Reason for Visit: Service
I recommend this dealer: No
My Review of Irvine BMW:
Last week my wife mentioned to me that the iPod adapter in her 2004 325i was not working - plugging in an iPod did not give the usual 'BMW' display, and pressing the input button gave the 'no disk' error. so she called Irvine BMW and they asked her to book it in and they would fix it.
The service guy left her a message that the iPod would not work because the car had XM, but they have changed the oil for her.
Well yes she has XM, but its a $50 Roady XT rather than an XM direct unit, get this - it is not connected to the radio - it uses FM to transmit the music.
She relays this message to me and I am already for a fight as I am at a loss as to how this might cause the iPod adapter to stop working, I figure that this is going to be 'interesting'.
She calls the service monkey - Billy - and gets his Voicemail - she leaves a 'what the heck are you talking about' type of message. Actually it was a fairly harsh message, but I digress....
We get there at about 3:30 and seek out 'Billy', he says that they have changed the oil, but the iPod adapter does not work with XM. My wife points out that it has worked for many months, Billy is absolutely adamant that BMW say that the two cannot co-exist and stops short of telling her that she is stupid - but only just.
Finally I step in, I point out that the XM unit is not connected to the radio and the the iPod adapter simply stopped working a week ago, he just keeps repeating that BMW say that they two cannot work together, I explain, quietly, but forcefully that he is completely wrong. He just keeps stating that XM and iPod are mutually exclusive - obviously I am not getting through to him so I raise my voice and realize that I am causing a scene asking if he understands what I am saying. He says he understands, but it is pretty obvious that he does not understand me.
I explain - pretty forcefully - that the XM unit is not actually connected at all to the head unit. I actually offer to bet him $1000 that it is not connected and that it therefore does not use the same inputs as the iPod / CD Changer. He however is adamant and will not be persuaded. He then tells me that the iPod adapter in the car is not a BMW one ? (yeah thats why the iPod says 'BMW' on it and the instructions for the unit are marked BMW and in the glove box.
Eventually he calls the the service tech over, this guy also re-iterates that BMW say that you cannot have both XM and an iPod. I think that this guys is about as 'technical' as my goldfish and say so.
I bet this guy $10,000 that he cannot find a connection, and that the XM unit that I am using does not even go close to the CD changer inputs. It finally dawns on him that the service monkey that had written the report simply saw 'XM' and figured that it would not work - he calls the head tech.
The head tech (who appears to be a smart cookie) offers to take a look, and if the unit is faulty will swap it out for me - hooray.
Billy meanwhile tells my wife that she should be more descriptive on her fault definition, apparently writing 'iPod adapter broken' was insufficient and he tries to tell her that the confusion is all her fault.
30 minutes later The head tech has swapped everything and it all works, apparently the unit was 'faulty' so he replaced the whole kit.
I give them 1's across the board, the attitude, the 'quality of fault finding', the extreme level of aggression and arrogance from Billy was utterly uncalled for. Considering it took the head tech less time to fix it than we spent yelling at each other I can honestly say that the experience was utterly terrible.
Finally, they 'washed' the car. I am not sure exactly what they used to wash it, my personal theory is that they probably used a secret combination of muddy water and wire wool. There are so many swirl marks in the paint now that it is almost criminal.
The only 'good thing' was that there was no cost, except the emotional and future car detailing ones...
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