Lack of service history on a car under PCP agreement?
Discussion
First off apologies if this is in the wrong section, long time lurker but first time poster...
After some advice if anyone can shed any light.
Purchased a used 3 year old car in Nov 2020 from a (semi) reputable dealership on a PCP deal. Car was advertised as having full BMW service history and bought remotely due to covid etc. Was told that history was all digital so no service book etc, foolishly I did not check this.
Recently car indicated service was due, booked it in to find that it in fact has no main dealer history, or infact any history at all.
Clearly I now realise it was stupid of me not to check this when I bought the car but was unsure if I had any comeback whatsoever. If it's the case that I've taught myself an expensive lesson then so be it, will definitely not make the same mistake again
After some advice if anyone can shed any light.
Purchased a used 3 year old car in Nov 2020 from a (semi) reputable dealership on a PCP deal. Car was advertised as having full BMW service history and bought remotely due to covid etc. Was told that history was all digital so no service book etc, foolishly I did not check this.
Recently car indicated service was due, booked it in to find that it in fact has no main dealer history, or infact any history at all.
Clearly I now realise it was stupid of me not to check this when I bought the car but was unsure if I had any comeback whatsoever. If it's the case that I've taught myself an expensive lesson then so be it, will definitely not make the same mistake again
Joshohh said:
First off apologies if this is in the wrong section, long time lurker but first time poster...
After some advice if anyone can shed any light.
Purchased a used 3 year old car in Nov 2020 from a (semi) reputable dealership on a PCP deal. Car was advertised as having full BMW service history and bought remotely due to covid etc. Was told that history was all digital so no service book etc, foolishly I did not check this.
Recently car indicated service was due, booked it in to find that it in fact has no main dealer history, or infact any history at all.
Clearly I now realise it was stupid of me not to check this when I bought the car but was unsure if I had any comeback whatsoever. If it's the case that I've taught myself an expensive lesson then so be it, will definitely not make the same mistake again
I would be extremely surprised if there is no history and my bet would be that it's simply has not been attached to the car as generally no reason to not service a brand new car. Don't have a Beemer (though wifey does) and as I understand it, history should be stored on the car's iDrive. Sometimes however this does not get updated by dealer and you would then need to do some detective work to try and deduce which garage/dealer carried out the service and make contact with them to try and get this updated retrospectively. After some advice if anyone can shed any light.
Purchased a used 3 year old car in Nov 2020 from a (semi) reputable dealership on a PCP deal. Car was advertised as having full BMW service history and bought remotely due to covid etc. Was told that history was all digital so no service book etc, foolishly I did not check this.
Recently car indicated service was due, booked it in to find that it in fact has no main dealer history, or infact any history at all.
Clearly I now realise it was stupid of me not to check this when I bought the car but was unsure if I had any comeback whatsoever. If it's the case that I've taught myself an expensive lesson then so be it, will definitely not make the same mistake again
The last car I bought (Merc) had two services missing when I requested a print out of the digital service history as compared to what I had been told on purchase. I went through MB UK customer services to get this corrected however, as this was withing the first 6 months of ownership, may be slightly easier to get to the bottom of as compared to the lapse of time on yours but would still imagine it to be possible.
Best of luck.
Joshohh said:
First off apologies if this is in the wrong section, long time lurker but first time poster...
After some advice if anyone can shed any light.
Purchased a used 3 year old car in Nov 2020 from a (semi) reputable dealership on a PCP deal. Car was advertised as having full BMW service history and bought remotely due to covid etc. Was told that history was all digital so no service book etc, foolishly I did not check this.
Recently car indicated service was due, booked it in to find that it in fact has no main dealer history, or infact any history at all.
Clearly I now realise it was stupid of me not to check this when I bought the car but was unsure if I had any comeback whatsoever. If it's the case that I've taught myself an expensive lesson then so be it, will definitely not make the same mistake again
If it has never been serviced then the dash would have been lit up with warnings and I guess it wasn't when you took delivery? As the max interval is 2 years even if it's low mileage, so the first service would be 12 months overdue when you took ownership, unless they managed to code the warning out or had it serviced and reset the service light but I don't think a indie can log the actual service in the idrive. After some advice if anyone can shed any light.
Purchased a used 3 year old car in Nov 2020 from a (semi) reputable dealership on a PCP deal. Car was advertised as having full BMW service history and bought remotely due to covid etc. Was told that history was all digital so no service book etc, foolishly I did not check this.
Recently car indicated service was due, booked it in to find that it in fact has no main dealer history, or infact any history at all.
Clearly I now realise it was stupid of me not to check this when I bought the car but was unsure if I had any comeback whatsoever. If it's the case that I've taught myself an expensive lesson then so be it, will definitely not make the same mistake again
As you've got it on a PCP your first call should be to the finance company they will go back to the supplying dealer and they do have leverage on them.
No come back I’m afraid. If the manufacturer cannot find any record of a service for it, it doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been done, but there’s no record of it so you’ll have to put it down to naivety.
I bought a car like that. No history, the dealer lied that it would be digital but it wasn’t. I just took the hit.
If the car drives fine and you’re servicing it now, just do your best and enjoy. Unless you can prove that the car was advertised with FSH you won’t have a leg to stand on. Sorry.
I bought a car like that. No history, the dealer lied that it would be digital but it wasn’t. I just took the hit.
If the car drives fine and you’re servicing it now, just do your best and enjoy. Unless you can prove that the car was advertised with FSH you won’t have a leg to stand on. Sorry.
Thanks for the responses. To clear up a few things- I'm sure that at some point the car has been serviced as someone has at least gone to the effort of resetting the idrive schedule. Car was bought with 17k on the clock and was 3 years old so presumably idrive would be calling for a service by this point. Local indy checked BMW database and nothing found. Have not spoken directly to BMW yet but will give them a call and see if they can shed any light on it. Just seems odd to me that it's been reset through idrive but no record of services on there.
Joshohh said:
Thanks for the responses. To clear up a few things- I'm sure that at some point the car has been serviced as someone has at least gone to the effort of resetting the idrive schedule. Car was bought with 17k on the clock and was 3 years old so presumably idrive would be calling for a service by this point. Local indy checked BMW database and nothing found. Have not spoken directly to BMW yet but will give them a call and see if they can shed any light on it. Just seems odd to me that it's been reset through idrive but no record of services on there.
I'll respond in the morning when I am at my laptop but I had similar and had a positive outcome.A number of years ago i bought a 3 year old 535d M Sport Approved Used from my local BMW Franchise.
Under the terms of the Approved Used scheme, one of the checks was that the car had a full BMW service history.
I thought little of it at the time, other than a couple of years later the car was in for a service and i asked them to stamp the book up for the services. The service manager checked and said sorry, i cant as they're not on the system.
So i escalated this to the Sales Exec who'd sold me the car, who talked to his sales manager and basically they said there was nothing they could or would do.
I contacted BMW UK and asked how a car that was Approved Used could have been sold without the service history being complete and that i wasnt getting any satisfaction from the dealer to resolve it.
A day later the dealer principal rang me and asked me to come down to meet him. He gave me several options -
=> come resale time, they would give me the value the car should have had with the FBMWSH.
=> They would buy the car back now at market value.
I opted for the latter. After some negotiation they gave me pretty much retail price for the car and bought it back.
Where they were on the back foot was what the Approved Used scheme was supposed to warrant on the car. Clearly they hadnt checked. I dont think BMW UK were terribly impressed with that and seemed to have put pressure on them to resolve it to my satisfaction.
Under the terms of the Approved Used scheme, one of the checks was that the car had a full BMW service history.
I thought little of it at the time, other than a couple of years later the car was in for a service and i asked them to stamp the book up for the services. The service manager checked and said sorry, i cant as they're not on the system.
So i escalated this to the Sales Exec who'd sold me the car, who talked to his sales manager and basically they said there was nothing they could or would do.
I contacted BMW UK and asked how a car that was Approved Used could have been sold without the service history being complete and that i wasnt getting any satisfaction from the dealer to resolve it.
A day later the dealer principal rang me and asked me to come down to meet him. He gave me several options -
=> come resale time, they would give me the value the car should have had with the FBMWSH.
=> They would buy the car back now at market value.
I opted for the latter. After some negotiation they gave me pretty much retail price for the car and bought it back.
Where they were on the back foot was what the Approved Used scheme was supposed to warrant on the car. Clearly they hadnt checked. I dont think BMW UK were terribly impressed with that and seemed to have put pressure on them to resolve it to my satisfaction.
Edited by Deep Thought on Wednesday 17th August 11:11
I've been in this situation with my current M4.
Basically, some main dealers are incompetent and whilst they keep record of the services on their internal system - they don't always upload it to the car's iDrive nor the proper BMW database.
My car needs a running in service in the first couple k of it's life, if this isn't done then the warranty is invalid and the car loses a chunk of resale value.
I was told my car had full BMWSH when I bought it (non main-dealer) however after collection I looked up the service requirements and saw this service wasn't listed.
I took the car to my local main dealer who scanned the key and was told the same as you, missing service history and no record of the running in on the BMW database. I kicked off at the dealer I bought it from who managed to track down the original supplying BMW branch that initially delivered the car.
I contacted that dealer directly who was able to provide me with redacted copies of the service invoices that were missing. They also offered to add these services to the database as well as the iDrive but said I'd need to take the car in to them for this - being the opposite end of the country I just had them email me copies of all the service records and had a coder add them to the iDrive with the correct dealership codes etc.
TLDR: The services might just not be on the iDrive/Database. If you can track down the dealer who supplied the car there's a good chance they'll have been the ones to service it.
Basically, some main dealers are incompetent and whilst they keep record of the services on their internal system - they don't always upload it to the car's iDrive nor the proper BMW database.
My car needs a running in service in the first couple k of it's life, if this isn't done then the warranty is invalid and the car loses a chunk of resale value.
I was told my car had full BMWSH when I bought it (non main-dealer) however after collection I looked up the service requirements and saw this service wasn't listed.
I took the car to my local main dealer who scanned the key and was told the same as you, missing service history and no record of the running in on the BMW database. I kicked off at the dealer I bought it from who managed to track down the original supplying BMW branch that initially delivered the car.
I contacted that dealer directly who was able to provide me with redacted copies of the service invoices that were missing. They also offered to add these services to the database as well as the iDrive but said I'd need to take the car in to them for this - being the opposite end of the country I just had them email me copies of all the service records and had a coder add them to the iDrive with the correct dealership codes etc.
TLDR: The services might just not be on the iDrive/Database. If you can track down the dealer who supplied the car there's a good chance they'll have been the ones to service it.
Hammy98 said:
I've been in this situation with my current M4.
Basically, some main dealers are incompetent and whilst they keep record of the services on their internal system - they don't always upload it to the car's iDrive nor the proper BMW database.
My car needs a running in service in the first couple k of it's life, if this isn't done then the warranty is invalid and the car loses a chunk of resale value.
I was told my car had full BMWSH when I bought it (non main-dealer) however after collection I looked up the service requirements and saw this service wasn't listed.
I took the car to my local main dealer who scanned the key and was told the same as you, missing service history and no record of the running in on the BMW database. I kicked off at the dealer I bought it from who managed to track down the original supplying BMW branch that initially delivered the car.
I contacted that dealer directly who was able to provide me with redacted copies of the service invoices that were missing. They also offered to add these services to the database as well as the iDrive but said I'd need to take the car in to them for this - being the opposite end of the country I just had them email me copies of all the service records and had a coder add them to the iDrive with the correct dealership codes etc.
TLDR: The services might just not be on the iDrive/Database. If you can track down the dealer who supplied the car there's a good chance they'll have been the ones to service it.
The issue becomes if you / they cant. That was the case for my 535d. It probably was serviced but they couldnt prove it. They were the original supplying dealer for the car. They checked all local franchised dealers here in NI and in the republic of Ireland too.Basically, some main dealers are incompetent and whilst they keep record of the services on their internal system - they don't always upload it to the car's iDrive nor the proper BMW database.
My car needs a running in service in the first couple k of it's life, if this isn't done then the warranty is invalid and the car loses a chunk of resale value.
I was told my car had full BMWSH when I bought it (non main-dealer) however after collection I looked up the service requirements and saw this service wasn't listed.
I took the car to my local main dealer who scanned the key and was told the same as you, missing service history and no record of the running in on the BMW database. I kicked off at the dealer I bought it from who managed to track down the original supplying BMW branch that initially delivered the car.
I contacted that dealer directly who was able to provide me with redacted copies of the service invoices that were missing. They also offered to add these services to the database as well as the iDrive but said I'd need to take the car in to them for this - being the opposite end of the country I just had them email me copies of all the service records and had a coder add them to the iDrive with the correct dealership codes etc.
TLDR: The services might just not be on the iDrive/Database. If you can track down the dealer who supplied the car there's a good chance they'll have been the ones to service it.
But yes, very possible its just something wasnt updated somewhere.
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