Is a £4000 repair bill acceptable for a 11 year old car?
I purchased a BMW 645i from a BMW main dealer in May 2005. It has been maintained by them ever since at the required intervals. Recently I have just had the car into the garage and have ended up with a bill of £4k. The invoice states:- Checking cooling system for leaks, Bleeding and checking cooling system for leaks, removing and installing/sealing upper coolant end cover, removing and installing/sealing left cylinder head cover, and remove and install or seal or replace timing case cover.
Overall parts were £1000 - Labour was £2000.
Do you think that the above is acceptable in a car that has only covered 70,000 miles, albeit it is now 11 years old?
It's possible that you could have had the work done more cheaply by an independent BMW service and repair specialist. But it's an 11 year old car and from now on bills like this are going to continue coming in. Seems that ordinary cars last around 7 years before big bills, some of which could be more than the car is worth. Higher 'quality' brands seem to get to around 11 years before big bills. All too often things like exhaust systems incorporating lambdas sensors and cat converters, or all-singing, all-dancing multi-function touch screens. On Mercedes, it's SBS braking systems and automatic transmission heat exchangers, plus multiple SAM units. Nothing is immune. Electrical failures are rife in German cars as multiple contacts dry out. We get lulled by the honeymoon period when modern cars are far more reliable than cars ever were previously. But when things go wrong they go very wrong.
Answered by Honest John on
