Short version – Good if you have an older, weekend only BMW, and don’t care about customer service, but terrible if you have newer or daily driver and you like customer service.
Longer version - Back before Christmas I had a slight hic-up with Stinehardt Imports. It started with the Service Engine Soon light, my seat heater intermittingly working and Adaptive Headlights fault so I decided to drop it off while I was on a business trip, thinking that four days would give him time to trouble shoot the problems. When I got back on Thursday they had not looked at the vehicle yet and on Friday evening John Stine called and said to come over on Saturday to discuss the issues. John stated that he would have to order the seat heater and would look into Adaptive Headlights and that the Service Engine Soon was 37.5K check-up and I told him to just reset the fault.
In Early-January I had the Service Engine Soon light again so I bought a code reader had a “fuel is lean” error. Bought some Sea Foam, ran that through, cleared the fault and all was fine for a week or so. The Service Engine Soon indicator came back on, this time with a possible cylinder 6 error. I made an appointment for two weeks later for Tuesday Feb 10th. Gave them explicit instructions on Codes given, reminded them of the seat heater that I never got a call back on and a Passenger seat extender issue I was having. Took it in at opening on the appointment day (Tuesday) and we went over the problems again. I received a call back on Thursday Feb 12th with a message that they need the car until late Friday. I called back and was told they have not looked at it, I questioned then how do they know I’ll get it back on Friday with so much work requested and was told they could do it. Friday around noon I called and they stated that they just now are looking at the car, and John would call back tonight to explain the issue. I never got a call back.
I went in when they opened Saturday Feb 14th to speak to John and find out the issues with the car since it appeared I would not get much feedback over the phone. I talked to John and he said he had been swamped all week. I asked him about the fact that I called and gave him the service codes a week prior to my appointment and asked if that mattered and he said he meant to finish it and that he could look at my seat that afternoon. I was told that my Cylinder 6 injector coil was replaced and they would need to check it out. I asked if they finished the work which was the primary focus of the visit. He said he did… I explained my frustration on how making an appointment did not help since I was without a car from Tuesday until Saturday. He said his week was spent troubleshooting things that took longer than he expected. I went back in to the office and the office manager was apologetic. My wife and I told her we understood his predicament but that a phone call prior to Saturday morning explaining the situation would alleviate the expectation of arriving to pick up a car that wasn’t fixed. That is when a bookkeeper came out of a back office and began arguing with us. She told us we could either pay for quality work there or go to the dealer and pay double. When we tried to explain calmly how we value good customer service which should include periodic updates on the car prior arriving to pick up the car after 4 days only to show up the morning to pick it up expecting all issues to be addressed, instead, the work wasn’t finished. This bookkeeper continued to raise her voice and told us we needed to leave the property. At that point my wife and I ignored this ridiculous behavior and continued to converse with the office manager who was trying to explain to us how to fix the seat extender since the shop did not. The bookkeeper ordered her quit talking and to stop helping us.
John previously was very good about talking to me about the options with the work, but this time was such a bad experience I’ll be looking for another shop. If you are looking for a new shop, let this be a warning. He may have more work than he can handle and avoid the pit-bull bookkeeper.
