miles (give or take) on a 5mm pad before it starts buffing the sensor.

[m20b25]

Stick to your guns mate, they'll try anything.

Ask for the auc report- it shows the minimum and recorded thickness

[Kerr]

This is what the guy sent me this morning.



Look how the minimum thickness figure is 26.4mm, then someone has written 23.4 over the top of it.

The instructions say that items needing attention will be marked with an X. There's an X in the box for brake pads as they are 5mm wide and that's within 3mm of the wear indicator.

I really can't believe having to make an arguement.

[pmmcbl]

Don't back down. I would even go to them as say, if this isn't changed I will walk away. Worked for me in the past. They would have taken any parts into account when they set the selling price. They just hope to find an idiot who may miss it.

[Kerr]

I've emailed about a couple of AUC M cars now.

Both the dealers have been poor to deal with. The other one wouldn't even give figures. All they said was all wear and tear items will be 4000 miles, or more, as will the servicing, and they tyres will have at least 3mm tread as per BMW AUC guidelines.

I extracted from that everything was at bare minimum to those figures.

The guidelines about the brakes the guy has sent me today says 6000 miles.

I know it's a used car, but I don't think it's wrong to know that you aren't just a couple of months away from a huge service bill, the cost of new brakes and the tyres at 3mm where you are recommended to change. On an M car that could be a lot more than £2000 just around the corner.

I've always said I've never been an AUC fan. I'm now seeing just how poor the scheme actually is.

It really is something else if they are falsifying their own standards to try and sell a car. I know the limit is 26.4mm as every enthusiast owner has said that. I spoke to a BMW tech and he said it, now the garage provides a document with 26.4mm that was subsequently written over.

He's got to be embarrassed that he is trying it on that far.

[Kerr]

I've completely dropped interest in the Z4M. The guy called me back today with his deal.

The price of the car last week was £18,500. The price was reduced the other day to £17,490.

His "deal" for me was to pay a little contribution towards the brakes of £200. The £200 was on top of the £18,500 and not the £17,490.

I told him the car was now £17,490 and I was told I must be looking at the wrong car. It was definately £18,500 and was on the screen in front of him.

Here's screenshots after our conversation from their own site and Autotrader.






So I told him I'm not interested in the car at all as he simply can't be trusted. I told him he was a liar and had faked documents.

Looking back to the AUC brake report. You can see he had paint open on his taskbar.

What a dirty lying snake of a man.

[richk84]

what a twat! What dealer was this?

edit: sorry just seen. sytner coventry

[Rudz]

this is not just a problem with BMW, we bought an approved used Merc and had to change the front/rear discs and pads at high cost two months into the ownership, i can only imagine the costs of replacement of brakes for an M Car, glad u walked away. Wank**s

[Kerr]

He did tell me the brakes were £1000+VAT.

So basically I was paying for them in full.

[djgandy]

Originally Posted by Kerr

He did tell me the brakes were £1000+VAT.

So basically I was paying for them in full.

Pretty sure you can get discs + pads for around £500 for Z4M. M Tax.

Also dealer is being a dick. Bet they are making £3-4K on that car.

[Kerr]

Originally Posted by djgandy

Pretty sure you can get discs + pads for around £500 for Z4M. M Tax.

Also dealer is being a dick. Bet they are making £3-4K on that car.

You are about £210 a disc from Pagid. The Z4M has the CSL brakes.

They are making nothing out of the car if they aren't selling it. The price of the car isn't bad at all. The other one in group stock in £4k more.

[richk84]

Have you still got the red A45?

[djgandy]

Originally Posted by Kerr

You are about £210 a disc from Pagid. The Z4M has the CSL brakes.

They are making nothing out of the car if they aren't selling it. The price of the car isn't bad at all. The other one in group stock in £4k more.

You can get OEM discs + pads for less than that from Germany.

http://www.leebmann24.de/reparatursa...112282995.html
http://www.leebmann24.de/bremsscheib...112282445.html
http://www.leebmann24.de/bremsscheib...112282446.html

[Kerr]

Originally Posted by richk84

Have you still got the red A45?

It went last week. It went back under rejection after a 6 month fight.

I had kept quiet about it other then the quiet Merc A45 forum, before someone wanted to spill the beans for me on another site.

Basically both c pillars were all distorted. Mercedes of Dundee(Arnold Clark) accepted liability and said they'd make sure I was seen to. Got a PDR guy out to repair it, he said it was an impossible task.

The dealer then offered compensation to live with the damage. I refused.

The dealer then offered to have the car repaired at their bodyshop. The deal was I had to sign a disclaimer to say even if I wasn't 100% happy with the paint job, I'd have to accept it as I authorised the work. I laughed that off and said that was practically illegal.

I requested a new car and the manager agreed, but would have to speak to Arnold Clark main office.

By this stage I was already talking to Mercedes Customer Care. It was them who informed me that Arnold Clark were not accepting liability. This was after the dealer had in writing and his efforts to rectify.

Arnold Clark's justification was I only gave a written complaint after 10 days. 10 days is too long to report damage. What they did ignore was the email talked about the fact I had phoned in a few times and had been ignored. I also had photographs from day one, this was before I noticed the damage, but the camera caught it.

They sent a video prior to me collecting the car, the video also caught the distortion. The video was deleted as soon as I pointed that out.

After visiting approved Mercedes bodyshops and other independent bodyshops, all either blamed transportation damage, or the pressing process for the panels.

Arnold Clark still washed their hands of me.

I was put in contact with a customer care manager at Milton Keynes. She said she'd take all responsibility for the case and Arnold Clark were no longer involved.

She admitted liability and said she'd get me a new car. Days later she offered a car with a further £3000 worth of options. Know that phrase too good to be true????

The car kept being delayed. One of the must have options was the performance exhaust. She said the car had one, then later on it didn't. So we had to wait on the exhaust. Then it arrived, then it was fitted, but required an AMG engineer to inspect. Really, for an exhaust?

Then I went on holiday for a couple of weeks. I came back expecting the car be be ready. It wasn't. Excuse, they were waiting on the exhaust to arrive.

This confused me as I had the running commentary of it being fitted weeks before.

My suspicions were running high, someone was clearly trying to buy time for some reason.

Turns out the car was sourced from Arnold Clark Mercedes in Perth and then shipped to Arnold Clark Mercedes of Dundee for the preperation work. The prior agreement we had was AC wouldn't have anything to do with this and the car would be handed over at a different Merc dealer. This changed too and the handover was at another AC garage.

Then wouldn't register the car until I inspected it. I guess they knew it wasn't right.

When I did finally get to see the car, over 8 weeks after they sourced it locally, the car wasn't right. It has various scratches, bird etching and had been resprayed. The doors were different shades.

I also couldn't sit it the thing as the additional option of the panoramic roof took up 2" of headroom and my head rested uncomfortably against it.

So it has been 6 months of absolute murder having to fight with Mercedes and Arnold Clark. Never again for either of those two.

You simply wouldn't believe what I've experienced in the last 6 months.

[richk84]

Gutted mate sounds like a nightmare, but you stood your ground and glad you got your money back. Have you thought about looking at the M235 again?

[Kerr]

The M235I is a strong possibility.

I yest drove that and an E92 M3 back to back yesterday.

[The0pportunist]

So this chap has altered the minimum limit for brake discs in order to make a sell. Surely this is fraud if not highly unethical.

[Aragorn30d]

Hes not altered the minimum, hes altered the measurement, but altered it downwards, ie made it look worse... Hardly fraud?

I'm sure i remember a caveat to the minimum thickness that says you can fit new pads to a disk at or just above the minimum thickness, and run them until those pads are done. So you could have the disks refaced down to the minimum 26.4mm thickness, then install a brand new set of pads and run them for 30 or 40k until those pads are done, even though the disks are likely going to be under the minimum for much of that period.

So in that respect, its potentially acceptable as is, and no different to them selling you a car with some tyres that are worn down to 3mm or whatever. I've never bought a car from a dealer, but i would imagine they're going to do the bare minimum to sell the car for maximum profit. If the pads were worn down to the minimum and they installed new ones to those disks, then you'd have a case, but when the whole assembly is worn like that, its just normal wear and tear.

[Aragorn30d]

Hmm maybe i'm missreading the chart. I thought it was showing the actual values for each side of the car, but its maybe showing the minimum value on one side, and the measured values on the other, kinda stupid as there should be four measured values rather than two.

So yeh, maybe he has altered the minimum in an attempt to lie to you. But regardless of that, i dont think theres anything wrong with the disks being under the minimum per se, you just need to replace them when the pads are done.