Lemons - what to do?

[jampac]

Australia has no anti-lemon laws. If your mate gets his money back it'll be out of the goodness of the heart of the dealer, ie its not going to happen. As far as I'm aware only one person has ever got there money back on a car sold to them from a dealer and they went thru a lot more shit than a broken gearbox and a month off the road.

[Spammy]

He can use the I work at Macquarie Bank so you better do the right thing other wise 80% of your future clients will hear about the problem during the watercooler chats.

Years ago one of the chicks in our department was havings some dramas with a Merc dealer, she basically spelt it out to him that she was Chinese, married to a doctor and worked at macquarie.....collectively that represented 99% of his buying demographic

He fixed the problem within hours

[Stix Zadinia]

macquarie bank, you don't know Daniel Hutchnson in brissy by any chance do you?

[itsnotagsr]

Its German (technically Bavarian) and has 10 cylinders and 4 doors.

For the four weeks they've had it, every Friday he gets a phone call saying "the part is on the plane, we'll have it fixed next week". This has been going on for 4 weeks now. You can forgive some inconvenience, but when the dealer gives you the "we treat our 1 series customers the same as we treat our 7 series customers" line, you have to be a little insulted. Surely when you've been a loyal customer several times over and just forked over for one of the companies top models, then you don't expect 1 series service!

Spammy, not just here at work, but now everyone at Qantas valet car parking knows about it and are happy to tell their customers about it. Not sure if they can change a gearbox in a couple of hours though.

911SC, that name doesn't exist on the staff directory. Perhaps someone has been telling you porkies.

[Spammy]

I would avoid the spiv at the dealership and speak directly to BMW Australia, they have a brand that they are very keen to protect.

[Shonky]

So it's a 7 speed SMG. SMG boxes are very complicated bits of gear. I think Motor had one on a test day and it shat itself. Probably from too many launches. I think the clutch decided it had had enough actually.

Lunched to me implies it's destroyed itself but if it's just a single part which might cause the whole thing to not work at all, then it's simply a matter of replacement.

If it was me (I wish). I'd make a polite call to dealer principal (if not done already). Then call BMW Australia (maybe mention te 1 series vs 7 series service bit) if that doesn't appease him. Then call/write BMW Deutschland explaining the situation if that gets nowhere. If that gets you nowhere then get shitty.

Either way I still don't think it's a lemon and that's not cause it's a BMW or a BMW that I'd love to own. I'd say the same thing about a Kia (except the wanting to own one bit)

[Spammy]

I'm not a big beliver in talking to everyone up the food chain before taking the complaint to the highest level....all you are doing is giving them advanced warning of where you are headed and allowing them time to fine tune their story and excuses.

I also don't have time to deal with arse clowns and their version of events when I all I'm interested in is my way.

[Shonky]

True. It's probably past the dealer stage anyway and calling Bavaria is probably extreme and unnecessary.

Call BMW Australia, ask for some senior to talk to about a brand new M5 with problems and state your (his) case.

[itsnotagsr]

Spammy. Thats good advice. I guess you need to take it to someone who has the authority to make a decision, not just toe the company line.

If anyone has a contact at BMW Australia (not in the marketing department), please PM me.

Shonky - I'm prone to guessing that its more likely some sort of electrical/computer fault, as it would be hard to break the actual gear sets etc. If you saw the owner, he's not the type to take it up the old pac and start doing a Mr Heli impersonation.

[Spammy]

If anyone has a contact at BMW Australia (not in the marketing department), please PM me.

.

I'm guessing a guy called Hans or Helmut or an outside chance, Klaus

[lumpy]

I believe sean (supercrown) had some issues with his wifes new VW - got absolutely nowhere with the dealer however by chance one of his mates met a bloke who turned out to be a director of VW/Audi South East Asia, informed him of the problem and things started happening very very quickly, including airfreighting a new transmission from germany.

My advice would be to go as high as you can - the dealer may not give two shits, but head office will go a lot further to protect their brand and retain a good customer.

[Shonky]

Fritz

[Matt]

itsnotagsr - which business unit are you in? my little sister works in T&C

[Jim]

Look at it like this. The new $400k car, which is infinately fucking complicated, has broken a gearbox widget. The replacement parts are still in Germany because the car is too new to have a full spares compliment sent to every dealer network in the world. It takes a week to dismantle the gearbox to confirm the widget is broken, 2 weeks to post it to Germany, 2 weeks for the German boffins to confirm it is a mechanical failure and not from doing burnouts or sticking it in reverse at 100kph. Then it takes 2 weeks to have the part sent back from germany. THEN it's a week or 2 to rebuild the car. On top of that, the Kraut boffins may want to fly over and look at the car, to see if they are going to be in for worldwide failures and expensive warranty. That's not even mentioning special tools and non-translated procedures the dealer here probably doesn't have!

If he gets it back in 2 months be happy. FFS have a reality check will you!

[Shonky]

Basically what I was thinking Secoh, but my mastery of the English language falls way short of yours

Spammy: What happened to your post with the BMW CEO? I got the email but it's not here