Servicing M Cars at main dealers - shop around

[rxdrifter]

Hi All

Not posted on here before but am often looking for advice/knowledge share etc so thought I'd share some recently acquired wisdom of my own.

My E46 M3 was due it's inspection 1 recently and my local dealer Stephen James quoted me nearly £1100. I thought this sounded ridiculous for what isn't even a huge service so I rang around a few other dealers.

I'm picking the M3 up from HR Owen in Holland Park tonight where I will be relieved of just £705 inc VAT. So by making a few phone calls I saved nearly £400.

Incidentally, Lind BMW in Colchester offered to pick the car up from my house in London, do the Insp 1 and bring it back for £755 which I didn't think was bad either.

[JayZ4]

Stephen James are very expensive unfortunately, nice dealership from an aesthetics point of view though.

You could try Specialist Cars in Luton as well, they are reasonably priced and did my oil service on my old E46 M3.

[Ashok]

Barons in Farnborough are pretty reasonable too.

[PSJKXP]

Anyone know of a reasonable dealer in the West London / Heathrow area ?
HR Owen seem to be increasing price across the board.

[belleair302]

There are some top BMW specialists around the country, many leave main dealers standing when it comes to knowledge, customer care, actually doing a decent job and not ripping the customers off.

Autotech near Colnbrook are highly recommended.

http://www.autotech-bmw.co.uk/first.html

Birds in Uxbridge

http://www.birds.uk.com/

Phil Crouch who is located right behind Birds does some outstanding work

01895 252288

Boxer Motorworks too are worth a shout, although their location does make me wonder!!!

http://www.boxermotorworks.co.uk/default.htm

Edited by belleair302 on Tuesday 5th June 15:23

[nutcase]

I'm shortly going to be faced with this dilemma- Vines of Guildford originally asked £848.23 (so I asked them to be more specific...)- but then said that they could reduce that down to nearer £770.00 (I didn't ask how they managed that- they'd probably just reduce the labour from 30 mins to 15...!)

I called my local garage who do all the minor bits and pieces...£205.00 + vat, including all BMW geniune parts etc. Really makes you wonder, doesn't it?

I have absolute faith in the work done by this independent garage, but at the end of the day i'll probably have to bite the bullet and keep the Full BMW history going on the car, slightly annoying bearing in mind there's no guarantee I'll recoup the 500 quid come resale time...

[danchpress]

Hi!

I think that if you give your honest reasons for why you chose a specialist over a main dealer, a potential buyer should be impressed rather than deterred; it says a lot more than you just want to save money. So many specialists have really good reviews posted all over the internet and it wouldn't take someone that long to check them out. These are also the sort of people who are willing to pay good money for a car they trust has been well looked after. I've seen a few adverts in the PH classifieds that make reference to the specialist they've used. I've also heard many terrible things about main BMW dealers but because independent specialists rely so much more on word of mouth and reputation, they tend to make the extra effort.

Let us know what you decide and if you felt it was the right decision because everyone seems to have this dilemma (including me!).

DP

[baz1985]

Inspection 2 on a E46 M3= <£500 at Sytner Sheffield if you haggle!