Can dealers be trusted with your X5?

[theprof]

This week I have been migrating my 08 X5 4.8 from our winter home to our summer home. I had the car in to the dealer for service just a week before leaving and pointed out that I was off on an extended road trip and perhaps some maintenance would be in order at 10K miles. The dealer said no; no service needed; nothing until 15K and today's oils last a long time, blah, blah,blah.

I actually had to take the car in a second time just a day before leaving on the trip because the warranty part ordered for the previous experience turned out to be the wrong part. Again, I asked by Service Advisor about the wisdom of doing maintenance checks and service now. "No, your car is fine".

800 miles later; way, way up at a place in Kings Canyon National Park (California) appropriately called "Road's End" the "Oil Below Minimum, Do Not Drive" light comes on. I find a nice level location and check the oil and it barely touches the tip of the stick; well below the Min line! The next day I am finally able to get some synthetic oil delivered to my remote location and it takes two quarts to bring the level into the middle of the Min/Max lines on the stick. When I get down from the mountains I go to a German Car shop in the valley and they say - no leaks, no problems; the vehicle had just low on oil during its first 10K miles.

I emailed the dealer; the SA wrote back: says the car does not have a conventional dipstick (??)and oil level can only be checked electronically by reading data stored in the fob - which they had done and declared everything wonderful - 800 miles prior to the 2 quarts low incident.

No dipstick? What is that about? It certainly does have a dipstick; and two quarts of oil went somewhere.

Anybody have any thoughts on this adventure?

[jimf15e]

The dealer stupidly confused your car with other models. The current 3-series engines actually (and unfortunately) do not have a dipstick. Other BMW motors may be the same way, but I'm glad they haven't gotten rid of the dipstick on the X5 yet.

[E61Silver]

This tread might help,

http://www.xoutpost.com/x5-e70-forum/...own-quart.html


Did you buy or lease your X5, if I owned my BMW I would change the oil before 15,000 miles.

[deutsch100]

Originally Posted by jimf15e

The dealer stupidly confused your car with other models. The current 3-series engines actually (and unfortunately) do not have a dipstick. Other BMW motors may be the same way, but I'm glad they haven't gotten rid of the dipstick on the X5 yet.

I thought the E70 does not have a dipstick. I read the manual, thought we just had the electronic check via the i-Drive. There really is a dipstick, even on the 4.8i?

[pb48]

Originally Posted by deutsch100

I thought the E70 does not have a dipstick. I read the manual, thought we just had the electronic check via the i-Drive. There really is a dipstick, even on the 4.8i?

There really is a dipstick on the V8 models across the BMW line up.

to the OP, i think it is time you informed your SA of his stupidity... I can't believe how horrible some of them are these days.

[AzNMpower32]

Go somewhere else. I think I know more about your car than your SA does. V8s do seem to have a dipstick. You are entitled to one free oil change under the US Maintenance program 1 year from in-service date.

[70Sixter]

Man, this is scary. This is our first BMW and I do not want to have to worry about service.

Was this a BMW-only dealer? Or one of those multi-marque malls?

[motordavid]

Prof,
I think you had a wonderment in your orig. post;
2 qts down in ~10K miles, on a brand new motor,
is not unusual, or out of the question and, is well
within BMW "acceptable oil consumption specifications", fwiw.

Your Stlr "SA" is confused, distracted, stupid or all three...
Hope your new ride gets settled in and you enjoy it.
GL,mD

[X5audi]

It's not uncommon to realize that you know more than your dealer about the car he's trying to sell you...

It's happened to me a couple times at the Lexus dealer.

[X5_2_OBX]

Unfortunately, we had a similar encounter with our dealer a few weeks ago. We got an alert and checked the oil with the dipstick which showed that the oil was low. Talked to a service advisor who says we must have been checking something else because there is no dipstick. We aren't stupid! It was clearly an OIL dipstick. We got oil from the dealer and refilled it ourselves.

We were one of the very first E70s in the area and definitely faced some challenges not only with first year model issues but also the lack of knowledge about the car at the dealer. Things have improved as more and more E70s show up but there's obviously still plenty of room for improvement.

There seems to be a communication breakdown somewhere because this is DEFINITELY not the first time we have heard about uninformed dealers.