San Jose BMW - Bad Experience

[brasters]

Have had a bad Experience at San Jose the last couple of times I have dealt with them. Will not be going back.

Latest is that had an oil leak prior to CCR which I took my bike in to have checked, found that the breather hose on top of the motor had come off again. They had just fixed this as part of my 36K service. Since this was to require almost complete dis-assembly of my bike, I chose to forego repair till my return and scheduled the appt. for two and one half weeks later.

Morning of the appt. I drop the bike off and ask if the was anything else they needed from me, response was "Don't think so".
I receive a phone call at 5:05 PM asking me for my extended warranty contract (EWC) number, I let them know where it is on the bike, (I had already given that number for the initial diagnostic before the trip, that is why the repair ticket was still open from previous visit) So I ask them if they had verified the oil leak, get told that they had not even started on the bike, and the reason they had not was because they did not have the EWC number. At this point I was rather distressed that,

1) They had not bothered to let me know they needed the EWC number when I dropped off the bike.
2) They waited to call me till the end of the day.
3) Got excuses for why they waited till end of the day.

This was the final straw after having to fight them to fix a fuel gauge which had failed, and numerous times of having to redo assembly of the bike after finding missing screws, stripped screws, wrong screws used to attach panels, wrong oil installed for oil change, radio wiring not installed correctly (Radio/intercom did not work after picking bike up for service) Broken/missing/stripped screw clips.

This used to be a reliable shop, but this has changed drastically in the last year.

You can contact me directly for further details if required.

Bob R.

[tomandmelanie]

Can't say I feel any different. Went there with my wife to decide if I wanted to buy an LT or an RT for touring with her. After looking at the two bikes and asking questions for about 20 minutes I was told "you should go home and figure out what you want".

I figured out what my wife wanted and bought an LT, but not from SJ BMW. If they don't have time to sell you a bike they sure don't have time to provide service after the sale.

[Buckelew]

Bob,

I'm surprised it took you that long to find out that SJBMW sucks.

I do my own services. They charge me 150% ($14 shims for $21) of list price for valve shims, and they don't bother to keep them in stock or let me pull from the ones in the shop. I don't even want to trade, if they don't. I'm happy to buy - because my bike is torn down at that point. Instead I have to order the shims and put the bike back together until the shims come in.

I buy from Chicago BMW who sells me the $14 shims for $10.50. I get the shims in the same time as if I'd ordered from any of the surrounding dealers.

Then again, all the dealers around here charge the same for the shims. Screw them all.

When I had a repair done under warranty, it involved pulling the engine. I asked them to replace the clutch - including the slave cylinder. When I got the bike back and brought it to their attention that they didn't change the clutch slave, "the tech didn't think it needed changing". No shit. it's called preventative. I don't want to have to drop the back of the bike off at a later point.

Anyway....I have to get my Ohlins refreshed. I'll be damned if I'm going to bring it to SJBMW.