Are we being "had" with an M?

pvr

pvr

Dutch
 Ruler of the South East UK
Had the oil service done this morning on both my M as well as the X5. Brought my own oil, so purely labour charge.

Labour for M: £62
Labour for X5: £32

I asked why there was a difference - and the reason was that it was more complicated to reset the service interval system on the M.

Sounds like a load of bull to me. More the case of - it is an M, so lets charge more as they expect it to be more expensive or so ...
 
It took me 1 minute to reset my service interval indicator, and I can't imagine an X5 takes say 30s, but even at that they appear to be charging £32 for 30s more of work, so £64 a minute, or about £3600 an hour for service indicator resetting :P
 
Process is:
  • Lift car (1 minute)
  • Remove sump plug (1 minute)
  • Leave for 20 minutes (i.e. shouldn't be charging for this waiting period)
  • Remove filter (1 minute)
  • Refit sump plug (1 minute)
  • Fit new filter (1 minute)
  • Fill with oil (5 minutes)
  • Reset service indicator (5 minute)

So probably less than 15 minutes actual work (based on me doing it with a jack/axle stands with no special BMW training) for £62, or £248/hour. The process will be very similar on an X5, so there's no reason for the £30 extra labour charge.

So, yes we are being had - especially with those lengthy Inspection I/II checklists that look like a lot of work is being done when in fact it's only things like 'check washer fluid', 'check tread depth', etc.

I wonder if I told them that all these had been done by me an hour before bringing it in, would they reduce the Inspection II cost to £200 :wink:

Moot point really as I'm not planning on going to the dealer for any work unless it's covered under the warranty.
 
Your link to Opie at least saved me the exscessive oil costs though ... Much appreciated :thumbsup:
 
What oil do they use in the X5? The Castrol RS/Edge oil for the M engines is quite a bit higher than most normal/longlife oils. Doesn't account for it all though, I know.

My friend with and M3 and I both just refer to it as "//M Tax!"
 
I bought the X5 oil as well, Castol Edge 0w30 Turbodiesel.

Andy - remember I supplied my own oil, this was only labour charges ...
 
Actually, in trying to think of a good, well, valid reason (there isn't a good one, as like you say, the procedure is the same!), all I can think of is that IIRC, only certain BMW technicians are trained to work on M-cars within a dealership. So maybe they justify the cost because the engineer working on the car has had more training and "costs" more...

Still bull%$#@ tho!
 
It`s widely known it means Marketing and Money. I used to have an old 4 cylinder M3 and BMW used to charge over twice the cost of servicing a 318 which was also a 4 cyl. They used the same oil although the spark plugs were a lot more expensive but filter was about the same cost. The rest was just down to the additional labour they charged for working on an M car. Some say BMW use M as a Multipler. if M3 then charge 3 times the cost of parts as non-M cars (for specific parts to the M), if M5 charge 5 times more :cry:

I ended up finding a specialist although finding someone to trust to do the job properly was difficult and came with it`s own risks
 
pvr said:
and the reason was that it was more complicated to reset the service interval system on the M.
Click to expand...
Unbelievable...

When I had mine serviced in March, they forgot to reset the indicator. I phoned them and said I will not take it in they can come to me. Literally 20 mins before they arrived I found a 'how-to' for resetting it but thought I'll let them do it anyway.

The guy arrived, took about a minute max.

Disgusting how they treat bloody customers based on your costs.
 
M tax is the same as RS tax on a Ford! I've owned some RS Fords in the past and a shared part with a "lesser" model costs more for an RS!
 
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