Quote:
i've had "appointments" for such free maintenance service and had the car be there for more than a full day before work even commenced! in fact, i'm not certain they even get as much as they do for warranty repairs.




This obviously varies a great deal, depending on the dealer. My initial service experience with my wife's 2001 X-5 was good, better than the local Porsche dealer. I couldn't tell any difference between warranty and service work. It was all done promptly and it was free. And the X-5 initially had an enormous amount of warranty work, a really startling number of hard to diagnois problem areas.

Then United Auto Group bought the local BMW dealership and what was already good service turned into excellent service. Now they sometimes fix things while we wait, if that's possible. Service is just amazingly good. My wife often says she would not put up with the number of problems the X-5 has had if it wern't for the outstanding performance of the X-5 and the amazing service of the dealer. She rarely has to wait more than a day for major service, sometimes same day, and always gets an X-5 loaner. I think she is now sold on BMW's for life.

For my car, I just have the amazing performance of the Cayenne to balance this equation. The Porsche dealer service is OK, better than an American manufacturers dealership, but nowhere near the level of our BMW dealer. Plus, I have to pay out the nose for maintenance work.