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Update:
My dealership wanted to charge me their standard $179 “diagnostic fee” just to look at/drive my car to determine if my transfer case was bad. I was unhappy about this because I was quite sure I knew it is casing the hesitation when accelerating. I held off setting an appointment and then called back later only for them to tell me they were now all booked for the day. I explained I was concerned about taking my family for a 500 mile trip to Canada this Friday and the service person said no problem, just drive up without an appointment. That saved me $179 right there. However the shop foreman who does test drives had 3 other cars in front of me so I had to wait around for an hour. That turned out to be a benefit... the foreman finally was sent over to me and I explained I thought my transfer case was failing. He was suspicious about my wife wheels in the back and didn’t seem to believe me at first that I actually ordered my M-Sport wagon with staggered wheels with summer tires. I assured him they were stock BMW tire sizes and he said he had a feeling that if my second transfer case is now failing at 50k miles, there must be a reason and he suspects it is the staggered tires. A short test drive of just a minutes was all he needed to agree that indeed my transfer case was failing. I explained that my budget would not allow for the regular dealer charge for this replacement and he suggested I talk with the manager of service for the whole dealership. He seemed doubtful I would get a break but he said if you make enough noise, you never know. When the manager finally called me in to his office he was already apologizing that I had to wait around an hour so that set the tone right off the bat. I asked if I should contact the service manager for my district at bmw NA and he said it was not necessary- he would give me a good price to keep up customer relations as I am a repeat customer of his dealership and they are proud of their #1 customer satisfaction rating. They sent me home in a nice new 5 series and the car should be ready by the end of the day today. I didn’t mention that earlier I did put that call into bmw NA even before going to the dealer. (Lucky for me I have a friend who knows high up people in BMW) so there is still a possibility I might not be paying anything in the end. Either way the repair will be less than a grand so thts not bad for my very first repair out of warranty. Like many say, these cars are expensive when the warranty runs out!
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