Quote:
Originally Posted by Roc3b
Where is New England does one go for a Dinan set up? :mmm:
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Just a word of advice from somebody who's had his fair share of Dinan "experience" in NE ....
If you plan to have Dinan parts installed on your X5 I'd recommend to work with Concord Motorsports and stay away as far as possible from BMW Gallery of Norwood .... I've had my S2 package installed at Norwood and it turned into a less the enjoyable experience. If you have your Dinan parts installed at a BMW/Dinan dealer your car will be flagged as a Dinan car in the BMW system, depending on the modifications installed your non-Dinan BMW dealer will not get ANY help from BMW NA to diagnose a problem. For example if you have the transmission sw installed BMW NA will not even look at any data/information the dealer might send to the BMW transmission hotline (the same might apply for the engine sw).
In my case I run into the problem with the torque converter slow degrading/failing and BMW NA told me flat out they are not interested in looking at the data or even fixing it (despite it being a known issue on 4.6s), I left my car with BMW Gallery Norwood for 3 days just to hear they can't reproduce the problem and there is nothing wrong with the car (they also told me they really don't like working on this problem as it's too difficult)....
My local dealer (Tulley Nashua) is more than willing to help me and has isolated the problem but BMW NA will not allow them to perform warranty work on the transmission due the Dinan mods. Once BMW called for the customer satisfaction survey I have them a 3 for service (at least this time my stereo system didn't get stolen like it did the first time) and BMW Gallery (Charly Antonio Srvc Manager) called me telling me to never show up at their dealership because I gave them a bad CSI rating ....
Another important fact is that once you have Dinan mods on your car and it's flagged as a Dinan car in the BMW system you will no longer be able to have the car CPO'd !!! This basically means your only hope to sell the car is via private hands as the dealers will have very low interest in a car without CPO (and it can't be "converted" back to a non-Dinan car even if you remove the mods).
I've been batteling with BMW NA and Dinan over this for +20 months with no resolution. To make things even more fun ... I ended up driving to a BMW/Dinan dealer in CT (Westchester BMW) just to have them tell me it's the aftermarket wheels causing the problems .... Which is a pile of crap given the problem is still there with winter and OEM wheels/tires. But basically they had no interest in helping me as I didn't buy the car with them and would most likely not return as a customer in the future.....
In the event of a problem Dinan will require you to go to a BMW/Dinan dealership and there's only one in NE (BMW Gallery), so bottom line is that if you don't have a good relationship with a BMW/Dinan dealership my recommendation would be to be VERY carefull in deciding which mods to buy from Dinan....
So far neither Dinan or BMW NA have made an effort to get the issue resolved (despite several calls)
One of the benefits of an independant Dinan dealer (Concord Motorsports) is your car doesn't get flagged in the BMW system and most BMW dealers don't care about the mods as they will be still allowed to perform warranty work.
Sorry for the long rant but way too often I see people telling others Dinan will not void the warranty without mentioning all of the little footnotes. Dinan will "match" the BMW warranty but it's up to Dinan to decide whether your claim is a warranty one or not. I am pretty sure Dinan will have to buy up front any parts which need to be replaced on warranty and later on will work with BMW NA to get reimbursed. Now if it's a cheap part there's no problem , however if it's a torque converter or transmission Dinan will try very hard to avoid the cost associated with these items ....
Just my 2 euros,
Jan
