In regaurds to the "stealership" line, refer to the quote in my sig...

"You think professional is expensive, just wait until you pay for amateur"

They couldn't proceed with the diagnostics until I replaced my battery. They did a test on it and it had a bad cell. I quickly took my 2 month old battery back to Autozone for an exchange. Looks like they can't work on it till Tuesday since they are closed on Monday. Oh well, no biggie, but I did learn a couple things shooting the shint with the Shop Foreman. I didn't realize that a Rebuild is totally different than a Re-manufactured Alternator. Now I am almost positive that the "Rebuilt" Alternator is my main issue and I bet it probably ruined the 2 month old battery too.

Anyways, I am paying for a $130 Diagnostic so I might as well get the most information I can about my X5's charging system.

Sorry, local shops. No more. Going with the Big Retail Auto Shops from now on.

Sorry, not getting it.

Basically saying while it costs a bit more for the professional work (in your current case a remanufactured alternator) you end up paying more in the end to get cheaper work done (like your rebuilt alternator being bad and killing the new battery)

When people try to get out the cheapest way possible it often doesn't work and causes more damage... Then you not only wasted money on the cheap repair, but end up paying for the proper repair that should have beed done the first time.

Ah, got it. I get it now, but that's not really the case here. I got the Alternator rebuilt instead of buying the Autozone Re-manufactured one because I wanted to support the local economy.

The local shop actually was a little bit more ($30) than the Autozone $199 Reman. It's one of those things in life you learn as you go. I just happened to get a bad shop. Lesson learned.

Will it cost me more in the end? Not really. If the Alternator is found to be faulty by the BMW Dealer Diag, then the paperwork will be used to gain my money back PLUS the BMW Diag Fee. Will he give it? Probably not, but will a Judge in Small Claims Court? Absolutely yes, it's all about real evidence and having paperwork to prove it and it helps that it's from a big known name (BMW).

Was it all worth my time? Absolutely not.

This is how life is, we learn things as we go. If I wasn't already struggling with my Southern California Home Mortgage, trust me, I would have had BMW fix this and be done.