Lack of ‘loyalty’ hits buyer hard
QIN January, I bought a BMW 2012 318i 2.0 petrol at an auction. I paid £7,000, £1,000 less than the guide price. The car had only done 39,000 miles and came with a complete service history from a BMW main dealer. But in March, it developed an engine fault which the BMW dealer diagnosed as a timing chain failure. I was told I needed a new engine – £8,000, or what the car is worth. I tried appealing to BMW but got nowhere. There is something very wrong here. Craig H
ABMW is a premium make. Your car is low mileage and has been regularly serviced by a main dealer.
This combination should have put your mind at rest, even though the car was out of warranty.
In some cases, BMW could have helped you with “goodwill”. But it appears you do not qualify because you bought the car at auction, which also means you often have very limited legal rights.
This is because auction houses are allowed to exclude parts of the Consumer Rights Act, such as being of satisfactory quality or fit for purpose, if – but only if – they put a notice on display in the catalogue or on the wall. It’s also important to note that when you buy at auction, your contractual rights are against the seller of the second-hand car.
BMW says: “This case does not fulfil the requirements for our goodwill to apply – we operate a generous goodwill policy which extends to vehicles purchased second-hand within our authorised BMW retailer network.”
So BMW could have sorted this out had you paid more and purchased from a main dealer – that could include the same dealer which had serviced the car. The dealer did take your engine to bits and rebuild it without charge.
BMW said: “A full service history allows BMW to assess a claim for goodwill. Whilst a contributory factor, in any assessment, requests for goodwill also include other factors such as age, mileage, loyalty and the means through which the car was purchased.”
It seems your lack of “loyalty” and opting for auction rather than its used car scheme went against you. Your timing chain experience is not a one-off, according to online reports. We asked BMW how many vehicles similar to yours had this problem. It did not respond.
One ray of light is that a number of non-bmw repairers will sort out your timing chain and rebuild your engine for £2,000 to £2,500.