Waiting for Godot… Day Eight…

Late yesterday afternoon, I received good news. Oxnard called back and said that Godot was on his way back to the dealership. They did not mention what was wrong nor what they did to fix the problem, nor what the problem was.

The only thing they told my dealership is that they wanted them to do an alignment on the wheels… (must have been an effect of the “tow” that BMW Assist did).

Either way, I’ll believe it when I see it.

Waiting for Godot… Oxnard Watch Day Seven…

So, today would be the anniversary of the first appearance of this aggressive Transmission Error that would not clear.

Yesterday, I got my first update since Oxnard received the car. And the update was – “Oxnard did not communicate anything yet.” Additionally, my Service Advisor tells me that they really operate in a vacuum there and in the past they would only hear when the work was done. I thanked him for calling and told him that this behavior is obviously not BMW level, but understand technical people and suggested that BMW needed to learn to communicate more.

I am hoping to have my car back before Christmas, but doubt it.

Waiting on Pumas… Day Two…

So… Just heard back from my Service Advisor.

I forgot to mention that the car would not take a charge overnight 12-11-12 (or 11-12-12 for my German and International readers) as well as being stuck in Transmission Error mode. Nor would it take a charge with subsequent attempts.

So, yesterday afternoon, after the car was towed to the dealership, the low level electric (12V battery) died and they had to replace the 12V battery. There was hope that these issues would be cleared by that battery replacement. Unfortunately, that was not the case. I got the call and was told that we’re now waiting on BMW Corporate to get back to my guys (one of the drawbacks to being in the West Coast in this program is that the guys in Corporate could be NJ for US and Germany for International, so I don’t know who they’re waiting on.)

So, the dealership tried to plug the car in for a charge again after replacing the 12V battery and that was not working either. So, we’re now waiting for Puma response…

If you’re interested in seeing these updates as I publish, subscribe to the blog. I plan on updating as often as I get updates for this… I just hope that this does not turn into a Samuel Beckett play. Otherwise, I will have to break from my normal behavior and give my car a name, I’m just hoping that it would not have to be Godot!

12-12-12 might as well have been 13-13-13 for me…

I guess the words “spoke too soon” should’ve applied to my “completed” 20k service last week.

I was lucky enough to pick up my vehicle last Friday after the dealership completed my 20k service at 21,021, it was a particularly slow weekend for me, driving wise, as we pretty much stayed close to home. So, it was a little perturbing when I received the dreaded “Transmission Error” last night.

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I’ve only had a few of these in the past, however, this has been the first one since my dealership moved my car from being serviced by the one technician that they’ve had on the ActiveE with a second tech who just started working on my car. Not to say that I blame the guy… But that’s just suspect for me.

So, I figured not to panic, I started the list of things to do when this error pops up…

1) I took the key out and waited a few minutes started the whole process and the car did not start.

2) So, I figured to try it again and waited an hour… No effect.

3) I decided to go to sleep, plug the car in and try it the next morning… Tried it, still the same error.

4) Tried the reset switch by the battery

5) Finally had to call for a tow truck…

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A “skate”, I think “sled is better”…

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So, what did we learn since the first tow 9 months ago…

Well, not much. Apparently disengaging the low level electric and putting the car in neutral does not seem to be much of a priority anymore.

Well, for those interested, I was able to get a copy of the guide for tow-truck drivers from the guy who picked up my car (and proceeded to mark up my front drive way with rubber drag marks for my car…)

Skates are now “recommended”, however, skates are not what I thought they would look like, Sleds would have been a better name.

Ugh… Now, I wait… And hopefully it’s not too long. I am still hoping to try to catch up to Tom M! or at least stay ahead of Todd C. Hard to do when I’m driving an ICE 328 Sedan.