BEWARE Service Repair Center is dishonest. But you be the judge. Our 2019 BMW 530e was in perfect condition with AAA insurance. No prior accidents. In Oct 2024 husband had what we thought was a minor accident. Brushed up against the cement divider in a construction area on freeway. The driver side wheels took the brunt, scaping the metal down, scratches on corner of fender, and minor scratch on side view mirror. NO dents, just scrapes. Tires were fine. Dash warning lights came on of course and the car started driving a bit off. He drove it home, then decided to file a claim and chose to have BMW do repairs instead of AAA recommended facility. What a mistake! We had it towed to BMW Elk Grove, out of caution. Quote came back that it would over $12k+ to repair, and that was NOT including wheels and body work to fix the scrapes. They claimed the Rack & Pinion had to replaced and a laundry list of other stuff per their fancy computer print-out. Talk about SHOCKED! Our insurance said, NOPE we're going to "total it" gave us a payout price, or we could "buy it back". After getting over the shock, we decided it would too much hassle to try and have it fixed ourselves, and we'd have a salvaged title car. Extremely disappointed, we told insurance we'd just take the settlement. We would never be able to replace with amount paid. Adjuster said, we had 3 days to change your mind. The same night we talked to our very good, life-long friend, who has his own automotive repair facility in another state, in the business over 30 years. We told him what happened and he said, that sounds very fishy and INSISTED we buy it back. If we didn't, he asked if he could buy it. We agreed. The next day, called adjuster and told him, and husband drive down to BMW to make arrangements to have it brought back. BMW said, we were too late, the car was already sold off to salvage and it's gone. WHAT? That can't be right. Luckily the tow truck driver who had taken it from our house to BMW happened to be there for another job, and he overheard the conversation and chimed-in and said what are you talking about, that Car is out back exactly where I left it the prior day. It's there now. I just saw it. The BMW guy tried to play it off, and said he was confused on which car. We had tow truck driver bring it back to our house, and our friend made arrangements to have it shipped to him. When our friend started diving into what would be needed, he removed the sealed compartment where the Rack and Pinion are housed and found that the wiring (inside this sealed area) had been torn apart. He could not fathom how that could have happened by brushing up against a divider. It looked like it had been purposely torn apart. He said, there was a small opening where someone could have shoved a long tool up grabbed the wires and yanked. To fix it, all he did was soldered the wires back together, gave it an alignment, and spent a couple hundred $ for a special BMW code reader to make sure no other codes were present. Took it for a test drive and all the dash lights were gone, and car drove perfectly. Here's the kicker, when he went to register the vehicle, it was a CLEAN title. BMW did NOT report the damage as SALVAGED. Our friend now has a Great car for cheap, with a CLEAN TITLE!
In my opinion, there is someone at BMW Elk Grove that is trying to SCAM people. We are now out of a car, but at least the person who gets to benefit from this scam was NOT them! We've contemplated if there was anything we could do to get justice or hold them accountable. At minimum, we could share our experience as a warning to others, who may benefit from a hard lesson learned. When insurance company suggest you use their "authorized" repair facility, instead of the dealership, there is probably a reason why. We chose not to, thinking we would be getting better parts and service from BMW dealership, but instead, we are OUT OF A CAR! read more