Been a long time lurker here, mostly. Thought I pass on my maintenance experience today, especially for fellow Orange County X5ers. My wife took her 05 3.0 (63K) to Crevier BMW because the air conditioning is blowing warm on the passenger side and the rear passenger window no longer opens (lucky it died closed!). As a lurking reader of posts, I was pretty mentally ready for my first window regulator failure and, after some searches, saw that an exact duplicate of my AC problem being diagnosed as a leaking valve for the warm air bypass. I told my wife of my findings and told her to make sure the service manager checks these issues.
She calls me at work saying Crevier diagnosed the AC problem as a lack of coolant and advises recharge - ok, I'll bite. Then she said the window regulator and motor is fine, and that it is a general module issue. I took a swallow at the price tag ($764) - trying to think if we really needed that rear window open - but since the module controlled so many other things I decided to go for it. Then she tells me Crevier also diagnosed that the fan clutch is leaking and it's just a matter of time, by now - what's a few hundred more. So my wife told them they can go ahead (plus the obligatory brake work on extended maintenance and a radiator flush), as long as she can get the car back by 4 because she has get home to get some work done (she works from home at times).
She goes to pick up the car, drives home and found that the remote doesn't work when she tried to lock the car. She takes it back to Crevier, and the Service Advisor informed her it's just a matter of reprogramming the keys - a 5 minute effort. 5 minutes go by and she calls him out from wherever he's hiding and he said, oh, a few minutes more. 10 minutes go by and she has to get them to call him out again - oh it'll just be a couple more minutes. About 45 minutes go by (after dodging a few more of her calls), he comes out and said, well, you key is obviously dead and gave the "it's not our fault" shrug. Funny, it wasn't dead yesterday. It wasn't dead this morning (I drove the X yesterday and the seats were in my position, and she used the unlock to get the seats back to her settings), but now that they replaced the general module, it's dead. She told him it was working perfectly fine when she dropped off the car and and that's an unacceptable answer, especially after she just shelled out $1700 to them for a variety of services. So he mumbled something about since she DID spend so much on services perhaps BMW can help her get a new key. By now she's fuming, more so because she was late on her way home, so she told him she'll bring my key back tomorrow - maybe it's 'dead' too.
She called and told me about this while I was at work. I was incensed and called Crevier and got their Customer Service Manager as the Manager of the Service Department has gone already. I told her about this and told her that's no way to be treating a customer, especially ones who's been taking the X to Crevier for the last 30,000 miles. Are they implying we're too stupid to notice the remote wasn't working - or don't they think replacing the general module may have something to do with it? So she asked that my wife see her tomorrow morning and she will talk to the Manager of the Service Department. Can't wait.
When I got home, sure enough, my remote, working as of yesterday, no longer works (but both keys do turn the ignition). Having done a little research, I pulled up a couple of threads on remotes not working due to general module problems, either a problem with the module itself, or the dealers not programming the module, or an accidental trip of the security system back to "transport" mode from the "sales" mode - which de-activates remote unlocking (although in our case the seat memory settings are also gone). I've printed and circled the good bits for the wife so she can, uh, inquire about it tomorrow (I personally think she's going to give them a bloody nose if they don't watch it!). I'll post the resolution - it seems at least a few people have had similar remote problems.
I've had the car long to understand that parts on the Ultimate Driving Machine can be tempermental, even fragile, and the X can be expensive to own. I'm okay with it (so far - knock on wood). But I really don't like paying a lot of money and be treated like a moron or be outright lied to. And it's a shame when we have to experience this at Crevier, which have had a good reputation in the past. This is a trust issue - if I can't trust a Service Advisor at Crevier, why should I risk working with them? Maybe this thread will end up being re-posted in the Dealers forum.