I am writing this letter with reference to the dissatisfaction of my experience in terms of the service and experience that I have recently received from the BMW JSN dealership.

At the first point of my complaint list is that nearly I will say about 80 percent of the time that I arrived at the dealership, there was nobody there to assist at reception and if they were, they were far too busy on the telephone system until they were finished with their calls.

My whole experience started off with a fairly simple request. That is to get a BMW Bluetooth kit installed into my BMW 135i. Now you would think that this would be a fairly common request but after what I have been through I wish I would have never even gone through with the request…

I was assigned to a service representative named Michael when I made the request. The process was fairly painless and I had booked my car in for the fitment. I was given a quote, at my request, with a cost of roughly R5700. I accepted and we made a date to bring the car in for the fitment. While we were making the booking, I asked if he could read my key so that I could get a report on how my car is standing at the moment. When he took the reading he notified me that my car had a recall alert on it. Now surely that is something that should have been communicated to me before I even requested a reading? It was then communicated to me by Michael that the car would be in for 2 days as they will concentrate on the recall problems on the first day and then the Bluetooth kit for the next day. I could accept that.

I then delivered the car early in the morning at around 06:45 as I would do every time as I work in centurion and cannot leave later than 07:00 from JSN. I organised my own transport and went to work. I received a phone call on the second day from Michael informing me that my vehicle would require an additional day as they are having problems programming the Bluetooth of the car. I found that a fairly weird reason as this is surely not the first time that BMW JSN was doing this type of installation? I couldn’t do anything else but accept. The following day I had received no phone calls until about 14:00 at which point I made a phone call to Michael. He informed me that the unit that they tried to fit was faulty and they would have to send it back to Germany and order a new one at the same time. What, does BMW only keep 1 Bluetooth kit in the whole of South Africa? So with disappointment I went that afternoon to pick up my car and re-book the next date for it to be installed again. Michael said that due to the inconvenience of the situation, he will organise a courtesy car for me for the duration of the next installation. It was 2 weeks before they received another kit.

I made a date again with Michael and he said that I would be able to drop the car off again in the morning and then I would be taking the courtesy car. I received a phone call from Michael again at around 16:30 saying that the woman that was currently in possession of the courtesy car has not returned it and he is unable to get hold of her. I was not in the mood to reschedule, so to the inconvenience of one of my colleagues I arranged for alternative transportation. Now I was inconvenienced, my one colleague was inconvenienced and I had to inconvenience again 2 other colleagues over the period of time that my car was in BMW JSN’s possession.

I brought the car in and dropped it off with Michael again, he said that he would keep me up to date of what was happening and when I could receive the car back again. I went to work and after not hearing anything from him until 15:00 I phoned him again. I left 3 messages over the next hour and finally at 16:00 he returned my call. He said that my car would be unavailable as they are having problems fitting the unit and would most likely be ready the following day. Again I had to arrange for alternative transportation. The next day came and I was excited as surely it couldn’t take longer now. I received a phone call towards 13:00 on that Friday from Robin, who is the service manager there at BMW JSN, who informed me that the car would be unfortunately not ready. She suggested that I come and collect the car and return it again on Monday. Obviously this was more of an inconvenience, so I told her to keep the car and I would collect it on Monday. At the same time I mentioned my situation and how upset I was after being promised a courtesy car and then not given one. She seemed shocked and asked me who my service representative was. I told her it was Michael and then asked her why she seemed shocked. She explained that she couldn’t understand the situation, because she is the only one that books out courtesy cars and that Michael had never requested one for me. So Michael lied. When I confronted her about it, she said she would look into the matter. She never got back to me on the matter and when I asked her later on about it, she was at a loss for words.
Monday came and I phoned in periodically to find out how it was going as I didn’t want to wait until later when I had to inconvenience someone else again. I got an answer at 14:00 that my car is ready and everything is working. Fantastic! So I went to pick up my car the following morning as I could only arrange transport to BMW JSN at this time and the kit truly worked. Or so I thought. After paying R6700 more or less, which was more than what I was quoted but I accepted. Oh and by the way they charge you R100 to wash your car even if you don’t request a wash! I took my keys said good bye and was on my way.

At lunch time I drove to the shops to get something to eat and on my way there I realised that my iPod was no longer working through the car’s entertainment system. I fiddled for a good 15 minutes and the iPod would not even get a connection sign when I plugged it in. I got my lunch and headed back to my office. On the way back, all of a sudden my engine was making a loud whistling noise and a message popped up on my navigation screen saying that I have an engine fault and that I must drive moderately to my nearest dealer. Great… On my way back to work I phone Robin as I was no longer interested in talking to Michael and I explained the situation to her. She asked if I could bring the car in and they would look at it. I said I would only be able to bring it the following morning as I actually have work to do. I am the assistant manager for a manufacturing company of roughly 200 employees. So I am busy all the time.

I dropped the car off the following morning which was now Wednesday. When I spoke to Robin, she said she would be again unavailable to give me a courtesy car. I explained to her that I really have had enough now and that if the car doesn’t return to me on that afternoon, that I would write this letter of complaint. She shrugged her shoulders and said that I was more than welcome to do so. She then wanted to seat me with Michael again! I couldn’t believe it… So I insisted that someone else handle my vehicle. I was then assigned to Fatima. I booked my car in with her and I went to work. I received a phone call from her at 14:00 more or less to ask me if I could leave the car in again another day as they would like to take the car out on the roads for a test of 100 kilometres. I was very busy at the time and I accepted. Later on while my brother picked me up and drove me home I thought, hang on, 100kms is quite a distance. So I phoned her and she laughed and told me no that I didn’t hear correctly and that it would only be 10kms.

The following day, now Thursday, I went to work again and didn’t hear anything from Fatima. I phoned and left 2 messages and nothing happened. She phoned me at around 11:00 and said that she would find out what is happening with my car and phone me back in half an hour. An hour and a half went past and I phoned her back. She said that everything was fine and that I can collect the vehicle all the while laughing and giggling. I thought that was pretty weak that I had to phone as the customer to find out if my car is ready. Naturally I was now relieved that I could finally get it back. I arranged to take some time off work and fetch the car at 14:30. I arrived there and Fatima was ready to serve me. I then asked her what was wrong with the car in the first place and she said that the wiring was faulty and that one of the covers in the engine bay was loose. Now I never had a wiring problem or any loose covers before my visit with BMW JSN but whatever. She gave me my keys and I was eager to leave. I went outside to test my car before I leave to make sure everything was working. Luckily this time everything went smoothly and everything sounded and worked correctly.

As I was about to drive out of the gate I noticed that I had only half a tank of petrol in the car and I filled it full just before I got there. So I parked again and headed back to Fatima. She took my key and did a reading. When I brought the car in I had 46 litres in it and now I only had 26 litres in it. She enquired with the workshop and they explained that they did in fact do a 100kms drive. Now I normally get 11 litres per 100kms when I drive, 13 if I drive hard. So how did they use 20 litres? Interesting… I asked her about it and she didn’t even acknowledge that she said to me that in a previous conversation she accused me of being wrong. I asked her if I would at least be getting reimbursed for the petrol usage. She told me no I wouldn’t and smiled at me. I said that I would then be definitely writing an angry letter. She said please do so.

I left the dealership and I will NEVER return after the shocking and poor service that I received. Absolutely disgusting.