BMW vote of no confidence?

N

ncrossy1980

Active member
 Newcastle Upon Tyne
I was just reading the M running cost thread and someone mentioned the BMW warranty, so, expecting that it was gonna be reasonably expensive I went and done done a quote on my M for a BMW warranty.

06 plate, 65k miles.

I wasn't expecting this, I was quoted an eye watering bollox smacking £3158 for 1 years warranty with a £100 excess. £2513 with a £250 excess.

Crucially here, lowering the mileage of the quote to 35k reduced the warranty to £1119 with a £100 excess.

Read into that what you will, me being 100% cynical reads that as meaning BMW wouldn't be surprised if this car goes tragically wrong as the miles rise. And 65k isn't even high mileage for 'a car', it's high in relation to other examples but for a car in general it isn't high. Also, again crucially, these prices are based on the assumption that the car has been serviced according to the strict service schedule without any fault.

Shocked. And a little concerned.
 
I am actually looking to renew my warranty currently been quoted around £800 I think, but they keep messing me about with the exact price. at one point it was £651 and I was biting their arm off! I got the - ' I am sorry sir it was misquoted to you' .....for comparison. 07 car, 48K,FSH

yours seems a tad high for some strange reason. maybe there is a threshold at 60K.....
 
That's why the advice is to get it on a monthly policy as soon as possible, as the price is static until you change the excess/coverage. Mine was £80 a month for about 4 years.

I only stopped when it became obvious that at 100k miles the warranty would no longer cover lots of the little bits, and as I'd already had a new engine & diff, I didn't think it was worth continuing. Mine's now on 133k and not had any major issues since I cancelled the warranty (only a sidelight bulb & headlight washer jet).

I wonder if claim history has anything to do with it? Has your's had any big claims you know of?
 
Fast3000 said:
I am actually looking to renew my warranty currently been quoted around £800 I think, but they keep messing me about with the exact price. at one point it was £651 and I was biting their arm off! I got the - ' I am sorry sir it was misquoted to you' .....for comparison. 07 car, 48K,FSH

yours seems a tad high for some strange reason. maybe there is a threshold at 60K.....
Click to expand...
I just ran an 07 coupe with 48k miles through the online quote system and it's come back with £1359 with the £100 excess. Are you calling them direct? How can it be that much different on the phone to an online quote, its the same warranty :? Obviously at £3000+ for a year it's a no deal, it's ludicrous.

Monthly figure quote was in the region of £250+ which again is not a feasible or reasonable option. I didn't have the option of getting this earlier, I picked the car up at 64k miles.
 
When I looked, the only one worth having was the fully comp one, as the driveline one had a max claim of about 5k or something , which was no where near enough for a new engine.

I didn't bother with it
 
ncrossy1980 said:
I was just reading the M running cost thread and someone mentioned the BMW warranty, so, expecting that it was gonna be reasonably expensive I went and done done a quote on my M for a BMW warranty.

06 plate, 65k miles.

I wasn't expecting this, I was quoted an eye watering bollox smacking £3158 for 1 years warranty with a £100 excess. £2513 with a £250 excess.

Crucially here, lowering the mileage of the quote to 35k reduced the warranty to £1119 with a £100 excess.

Read into that what you will, me being 100% cynical reads that as meaning BMW wouldn't be surprised if this car goes tragically wrong as the miles rise. And 65k isn't even high mileage for 'a car', it's high in relation to other examples but for a car in general it isn't high. Also, again crucially, these prices are based on the assumption that the car has been serviced according to the strict service schedule without any fault.

Shocked. And a little concerned.
Click to expand...

I think you've got to remember theses are nearly 10 year old cars now, a lot of which are likely to have been thrashed at some point by someone which is fine but BMW are taking your word for it that its been warmed up correctly each time before a good spirited drive, correct grade of oil used at Indy garages etc. (I presume the warranty is based on the schedule being followed as opposed to must be followed and at BMW garages?).

In any case, I'm not too surprised, or worried by that, I don't think it's BMW having no confidence in the car at all. Look around M3 Cutters and even this forum and you can see how many of these engines/car's have failed catastrophically, very few. Head Gasket's can (and probably will) start to go at some point, VANOS refurb'ing etc etc. The real wallet breakers like big ends going for example only really seem to happen on heavily tracked cars, or one's that regularly bump off the limiter and live in the 7-8k revs. The list goes on, but it's no different from any other performance car :thumbsup: If anyone gets an M car expecting cheap motoring with high performance car stats, then they've made a mistake buying one IMHO, probably why a lot of them have lots of previous owners :wink:

I think you're better off putting warranty money into 'saving's if you like and stay on top of proper maintenance and your much less likely to have problems in the first place then. The prices you've quoted, it certainly wouldn't seem worth it to me.
 
All that is perfectly valid. But no reasonable person is going to pay £3500 for a years warranty. BMW surely know that. Why price a product if you know it isn't going to be bought? ...because you don't want it to be bought? :?

That's how my negative train of thought works anyway!
 
ncrossy1980 said:
All that is perfectly valid. But no reasonable person is going to pay £3500 for a years warranty. BMW surely know that. Why price a product if you know it isn't going to be bought? ...because you don't want it to be bought? :?

That's how my negative train of thought works anyway!
Click to expand...

Some people probably would! :rofl:
It is a massively over-inflated price, BMW always is. I guess they look at it as the worst case scenario, car's getting on a bit, no real way of tracking if it's had 'proper' servicing, a high performance car that's likely to have been spanked, engine failure and replace would swallow that £3k straight away! If I was the chap handing out warranty's I wouldn't even entertain it :rofl: I don't know mate, but either way I'm still not massively surprised at that price TBH.

On that though, is that a price with a FBMWSH or just stamps in the book from any garage? If it's the latter, then I'm surprised it's not even more!
 
The maths is quite simple really, and logic says it applies to any car, not just a
BMW -

Low miles - low likelihood of significant / costly failure - warranty payments lower as they will be gathering the cost of any (unlikely) claim over a longer period.

Higher miles - higher likelihood of significant /costly failure - warranty payments higher as they will not have so much time to gather the cost of any (more likely, but not certain) claim.

It is a basic assessment of risk measured against their whole market of cars... And remember that probably a low % of people actually take out warranties.

The maths becomes different if they have maintained the car for it's whole life, and the warranty has been continual and they will look at 'whole life profitability' of their maintained cars in assessing the cost/benefit of their warranty fees. Also, if you have a warranty deal already and stay with it then it is very hard for them to justify an increase.

As soon as someone stops paying the warranty and/or breaks the BMW service history it may get more expensive if you try to re-start it as I guess the maths up top kicks in.

At least that's what I think :D

What I don't get is the extreme cost you've been quoted - best to call them I think....
 
AndyBeech said:
ncrossy1980 said:
I was just reading the M running cost thread and someone mentioned the BMW warranty, so, expecting that it was gonna be reasonably expensive I went and done done a quote on my M for a BMW warranty.

06 plate, 65k miles.

I wasn't expecting this, I was quoted an eye watering bollox smacking £3158 for 1 years warranty with a £100 excess. £2513 with a £250 excess.

Crucially here, lowering the mileage of the quote to 35k reduced the warranty to £1119 with a £100 excess.

Read into that what you will, me being 100% cynical reads that as meaning BMW wouldn't be surprised if this car goes tragically wrong as the miles rise. And 65k isn't even high mileage for 'a car', it's high in relation to other examples but for a car in general it isn't high. Also, again crucially, these prices are based on the assumption that the car has been serviced according to the strict service schedule without any fault.

Shocked. And a little concerned.
Click to expand...

I think you've got to remember theses are nearly 10 year old cars now, a lot of which are likely to have been thrashed at some point by someone which is fine but BMW are taking your word for it that its been warmed up correctly each time before a good spirited drive, correct grade of oil used at Indy garages etc. (I presume the warranty is based on the schedule being followed as opposed to must be followed and at BMW garages?).

In any case, I'm not too surprised, or worried by that, I don't think it's BMW having no confidence in the car at all. Look around M3 Cutters and even this forum and you can see how many of these engines/car's have failed catastrophically, very few. Head Gasket's can (and probably will) start to go at some point, VANOS refurb'ing etc etc. The real wallet breakers like big ends going for example only really seem to happen on heavily tracked cars, or one's that regularly bump off the limiter and live in the 7-8k revs. The list goes on, but it's no different from any other performance car :thumbsup: If anyone gets an M car expecting cheap motoring with high performance car stats, then they've made a mistake buying one IMHO, probably why a lot of them have lots of previous owners :wink:

I think you're better off putting warranty money into 'saving's if you like and stay on top of proper maintenance and your much less likely to have problems in the first place then. The prices you've quoted, it certainly wouldn't seem worth it to me.
Click to expand...

The price is based on the assumption that it has been fully serviced on schedule, I don't think the price would drop if it was a main dealer or an indie.

Totally agreed on the point of putting money aside, much better and more efficient way of handling repairs.

However my original point was more about the message behind the price of the warranty.

Here's a question. Say a M car has been serviced bang on date, bang on schedule, not a blip in the history... it's been treated well and correctly by a careful owner, is it going to still be an expected requirement to have major engine component refurbishment at some stage circa 70-90k miles?
 
There's a lot of subjectivity in 'treated well and correctly by a careful owner' - risk assessments don't cope well with subjectivity.
 
I have been through researching the warranty recently - there is the >60k miles as well the the ///M vs. non. I believe the difference in the quote for ncrossy1980 and Fast3000 is the ///M bit.
 
Pay the monthly £250 into a bank account and wait for something to go wrong. You'll probably end up with a bigger savings pot than you would have had otherwise!
 
The price is based on the assumption that it has been fully serviced on schedule, I don't think the price would drop if it was a main dealer or an indie.

Totally agreed on the point of putting money aside, much better and more efficient way of handling repairs.

However my original point was more about the message behind the price of the warranty.

Here's a question. Say a M car has been serviced bang on date, bang on schedule, not a blip in the history... it's been treated well and correctly by a careful owner, is it going to still be an expected requirement to have major engine component refurbishment at some stage circa 70-90k miles?
Click to expand...

I think it deffo would drop if it was main dealer. How many regular car Indy's would know how to service an M properly using correct grade oil, genuine parts, shimming etc? That would have to be accounted for in my book. Even though I use Indy's, such as Redish and TWG, I wouldn't expect BMW to know their pedigree and that they probably service the car better than a main dealer would!

As Bing said though (and seems to be very knowledgeable on), what is treated well and correctly? The chap who uses it on regular track days, servicing by respected Indy's, oil changes twice a year, always lets the car warm up correctly and wants for nothing. Or Doris who has a FBMWSH but drives the car like she stole it as soon as she's turned the ignition every morning and revs up to the orange lights on the rev counter believing that as soon as they go out the car is ready for a pasting becasuse that's what the manual infers....even though they are linked to coolant temp not oil.

To answer your question though, who knows? Without knowing your car's exact past history down to every point including how it's been driven every time it's fired up, it's an impossible thing to know, and even if you did know that it's still impossible to know. So the answer is, yes and no :wink:
From what I know of these engines, and the research I've done, the most likely failure at that kind of mileage would be the head gasket, so if you keep the car that long, budget for that would be my advice.
 
@ncrossy yes talking to them direct. this was the quote two weeks ago may have changed....

Comprehensive
Under 60,000 Miles
No Emergency Service Annual
Excess £100
£842
£77 monthly
 
Just a small point to throw into the mix... Car manufacturers are most interested in selling cars, not keeping them on the road for 10 years...
... previously BMW (and a few others) liked to see old versions of their vehicles on the road for brand reputation, these days I don't think anyone really cares!

So a warranty that seems expensive might just push the consumer towards taking a new vehicle, on a PCP deal, that is brand new and has a warranty already.
I don't feel that us true car geeks put that much faith in warranties anyway, although that might just be me, I'd rather save the money and ensure I keep on top of maintenance.

It's almost 10 years since I worked in the BMW franchise network, but my experience of dealerships these days is very different to what it was only 10 years ago...
... Sales rules these days, it's obvious if you try and contact the parts department, they've no interest in you at all!

I really don't think it's a vote of no confidence, it's just a priority thing for BMW, hence why they would make the price unappealing.
 
JimmiVW said:
Just a small point to throw into the mix... Car manufacturers are most interested in selling cars, not keeping them on the road for 10 years...
... previously BMW (and a few others) liked to see old versions of their vehicles on the road for brand reputation, these days I don't think anyone really cares!

So a warranty that seems expensive might just push the consumer towards taking a new vehicle, on a PCP deal, that is brand new and has a warranty already.
I don't feel that us true car geeks put that much faith in warranties anyway, although that might just be me, I'd rather save the money and ensure I keep on top of maintenance.

It's almost 10 years since I worked in the BMW franchise network, but my experience of dealerships these days is very different to what it was only 10 years ago...
... Sales rules these days, it's obvious if you try and contact the parts department, they've no interest in you at all!

I really don't think it's a vote of no confidence, it's just a priority thing for BMW, hence why they would make the price unappealing.
Click to expand...
That's actually a genuinely interesting point :thumbsup: Pricing you into a new car by making you think you're current car isn't financially viable any more. There definitely could be an element of that going on here.
Then I look at Taz with his cheap as chips warranty :headbang: haha Ah well, it's a no from me either way!
 
ncrossy1980 said:
JimmiVW said:
Just a small point to throw into the mix... Car manufacturers are most interested in selling cars, not keeping them on the road for 10 years...
... previously BMW (and a few others) liked to see old versions of their vehicles on the road for brand reputation, these days I don't think anyone really cares!

So a warranty that seems expensive might just push the consumer towards taking a new vehicle, on a PCP deal, that is brand new and has a warranty already.
I don't feel that us true car geeks put that much faith in warranties anyway, although that might just be me, I'd rather save the money and ensure I keep on top of maintenance.

It's almost 10 years since I worked in the BMW franchise network, but my experience of dealerships these days is very different to what it was only 10 years ago...
... Sales rules these days, it's obvious if you try and contact the parts department, they've no interest in you at all!

I really don't think it's a vote of no confidence, it's just a priority thing for BMW, hence why they would make the price unappealing.
Click to expand...
That's actually a genuinely interesting point :thumbsup: Pricing you into a new car by making you think you're current car isn't financially viable any more. There definitely could be an element of that going on here.
Then I look at Taz with his cheap as chips warranty :headbang: haha Ah well, it's a no from me either way!
Click to expand...

Is a good point! Like you say I always look for a reason behind something, as there usually is! I don't think the mechanics have anything to do with it, but this seems likely.
Taz's quote isn't for an M (tax) by the way :wink:
 
My 3.0Si was £37 per month and my M is £92 per month.

ncrossy1980, I actually got a quote on your when I was enquiring about it and it was well over £3k.

The car I bought in the end cost £1200 for the year. (2006 with 50k on the clock)
 
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