[gac]

Out of interest, does anyone have a direct contact (email or phone, whichever) for the/a service manager at Stratstone Derby BMW?

I've been trying to chase down an issue where they recorded the mileage wrong on my service 5 weeks ago, and so far I've had nothing but runarounds - the service "associate" or whatever their title is who dealt with the drop-off/pick-up has left, I emailed the Head of Business with contact details in one of the follow up post-service emails, who has left. I've spoken to a different service associate both in-person on the day it happened and a couple of times by email, she's been on it and "sorting it" for two weeks now but her emails now bounce back with an automatic response containing no text. I'm assuming she's left.

They're a pain to get through to on the phone because if you're unlucky you get through to a call centre rather than the dealership, the few times I've managed to get through to the dealership have been pretty unproductive, I did manage to speak to the same woman who is now giving me the swerve, and I've just spoken to someone today who is going to follow it up but set expectations by saying she doesn't normally work in BMW so I guess she's actually the desk staff from the Mini side and already has her own full workload on. So I'm assuming today is a write-off and I'm going to have to be on the phone again tomorrow when maybe the BMW reception is staffed properly.

So if anyone happens to have a way to contact the service manager directly, then after a month I'm just over it. I just want it fixed now because it takes the piss how much of my effort I'm having to put into this because someone was (seemingly) too lazy to go and read 5 digits off the dashboard and read them off the key instead. And I don't expect I'll use them again, I only did it because for the bulk work I wanted they were actually cheaper than an independent, but it was still basically a grand and I definitely don't feel like I've had anywhere like that level of customer care...

[crAbb]

Contact customer service at BMW UK.

[McBeemer]

Originally Posted by gac

Out of interest, does anyone have a direct contact (email or phone, whichever) for the/a service manager at Stratstone Derby BMW?

I've been trying to chase down an issue where they recorded the mileage wrong on my service 5 weeks ago, and so far I've had nothing but runarounds - the service "associate" or whatever their title is who dealt with the drop-off/pick-up has left, I emailed the Head of Business with contact details in one of the follow up post-service emails, who has left. I've spoken to a different service associate both in-person on the day it happened and a couple of times by email, she's been on it and "sorting it" for two weeks now but her emails now bounce back with an automatic response containing no text. I'm assuming she's left.

They're a pain to get through to on the phone because if you're unlucky you get through to a call centre rather than the dealership, the few times I've managed to get through to the dealership have been pretty unproductive, I did manage to speak to the same woman who is now giving me the swerve, and I've just spoken to someone today who is going to follow it up but set expectations by saying she doesn't normally work in BMW so I guess she's actually the desk staff from the Mini side and already has her own full workload on. So I'm assuming today is a write-off and I'm going to have to be on the phone again tomorrow when maybe the BMW reception is staffed properly.

So if anyone happens to have a way to contact the service manager directly, then after a month I'm just over it. I just want it fixed now because it takes the piss how much of my effort I'm having to put into this because someone was (seemingly) too lazy to go and read 5 digits off the dashboard and read them off the key instead. And I don't expect I'll use them again, I only did it because for the bulk work I wanted they were actually cheaper than an independent, but it was still basically a grand and I definitely don't feel like I've had anywhere like that level of customer care...

It's unbelievable that we have to put up with this shoddy service from an expensive dealership of a "premium" brand

[Watsey]

Raise a formal complaint to BMW UK ?

[gac]

A formal complaint feels like a last resort for what is ultimately a pretty small issue. If it has to go that far then it has to go that far, but I feel like it could be sorted quicker if I could just manage to get hold of someone at Stratstone who isn't planning on immediately quitting after speaking to me

[speedski]

PM sent - its not the service contact, but Head of business, worth a shot.

[gac]

Originally Posted by speedski

PM sent - its not the service contact, but Head of business, worth a shot.

Brilliant, that’s definitely a different contact than I’ve had before so I’ll give that a go. As expected, I never got a call back today, so I’ll email the address you provided and after that I think I’ll have to just go to BMW UK cos I don’t think I’ll find anyone higher than your PM…

Appreciate the help!

[speedski]

Originally Posted by gac

Brilliant, that’s definitely a different contact than I’ve had before so I’ll give that a go. As expected, I never got a call back today, so I’ll email the address you provided and after that I think I’ll have to just go to BMW UK cos I don’t think I’ll find anyone higher than your PM…

Appreciate the help!

Oh I have the mailing list of who's who at pendragon that got me this contact - maybe that could be next

[gac]

I emailed the contact I got via DM. No response yet after a couple of days.

So I went into Stratstone to actually speak to someone because I think I got up on the wrong side of bed this morning and felt like ranting at someone. They agree that the key read was out of date, and because the mileage read from the key from August is lower than the recorded MOT mileage in March, there’s no issue proving that what’s been recorded in the history is wrong.

But they can’t change it, the options on the laptop are greyed out and unavailable, and the service manager is concerned that because we can’t prove what the mileage was on the day of the service, and the oil service wasn’t quite due (I just had it done a little early because it needed other work) that BMW might be funny about correcting it. So because I maintain the car “too well”, that may have caused an issue.

I’ve vented at him about the total lack of contact. I’ve vented at him about if I knew then what I knew now, I could have just given them the real key 6 weeks ago and it probably wouldn’t have been an issue, just that no one asked for that. I’ve vented at him that they could have done a second key read when I collected the car and proved the mileage 6 weeks ago but no one suggested it. I could have come back in at any point over the last 6 weeks but no one ever got in contact with me. They’ve got a key read from my key today which has about 900 miles since the service so it may be that it just has to be corrected to that.

It’s currently going to have to go to someone higher up within BMW rather than Stratstone to see if they can “make a case” for setting the mileage to what it should be, and if BMW refuse then I dunno where that leaves it other than having to take the car in for its next service 5000 miles early so there’s no massive gap. And the guy said it’s condition based servicing so even the 18k miles is “flexible”.

So we’ll see what happens, but it’s all a bit of a joke right now still. At least I know who the head of service is now, so I’ve answered my own question…

[Pond]

Originally Posted by gac

I emailed the contact I got via DM. No response yet after a couple of days.

So I went into Stratstone to actually speak to someone because I think I got up on the wrong side of bed this morning and felt like ranting at someone. They agree that the key read was out of date, and because the mileage read from the key from August is lower than the recorded MOT mileage in March, there’s no issue proving that what’s been recorded in the history is wrong.

But they can’t change it, the options on the laptop are greyed out and unavailable, and the service manager is concerned that because we can’t prove what the mileage was on the day of the service, and the oil service wasn’t quite due (I just had it done a little early because it needed other work) that BMW might be funny about correcting it. So because I maintain the car “too well”, that may have caused an issue.

I’ve vented at him about the total lack of contact. I’ve vented at him about if I knew then what I knew now, I could have just given them the real key 6 weeks ago and it probably wouldn’t have been an issue, just that no one asked for that. I’ve vented at him that they could have done a second key read when I collected the car and proved the mileage 6 weeks ago but no one suggested it. I could have come back in at any point over the last 6 weeks but no one ever got in contact with me. They’ve got a key read from my key today which has about 900 miles since the service so it may be that it just has to be corrected to that.

It’s currently going to have to go to someone higher up within BMW rather than Stratstone to see if they can “make a case” for setting the mileage to what it should be, and if BMW refuse then I dunno where that leaves it other than having to take the car in for its next service 5000 miles early so there’s no massive gap. And the guy said it’s condition based servicing so even the 18k miles is “flexible”.

So we’ll see what happens, but it’s all a bit of a joke right now still. At least I know who the head of service is now, so I’ve answered my own question…

Unless your car is under BMW warranty, I don't see why they are making such a fuss TBH.
"BMW UK might be funny about correcting it". Tough shit. It's not BMW's car, it's yours. It was their franchised dealer who cocked up, so they should be keen to help rectify it.

As long as you have a good idea what the mileage was when it was serviced, I would just tell them (not ask them tell them) to change it to that.

The lack of response and care from them is normal these days, but it doesn't make it right.

There are lot of people who need to find out what the phrase 'customer service' should mean IME. I partly blame the email culture, as it's so easy to hide behind those and do nothing.

[gac]

Originally Posted by Pond

There are lot of people who need to find out what the phrase 'customer service' should mean IME. I partly blame the email culture, as it's so easy to hide behind those and do nothing.

I usually prefer it, as it provides a written record - came in very handy in my old tech support days of "yes, I did say that" or vice versa. But as you say, that only works when anyone actually responds to them, which is the part I've had trouble with...

There's no warranty on the car, it's a 15 plate, I think it was a BMW Approved Used at some point so it might have had a longer warranty than normal, but I bought it privately.

I still don't fully understand the issue - he seemed to be trying to explain that the wrong record they have shows that the oil wasn't due for ~9000 miles. If we correct that for the real mileage, it still wasn't due for ~4000 miles. I think it all comes down to proof of what the mileage WAS on the day, and he's suggesting that since the oil still wasn't due for ~4000 miles, maybe that puts doubt that the mileage is what I took a picture of when I collected the car.

They do agree that what's on the computer MUST be wrong though because it disagrees with the MOT history which is obviously public and says that back in March the mileage was 400 miles higher than what they just recorded it as in August. So I don't see why it's so hard because there's proof that they already HAVE inaccurate history, if they fix it to what I say it should be then the worst that could happen is that it's still inaccurate but at least it doesn't look like the car's been clocked if anyone looked at the history and compared the mileage/dates.

Ultimately everything he seemed to be saying was suggesting that this was much easier to fix if things were done right at the time, and the 6 weeks of radio silence from them has made things much more difficult if not impossible. So he can have a few days to see what strings he can pull since it's a Saturday so I doubt he can phone anyone non-retail till Monday and if not it'll be the formal complaint to BMW with this extra addition added on the list of "things I've done to try and rectify this before it got this far".

[gac]

It’s all over!

I’m in the dealership right now while they rewrite the service history into the car (cos I don’t have ConnectedDrive or whatever).

The way I think it ended up resolved is that as well as the key read (which would have showed up that the key was 6 months out of date) they also pulled an “operations report” from the car, which is also date stamped on the day of the service and contains the dashboard mileage (it’s actually one mile out but I suspect that’s just down to inconsistent rounding in different systems and/or mile-km conversions). So they have the proof of what it was that day from this second report, which has convinced BMW in Germany or wherever to unlock the service history. Stratstone have deleted the wrong record and added a correct one on their end, and it’s being written to the car right now while I kill some time updating this post.

So for future reference, don’t give them a spare key that might be out of date, or if you do have to, make sure you let them know. If it’s wrong, kick up a bigger fuss immediately than I did because the longer it drags on, the more pushback you’ll likely get on correcting it. And if you have any non-BMW service history on your iDrive then probably say goodbye to it. Fortunately I don’t, but with them rewriting the entire history rather than just adding to it, I suspect they’d be removed due to not being on BMW’s servers.

[Armaan]

Originally Posted by gac

It’s all over!

I’m in the dealership right now while they rewrite the service history into the car (cos I don’t have ConnectedDrive or whatever).

The way I think it ended up resolved is that as well as the key read (which would have showed up that the key was 6 months out of date) they also pulled an “operations report” from the car, which is also date stamped on the day of the service and contains the dashboard mileage (it’s actually one mile out but I suspect that’s just down to inconsistent rounding in different systems and/or mile-km conversions). So they have the proof of what it was that day from this second report, which has convinced BMW in Germany or wherever to unlock the service history. Stratstone have deleted the wrong record and added a correct one on their end, and it’s being written to the car right now while I kill some time updating this post.

So for future reference, don’t give them a spare key that might be out of date, or if you do have to, make sure you let them know. If it’s wrong, kick up a bigger fuss immediately than I did because the longer it drags on, the more pushback you’ll likely get on correcting it. And if you have any non-BMW service history on your iDrive then probably say goodbye to it. Fortunately I don’t, but with them rewriting the entire history rather than just adding to it, I suspect they’d be removed due to not being on BMW’s servers.

Great outcome, glad you got it resolved.

You can have non-BMW service history, as long as you go to an indy that updates the BMW servers, in which case it will remain.
Reputable ones do, but it comes at a cost.

A