[CanAutM3]

The first dealer near my home I went to with my E46 was realy bad. The name stealer realy applied to their service department. I had so many bad experiences with them, I now travel across the city to go to another dealer that I realy like dealing with.

Tidbits of my E46 experience with this dealer:

They nicked a mag and tire when I brought the car in for tire replacement and then claimed the wheel and tire were like that when I brought the car in. They even showed me the vehicle ststus inspection form. That borders on fraud. They never fixed nor replaced the damaged wheel.

When I brought the car in for front brake pad replacement after the first summer (the car was tracked), they said the pads and rotors at all 4 corners were shot and needed to be replaced at the cost of several thousand dollars. I told them to stick with the front pads only. After almost seven years of ownership, the rear original rotors were still on and I replaced the front rotors only once.

When I brought the car in for the rod bearing recall after 2 years of ownership, they told me the drive belts needed to be replaced and charged me a few hundred dollars. They said the belts were a wear item not coverd by warranty. How can the drive belts need replacement after only two years?

Driving back to work after an oil change, I heard a large bang and a plume of smoke was coming from the back of the car. I pressed the clutch and shutdown the engine to pull over. When I opened the hood, the whole engine bay was full of oil. I checked the oil level and it was well over the max mark. Had the car towed to the dealer. Turns out they overfilled the oil which led to a pressure relief plug to pop out of the head. They replaced the plug. After that, I swore I could hear the car pinging and felt it was down on power. After close to a year of multiple visits only to be told nothing was wrong, I insisted they give me their most experienced tech and that I go in the shop with the car. The tech was a nice gentleman from Germany and he accepted to do a leakdown test. Turns out the head gasket between two cylinders got blown by the oil sump over pressure. Car ran fan after the gasket replacement.

I moved my business to another dealer when I got my E92. So no, all dealers cannot be trusted.