Went into my stealer this morning and went to the salesman and said I need to talk cos its leaking again. He whisked me off to the service dept and told the service manager it was leaking again. The service manager said he really doesn't know where its leaking from (this is obvious, cos its not fixed!). Anyway, the conversation then went onto escalating it to BMW in Germany via a system called "Puma" where it would go to a techy dept. Another option, apparently they have a facility in Bracknell (I think) that has turbines and sounds like a wind tunnel, that they can use to force the water in, to actually pinpoint the leak. They said it might be an option to take the car there.
The salesman said to the service chap why don't they just replace the seals - apparently BMW won't authorise that until he can tell them where the leak is coming from...and thats the problem, they don't know!
So I left the service department with there next plan of action being to escalate it to Germany for advice.
I asked the salesman for a talk, so we went back to his desk and sat down. I explained that the car has been in 4 times and they clearly don't know what the problem is, so what are the options for getting a replacement car. He basically said, that at this stage, those options were zero! Unless it was a serious safety risk, then BMW would rather fix it on warranty rather than replace the car (obviously!). He said they would fix it, but how long it will take he doesn't know! I said that was my point....I could be in the same position in 6 months time! I used my analogy of buying a TV and it being faulty....it would be swapped out, not repaired.
I said I am happy for it to be looked at again and even be sent off to this wind tunnel place, but that I want if fixing on the next visit. They are following procedure, and to be honest, now they have escalated it to BMW in Germany, there is the chance that they will have seen it before? (although on visit number 1, they told me they'd phoned for advice and the people they were asking had no idea....).
They told me they would ring when they had an update but it might not be till Monday. So I rang them today to check and as expected, no update yet. They suggested sending photo's to BMW, so I will email the salesman my photo's.
So, not really any further forward, but I have let them know that I am now losing patients. However, they've also let me know that it could play ping-ping going in and out for quite a while, so I will see what advice they get from BMW and then think about putting something in writing.
Oh, one thing he said when I mentioned about a replacement car : he said that as a dealership he would be happy to help me change to another car...but that would cost me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's not that I want another car (i.e. a 3 series etc). I still want the Z4...I just want one that doesn't leak!
Here's the video I took this morning after the car had been sat in the rain all night:
