Its a good question. If its in warranty you should get it but you'd need a court case to prove it definitively.
If you go to court it tends to lean towards the consumer. People love the little guy.
In practise I think it works that if you dont ask for it you dont get it. Its basically a business decision between how much will it cost to do it against how much legal, bad publicity, cost and lost good faith will the dealer and manufacturer get for not doing it.
If its a recall or retrofit the dealer generally gets comped from the manufacturer, and the dealer will be happy to do it. They will argue about costs of course.
The Manufacturer wants as few of those as possible.
If its not a recall, its normally a negotation between you and the dealer and sometimes the manufacturer to get it done for free, or labour only or something inbetween.
This grey area sucks for everybody because nobody including you wants to pay and all are trying to push the cost to someone else.
They will recall and retrofit anything that is dangerous ( or will cause them a major publicity problem see Sony BMG's recent problems). Anything else will be "on failure" and sometimes rarely "on request". On request is dangerous grounds for them because if you dont know you could argue ethically they should have told you, if they tell you you'd probably request it.
My dealer attitude is leaning towards - you wanted MP3 so bad you should have made it clearer at purchase time and we are doing you a big favour by even talking about this. Nobody else is complaining. You'll get it when it comes.
My argument is your honor
- Its well known that the early releases of new products have defects. However reputable manufacturers fix these without question because they want more consumers to buy new products.
- Its included in the handbook provided with the product
- It was told to me it was full function all format stereo
- cheaper BMW versions in the same model range do include it.
- Its being reported all over the web so dont pretend nobody else cares or knows.
- Its a reasonable expectation that a premium car with a premium sound system will support it.
- every single cd/dvd based device over $150 (and many under) in my local consumer electronics superstore supports it including the cheapest and nastiest car devices.
- In light of reasonable expectations its absence was not advised at purchase time.
- Its a global brand that carries a price premium for claims around advanced engineering and quality
The point i'd make here is this.
One guy makes a fuss he's a
sad loser and has to fight for it. 100 people make a fuss its common practise to fix it at service time if you ask. 10000 guys make a fuss its in the papers the stock price is down and you are getting 2 letters. One is the company falling over itself giving you love and telling you when to come in for an upgrade and a corporate blow job freebies. The other is from a lawyer asking you to be part of a class action suit.
Make noise. They will fix it and you will help everyone else get respect when they go in for it. Or they can just give everyone a free Ipod.
Happy thanks giving.