Autospies has a mock-up of a brouchure that MBUSA is preparing for dealers to announce dropping free maintenance.

Here are the highlights.

Dropping FSS system. Simple countdown to next maintenance. Fixed 13K maintenance intervals. First oil change is free at 3K. First tire rotation is free.

No mention of extended warranty.

http://www.autospies.com/article/index.asp?articleId=2788&categoryId=10

Interesting, I wonder why they arbitrarily chose 13k miles.

You figure the average customer does a 3 year 12,000 mile per year lease, I wonder why they don't just make it a 36k mile interval?? Then everyone except any subsequent owners of the car would be happy.

__________________
Ali Al-Chalabi

2001 CLK55
1999 Dodge Ram 2500 Cummins Diesel
2002 Harley-Davidson Fatboy
Merlin Extralight w/ Campy Record

I got the impression that the FSS system was set to a minimum of 13K. between service intervals. This made sense because it essentially eliminated one free service in the four year, 50K warranty period and saved MBUSA money.

Has anyone ever had the FSS system authorize service in less than 13 months?

13K is not the minimum. If you don't drive it at all, it will begin counting by time. It would be possible to see that thing set at a 500 miles if you bought it, drove it home and parked it in the garage and drove it around the block once a month.

Of course, in that case you would only get one free oil change before it ran out on time.

My car is showing 4500 miles til service and my warranty runs out on time in October. As little as I drive these days I may not make it. Especially if I only drive it on long hauls which won't decrease the time to service linearly. It seems to stretch out since it is all road miles.

If you lose the free service, you're really not losing much unless you're the type person that thinks that no one on Earth is qualified to change your oil except the dealer. In the 50,000 miles, a typical owner would get about four free oil changes. There are some items such as air filters that are not scheduled for change until 60,000 miles, so you wouldn't get there anyway.

If it weren't for my brother in law, whom I trust greatly, being my tech, I probably wouldn't bother taking it to them for preventive maintenance anyway. I can change it easier at home than the trouble it takes to take it to the dealer.

Have a great day,

We never got the "free" service in Canada, and really never missed it. However, as long as I can remember, MB has been putting a coupon for your first oil change.

With the FSS intervals being so long, what was the true cost of the included services? Not that much? I would wonder how much the true cost really was. So why drop it? Talking to a friend of mine that works at a BMW dealer (they have "free" service in Canada) I guess these free programs are huge hassles. They spent an inordinate amount of time explaining to the customer that they just can't bring the car down whenever they feel like it and get free service. It seems to sell cars but leads to customer dissatisfaction as time goes on.

He also mentioned that people seem to think it precludes them from taking responsibility for the condition of their car. People don't read the fine print and get upset when it doesn't include tires.

The other point he had was that rural based clients feel ripped off, since they're paying for the service and can only take advantage of it if they return to the city. I'm not sure how many rural customers BMW has, but I guess they do have a point.

For the US customers that had this program, did you like it? Would it influence your new car buying decision?

__________________
John Shellenberg
1998 C230 "Black Betty" 240K

http://img31.exs.cx/img31/4050/tophat6.gif

Yes, my wife and I liked it and it was a factor in our decision to buy. Yes, it will greatly influence our decision for a next car, considering how much MB's cost.