Sending in Key?
 

When purchasing an extended maintenance contract from a dealer, why is it necessary to send in the key (I did not have to do this on my 2001 E53, but now want to purchase extended maintenance on my 2005)?

Do you need to send in one key or two? And if two, how do you drive while awaiting they key?:D

there is sales tax if you buy from the state that you live in. so you buying a service plan in Illinois will result in you paying sales tax. if you buy from out of state you will not have to pay taxes. and you do have to send in ONE key. they do this to bring up your service records and they need the key to activate the plan.

How much is the Illinois dealer quoting you for the plan?

BTW, you need to send in the key so they can verify the mileage.

I don't have a quote yet and figure I'll probably end up calling Macon (thanks to all the research from forum members), but if for some reason I could talk a local dealer into the same price ($1595) and there is no tax, it will avoid having to send away the key. Not that it's a huge hardship, but I've got to go to the dealership for service anyway.

Good luck. Never heard of a dealer that will give the same price as Macon. Sending the key will only cost $10 or so.

Purchased From Patrick BMW in Schaumbury, 1895 and no tax at all. I had to pay the 200$ penalty due to being over the 50k.

So an update on my extended Platinum Fidelity Warranty purchased from Rallye BMW in Long Island NY.

Went in today for my first warranty work. My folding mirrors. Was a bit nervous to see if they would do it - but i figured might as well test them out on something that I could actually do myself.

So BMW diagnosed the issue and said the passenger side mirror motor needed to be replaced. $624 for parts. 3hrs labor at $130/hr. Although it would take me 1 hr to replace motor..

So Fidelity covered it. Only thing they didn't cover was the full 1hr diagnose fee of $130, they only covered half an hr.

The catch is that it didnt fix my folding mirror problem - it just fixed my mirror motor so the mirror goes down when i reverse and doesn't get stuck anymore. Total $920.

I only paid $70 out of pocket because fidelity didn't cover the other 30 min diagnose time. 0 deductible because i went to Rallye where i bought it.

So next step with mirror folding issue is the other motor (drivers side) needs to get replaced because it comes to far in so it folds back out. Because the service will be over $1000 fidelity needs to send an "inspector" out. I didnt see that fine print. So that will be next week because I want my car for the weekend.

So as of right now i'm pleasantly surprised and extremely happy with my fidelity extended warranty. Again - always be mindful of the warranty you buy and don't complain about it if you didnt read the fine print. I purchased the platinum because it made sense with the low mileage i had.

Anyone know how these extended warranty companies make $? They couldnt have spent $850 on my behalf. Seems crazy considering I paid $2600 total for 5 yrs. Is it all in the science of probability and risk assessments?

Yes. Don't think of it as a warranty, think of it as an insurance policy, because that is what they are selling. And some people come out ahead, while others don't (but they get peace of mind to a certain extent). The rest of the story is that there are low barriers to entry for these companies, meaning that many companies that got into this business didn't calculate the prices right, and those are the ones that went out of business and left customers stranded.

BMW of Macon - Maintenance Pricing
 

I spoke to Kirt Reimschisel of BMW of Macon this afternoon and he offered to sell me an exended maintenance contract on my 2005 X5 for $1895, significantly below the current MSRP of $2295. I unfortunatley did not pay attention to this board for a few weeks and missed the June 30th deadline before the BMW USA price increase.http://www.xoutpost.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Kirt's normal post-July 1 price for the maintenance contract is $1995 but he indicated that for the next 90 days he would sell it to X5 Outpost (X5 World) members for $1895. So, if you missed the boat like I did at least you can get it for $1895 for the time being. http://www.xoutpost.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

bmw of macon - update
 

The new person handling the extended maintenance program is Ryan Lee. I also wanted to do the original owner protection program from them, but there were issues with purchasing a 2OPP from out of state. I'm from CA and sent in my key fob. I was quoted $1995, but got it for $1895. There was no one in so cali that would come close to the ext maint price. I got the 2OPP locally for the same price as bmw of macon, $3525, but that was from the dealership where I bought my X5 and service at. No one else came close to that 2OPP price and basically he said he just wanted his numbers higher for the end of the month. HTH