Even Good Indy Shops Get You

[underwatervans]

Long story short: DO NOT TAKE YOUR CAR ANYWHERE do the work your self and ALWAYS SAY NO unless they show you what is wrong before doing it.

Bought a manual 128i with 160k on the clock. Needed a suspension overhaul, I installed new to me front and rear b12 kit, M3 front arms. Installed rear m3 upgraded upper and lower control arms and new toe arms.

Something was funky when driving it after my installation and for sure it needed an alignment. Dropped it off at a very highly recommended shop locally. Told them I wanted a PPI to catch anything a newbie like myself might not catch, and an alignment.

Well turned out I had accidentally swapped the two front control arms, and the sway bar links, they said it'd be quick to just swap around for me. Fine (charged 6 hours shop time...).

Then SUPRISE my tensioner belt and pully were (leaning). They had already replaced before asking me saying that it could blow up the engine if they let it leave like that (???). (200+ for parts and 2hrs shop time...)

ANOTHER SUPRISE! They can't get the rear toe in alignment within spec... okay fine suggest an adjustable rear toe arm (that was something i had planned) turns out they didnt install adj rear toe arms... they installed adjustable upper rear control arms... (200 bucks for the arms another 1.5 in shop time...)

FUCKING AGAIN another surprise, on their time the car died on the alignment rack, they said it threw a check engine light - they pull codes - say it might be DME or VANOS. We agreed it might be the battery (fine maybe a new battery would be good it'd been taking a minute to crank the past few weeks.) 200 bucks for the battery, 150 to pull the codes, 100 in parts to fix the positive terminal??? AND a fucking capper 120 to install and code the battery...)

AND they left writing on my window before turning the car back over to me.

All in $2500... I just cannot justify ever taking my car into any shop ever again that would just start doing work without checking with me first and giving me the chance to say no, despite how reputable it may be.

[Lester]

Actually, if everything they say they did was done, $2,500 isn't actually too bad. It might have been a lot more at a dealer. Your car is at the mileage where things will need to be looked at. They were right in being proactive, but they should have advised you first. Coding for a new battery is important - some people don't do it because they aren't aware that an uncoded new battery has a good chance to cause it to fail within a short time.

Other things to be aware of, at your mileage - could be due the second time around, will be plugs, coils, water pump, oil filter housing gasket, valve cover gasket, and oil pan gasket. If you have the service records you should be able to predict what should be looked at next.

I prefer to work with a shop that is proactive, but explain up front that you need to be advised.

When I had my 2008 135i at my dealer last year, for new plugs and coils - they only replaced 4 of the coils. The ones that were throwing codes. I was a little po'd because now I have 2 old coils that will likely fail in the next year or so. I'd rather have had them all done at once.

Enjoy the car!

[germ]

You need to find another shop. Doing work without authorization is not acceptable. I would ask for my money back.