[Beejay]

Hi All,
Had the car for about 9 months now and done about 8500km. A couple of days ago a message popped up with a yellow triangle, saying
"Vehicle Check Inspection due soon. Please arrange an appointment with BMW Service". And in the service section of iDrive it also indicates "7000km - Vehicle Check".
Now, couple of questions:
- I was under the impression that the Condition Based Servicing doesn't have fixed service intervals (and the manual seems to confirm that). How come there is a message insinuating something is due at 7000km ?
- I called up the dealership and they acted surprised, asking if we've been driving the car rather rough (which of course we didn't). They said best to bring it in and - minimum $212, thank you.
- It is now almost exactly a year since the car was manufactured (we took delivery last June, but production was late March/early April) - has that got something to do with it? Maybe the dealership didn't reset a counter or something before we took delivery??

All comments appreciated, thanks.

[John_01]

I heard from the dealer when I bought my car in July 2009, that they now do inspections after 12 months. My understanding is they won't change the oil in normal circumstances, so it seems like a waste of time and money. Apparently some cars that are driven very agressively needed attention earlier than predicted by the condition based montoring, so BMW changed their policy to inspect the cars after 12 months.

[QUM01Z]

Mine is goin on to 14 months old having done 9500 clicks, still waiting for service alert to pop up

[samchuang33]

It is just a marketing strategy for the service department to make money out of u more. They never did that for the older cars and it was fine so why do u need to do it now. I think they prgrame the service indicator on the newer cars to come on to bug u so u will eventually give in and to bring it into service to clear it.

Anyway, my 330d has done 12000ks already and it said that i still have another few thousand before check up. However, i did ask the dealership to do a extra oil change at 7500ks. But regardless of the oil change i did at 7500ks, the service indicator alway said that the next schedual check up is when the car is at 15000ks.

[johnnydad]

LOL you are complaining about them marketing extra services and you got them to do an extra oil change yet when I asked they said not to waste my money

My 325i is 15 months since purchase and now tells me I need brake fluid replaced. This is as brake fluid is replaced according to time, not distance and the care is an April 08 build.

Beejay do you recall how long your car was saying service was due just before the message came up?

[John_01]

Originally Posted by samchuang33

Anyway, my 330d has done 12000ks already and it said that i still have another few thousand before check up. However, i did ask the dealership to do a extra oil change at 7500ks. But regardless of the oil change i did at 7500ks, the service indicator alway said that the next schedual check up is when the car is at 15000ks.

I think the service menu shows more than just a km for service. It shows the Km remaining to inspection, the date due for next inspection, and finally the km and date due for oil change. The service menu allows you to scroll through different icons that I understand to represent each of inspection and oil change.

[samchuang33]

Originally Posted by johnnydad

LOL you are complaining about them marketing extra services and you got them to do an extra oil change yet when I asked they said not to waste my money

I am happy to pay for the extra oil change i ask but dont think i will pay $212 or what ever it is so that they can tell u "Your car is running normally" Besides, the computer electronics on the car is quite smart and will usually tell u if something is not right.

Just my 2 cent

[Beejay]

Thanks all for your feedback - on balance it looks like this is a bit of a money making thing (who'd have thunk? ) - I think I wait at least until 1 year of ownership before having this checked ....

[bcoz]

Originally Posted by Beejay

A couple of days ago a message popped up with a yellow triangle, saying
"Vehicle Check Inspection due soon. Please arrange an appointment with BMW Service". And in the service section of iDrive it also indicates "7000km - Vehicle Check".

If the message pops up again, I'd be tempted to take it in just to be on the safe side. If the message is a false positive, it could indicate a problem with the car management system.

Another member here had an intermittent warning about the ABS which went away, only to reappear after his car was out of warranty.

[cruvon]

when took my car for servicing they forgot to set the next service date, when asked them they said that's fine as long as I do the part replacements according to the Condition based service, so I guess the service date is just to do things like an oil change et al and a general check, was asked to get the car in to set the servicing date to 2 years from current date but guess am better not taking it in to do that reset..