Auto Shop Horror Story

[nman007]

This is a terrific site with a wealth of information. This is my first post. I have a 2003 X5 with a 4.4 liter engine. It has 52k miles. About a month ago the brake light went on and I took my car to Sears to have the brakes repaired. I live in Monroe, LA so a quality auto shop outside of BMW was unavailable. After the six trips to Sears they were finally able to remove the brake light, and they replaced the pads and rotors. They also claimed there was a leak in the axel causing grease to cover the sensor and they charged me to fix the leak. When I received the car back from Sears, the front of the suspension was much, much lower than the back end. It was undriveable. I took the car to BMW and they adjusted the self-leveling suspension but returned the car to me with a dead battery. They finally jumped the car but the navigation now had trouble reading the dvd. Sears said they'd pay for the BMW service to fix the supsension so I took it to them and had them put in the new battery as well. Two days later I was driving and the transmission stopped working. Now BMW is telling me that I have to replace the transfer case. BMW wants 3500 for this. Does anyone think this could be the mechanics fault? Does anyone have any thoughts on a used transfer case? A rebuilt one? The car was driving perfectly before I gave it to Sears