[stbm5]

these cars have so many electric features that low batteries are normal if you aren't driving a lot or if you are in a cold climate. get the charger, top it up once a week. if its cold where you are put a oil radiator space heater in the garage. its been regularly in the teens and 20s at night here and when i head out the battery is charged and tires are at 55 degrees or above.

[Altamate]

Originally Posted by afadeev

Long story short - if you care about the relationship with a supplier (for car-oriented services, or something more important in life), challenge them to defend their position and see how they respond.
If the vendor makes excuses and deflects responsibility - ditch them. If they want to work things out with you and make things right - you may have run into someone having a bad day, and now you know the vendor is solid and will do right by you in the future.

YMMV,
a

Your advice is good, and our situations were similar, and I could escalate and ask for a proper response to see how they act. I’m not sure I want to invest the time for the reason below.

In my case it played out over multiple days, with multiple calls involving 3 people from the dealership having multiple conversations about the problem(so how many people were having a bad few days?) and finally a BMW Canada warranty rep.

I did challenge them on the diagnosis and resulting recommended service twice and only got the full story once BMW said it just needed to be driven more. Up to that point the SA/Mechanic both still recommended battery replacement.

Even if I escalate and they somehow make it right, why would I want to partnership with their incompetence(if that’s all this was) in the future. I would have to trust that they all got smarter from this one event. (Maybe they did regarding batteries, but who knows what else they don’t know?) And that’s if it was just incompetence not a bad process set up from the get go to take money from customers who may not have enough experience to protect themselves.

Further once they figured out they were in the wrong, if they were really Customer focused, they could have offered more than an apology. I feel like they had their hand in my pocket stealing my wallet when I caught them, I’m not sure any kind of offer from them can regain the trust I need to want to work with them going forward.