Need feedback/advice- car taken for joy ride when dropped off for service at dealer

[Occhi]

BMW BH service dept is always jammed pack so you're lucky if you get your car back at the end of the day for an oil change. I had an 11:40a Thurs appt with a loaner to get oil change, brake oil, fluids etc on my 2011 X3. I got a chassis malfunction error and battery discharge msg again not too long ago which I've asked them to address before so I asked them to look into it. I deliberately did not fill my tank and left apprx 65 mi range of gas. They call me at the end of the day asking more questions about the error which means they hadn't even touched my car since I dropped it off late morning which I expected. I told them that I noticed the chassis malfunction error would happen when I had my car in drive but had my foot on the brakes for an extended amount of time rather shifting to park. Next day, they still haven't finished and ask me for permission to put $20 of gas in my tank as they will need to drive it around to see if they can replicate the situation. I gave the ok but said they shouldn't have to drive it much as it always happened when the car was in one place.




Skip to Monday (car has been their since Thursday). I get a call at 12:30pm from my service advisor that the car is ready to pick up. They couldn't replicate the situation but updated my software to hopefully take care of the issue. 2 hours later, I get a call again saying that one of my rear tires is very worn down. I told him I didn't understand how is it that only one tire is worn down (I don't drive too much, bought car in June 2011:25K miles on it currently). He said he would get the details and get back to me. He calls back a few minutes later and tells me he read the wrong paperwork. It was that my rear tire had a nail it. I had purchased tire insurance so he was going to start a claim and replace (which meant at 3:40pm, I wasn't going to pick up the car til the next day). He suggested I have alignment done which he quoted $350. I said I wanted to think about it and do it next time.




I picked up the car today. As I drove away, I decided to check the photo I took of the mileage before I dropped it off. WTF! Over 70 miles added! I took a pic of my console and called my service man. He said he would bring it up to the management as that is excessive. I told him heck yeah, seeing that it hardly needed to be driven to try to replicate the error when I told them it was just in drive but in one place with my foot on the brakes. I'm not trying to knit pick here but where the hell did they drive to with my car? The service guy was trying to tell me that I should consider 6 mi a day to test drive so since they had my car 4 days...yeah still doesn't add up to over 70 miles and that is bs anyway. Those guys are not test driving my car every day.




It also dawned on me that there is no way they drove those miles with just putting $20 in my car. Sneaky bastards charged me for the $20 and probably added the extra gas to do their joy riding or whatever it was. Who knows if they put the right grade of gas when it was on their dime? I was going to shuck up to a lesson learned until I realized that the nail in my tire is suspect. When did the nail get in the tire and why did they only discover it after they had already called me to come and pick the car up? Luckily I have tire insurance but hello?




I am planning to go to the service center tomorrow as now I have more than just the mileage to be angry about. I'm going to ask them to take care of the alignment gratis since if it weren't for the nail, I would have not needed to replace the tire which my insurance took care of. I'm so tempted to ask them to fix a small nick on the rear bumper too but I can't be dishonest. I would very much appreciate everyone's advice/feedback.




Btw, I have to check the mileage logged on the paperwork (if that doesn't match up, I may lose it). I took photos before and after on my iPhone which I believe can give me time and date.

[Critter7r]

FYI, for driveability problems we have our shop foreman drive cars home pretty regularly (with permission) to attempt to duplicate problems. He lives 30 miles away. It's entirely possible that the advisor doesn't know that has happened. Especially in a big shop, the advisor gets his info from the computer which doesn't give every little detail as to "how" the vehicle was test driven, only that it was test driven.