[DanDiver]

I thought I'd get a second opinion (or many more) on an ongoing problem with my wife's 2002 BMW car with 36,000 miles. Throughout the warranty period, we have had problems with the headliner on the top and sides coming unglued. The seams on all leather seats, front and back are deteriorating.

The car was bought new from a BMW dealer in town and they have done all maintenance on the car. Dealer, throughout warranty period fixed the headliner problems at no charge and now that it is out of warranty, there are more headliner problems and seats are falling apart. Dealer says they will do repairs at no charge if we buy parts at $850.00. I called BMW and they say it is a dealer/customer issue.

I thought about elevating the problem to BMW and the dealer ownership but felt a second opinion from more knowledgeable people on this board would be helpful before I went off on an unarmed fight.

Any suggestions or hints on a better way of handling this problem or should I just suck it up and now start paying for the repairs?

 

[andy]

How often and in what intervals do you have DOCUMENTED problems of the same kind?

 

[DanDiver]

Everything is documented

All repairs have been done by same local dealer and I have copies of all of the work and complaints. Dealer's service people agree that they have used inferieur glue, but it is required by BMW factory. They admit that the glue does not hold up in Florida and that they think that the Florida sun has caused the leather seats to either shrink or thread in seats to deteriorate.

I'm planning to write to the owner of the BMW dealership and BMW corporate, but thought I'd try to do it correctly, if there is a chance of resolution.

 

[andy]

You did not answer the questions. How many times and when did you have it in for repair?

 

[DanDiver]

5 times in and out of warranty

Sorry !

Problems started two years into the warranty with the sides of the headliner coming loose. Several pieces have been glued back two times and several pieces once. All repairs and dates documented. Local dealer glued the last two pieces out of warranty at their expense. I have not paid for any repairs. Seats started to deteriorate one year out of warranty and have not been repaired. Dealer refuses to cover the cost.

 

[andy]

In my opinion
you should have a good standing in terms of the glue. Especially since you have 5 documented cases of trying to repair this.

I am afraid though that in terms of the seats they will not budge. Here is the Thinking why not: The car is in FL, where we KNOW there is MUCH SUN. Sun as we deterioates everything. Whether you had the car in agarage or not does not have any impact here. Besides, the problems started after the warranty was over.

 

[DanDiver]

Thanks Andy

I appreciate your opinion..... Don't necessarily like it, but I will take what you said into sincere consideration.... now back to our regular scheduled broadcast.....

 

[Ted Shred]

I agree with Andy. If you had repairs done then those repairs should have a warranty of some sort the extends beyond the original factory warranty. You should be able to get BMW NA to pay for this again.

Work with your dealer, they should contact their BMW service rep and he should be able to approve this type of repair.

For now you need to be nice and not mention litigation and things like that. You will get much farther dealing with the service reps through the dealer.

 

[Dick]

I appreciate your opinion..... Don't necessarily like it, but I will take what you said into sincere consideration.... now back to our regular scheduled broadcast.....

'For you go, Dano --- I'd ax the dealer how many other BMW autos of the same general statistic (model, model year) have they NOT been able to fix. None/some/few or many; might be good info to have in your arsenal.