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      06-17-2022, 11:00 PM   #1
bimmerguyxyz
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Drives: BMW 528i
Join Date: Jun 2022
Location: US

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Angry NEED DEALERSHIP REPAIR ADVICE - Diagnosis Negligence Nightmare

I've been experiencing an extremely frustrating and dangerous problem with my 2012 528i that basically renders it unsafe to drive. I took it to a reputable BMW dealership in my area to get the issue diagnosed & repaired but have had a nightmare experience with the dealership not taking accountability for their negligence. I need some advice. Please see below for details, any advice would be appreciated.

Here's my story:

Basically, at random moments a "Drivetrain Malfunction" & a "Fuel Pump" warning would simultaneously pop up on my navigation and I would lose all power to the engine. Once these warnings pop up, I then have about 5 seconds to pull over somewhere safely as my car slows to a stop with no ability to accelerate. It then jumps into neutral and then park. Extremely unsafe & scary, I know. Once I'm broken down on the side of the road, I'm unable to turn the engine back on. The first time this happened to me, I did a couple searches and found a few posts on here about people having similar issues. One of the suggestions was to exit the vehicle, lock it, wait 5 minutes, then try starting it again. I gave this a shot and was able to successfully turn my car back on & drive home with no issues or warnings on the dash/nav.

The next morning I call a local, reputable BMW dealership to schedule an appointment & drop my vehicle off for a diagnosis of the problem. A couple more days go by and I get told by the service advisor that my car needs a new Fuel Pump to cure the issue and that it would cost me around $2,300 total. With a need to get this repaired ASAP, I agree to the costly repair and let them get started. I get the car back days later, and when paying the invoice, see that whoever had filled it out wrote that upon testing the car after replacing the fuel pump, the warnings did come back on (likely due to a typo as there were many others, but I needed to make sure). I point this out to the advisor who then goes and talks to the mechanic and comes back confirming that it was just a typo. Accidents happen so I brush it off and he prints me a new revised invoice. I pay the $2300 and am just glad to be on my way home. Later that night my car breaks down on the side of the road, again. Next morning, I head back to the dealership and demand some answers. Service tech apologizes and says he'll get it all taken care of and gives me a loaner to drive. Over the span of the next few days, I get small updates from them about seeing VANOS faults and that they've swapped the solenoids for testing. They later get back to me and say that the faults still remained after the swap and that more testing & test driving was needed. Few more days go by and I get told that all looks to be good and that it could've been possible that the mechanic forgot to "plug some things in" when finishing the fuel pump repair couple weeks prior. He assures me they've test driven the vehicle and that all is good. I pick my car up the same day and head home. The next morning on my way to work I break down again. I immediately head straight back to the dealership after getting my car started again and was told they would continue to diagnose and resolve whatever the issue was, at no additional cost.

Few more days go by and today I'm informed that the issue with the VANOS faults is due to the slack in the timing chain and that the timing chain & guides would need to be replaced to resolve these faults. Service advisor tells me sorry for the bad news and that this repair is gonna cost me $6500 if I choose to proceed. He then says that the faulty fuel pump (that they initially told me would repair whatever was wrong with my car) was preventing the car from running properly so there was no way for them to know that the VANOS faults were coming from a timing chain issue. He continued to say that once the $2300 replacement of the fuel pump happened, "the car began to run properly and that's when the issue of the slack on the timing chain started to occur." - Pretty much not taking responsibility for missing this on the diagnosis initially when I was told it was just a bad fuel pump.

I feel pretty gutted by this whole experience and need some advice on how to proceed. Is it true that there was no way to catch this issue without having a functional fuel pump? Should they have verified that it was the fuel pump that would have corrected this issue before quoting me the initial repair? This whole nightmare has been over the span of 21 days & I've broken down multiple times since the initial repair. Service advisor want a response back from me tomorrow about how I want to proceed so any kind of feedback would be greatly appreciated.
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