How do you know a rear brake light bulb has failed on a Land Rover Discovery 3…?

Simple, the car tells you.

The dashboard says:

• Parking brake fault
• HDC fault – Module not found
• Transmission fault

And the car very helpfully drops the car on to the lowest suspension setting (i.e. the bump stops). This can be especially useful when you’re many miles from home. Mind you, someone will probably point out that it doesn’t make that _much_ difference to the ride quality.

My experience with BMW and Mercedes was that they simply told you that you had a bulb failure.

Interestingly, the Service Desk at the dealer (Guy Salmon in Coventry) didn’t recognise the faults as indicating a bulb failure either and referred me to Land Rover Assistance, as the earliest time they could help was the middle of the next week.Guy Salmon didn’t seem hugely concerned that I had a car that I couldn’t drive.

It must be a regular fault, as the ever cheerful Chris (from LR Assistance) had a very good look at the rear light bulbs when he showed up – 3 hours later. A visual check - with me pressing the brake pedal, confirmed his suspicions very shortly.

The whole experience did get quite close to farcical when Chris didn’t have any replacement bulbs with him and had to drive me to Halfords (for me) to buy a replacement set.

An amusing note was that during the conversation on the way to Halfords, Chris and I agreed that it was pretty poor design where a bulb failure takes out the whole car. When I asked if it was also an issue with the Discovery 4, the response was “… well, they’re fitted with LEDs now and they shouldn’t fail”, which neatly provided an illustration of the difference between an Incident and a Problem.

As an ex-Mechanical Engineer, I am dismayed that this wasn’t picked up during basic FMEA. Perhaps Land Rover have not come that far from British Leyland and 1987 where a sister company had passed a design where one fuse protected the headlights and the headlight washers…

So, for example, if the headlight washer motor had frozen up early on a cold, dark winter’s morning as you were happily motoring along the M1 with 3 lanes of solid traffic in your posh new Jaguar XJ40 and you were thinking “… my lights are looking a little dim, I’ll clean them up with my very clever headlight washer…”, you’d find out that the motor was frozen solid when all the headlights went out completely.

Funny how the engineers didn’t spot that in thousands of miles of Artic testing.

ReedsCo – New Updates

Reed Tan has recently updated his Maximum Visibility (MV) watch to a Maximum Visibility II (MV II) with a new movement; different face and hand options.
I think these offer a significant and welcome upgrade to the watch and have recently returned my V1 to be upgraded.
This was originally volunteered by Reed and shows the commitment to his brand and the excellent customer service he offers.

iTunes VAT receipts

If you’re a VAT registered business using the iPad and/or iPhone and are purchasing applications for business use or as part of your application development research, you’ll probably want a VAT receipt from Apple and will have noticed that all the receipts provided clearly state that ‘… this is _not_ a VAT receipt…”

In which case, you may be interested in the following article that describes how Jeremy Richards was able to obtain VAT receipts.

[Update 09/09/2010 – 10:00]

Received 2 VAT invoices this morning – out of a backlog of 8, along with an email stating:

Greetings from iTunes Store Customer Support. I understand that you wish to have a VAT invoices for your purchases. I can certainly see your concern. My name is Srinivas and I will do my best to provide you an appropriate information.

I would like to inform you that, the iTunes Store sells only to customers as end-users for personal, noncommercial use in their respective countries of residence. For more information, you can review the iTunes Store Terms and Conditions:

http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/ww

Thank you for being an iTunes Store customer. Apple appreciates your business and understanding in this regard.

Regards,

Srinivas

iTunes Store Customer Support

I have replied using Jeremy’s erudite response template …

Dear Srinivas

Many thanks for your reply. Whilst I understand that your terms state that the applications are for personal use I would like to draw your attention to the Apple website that refers to business applications on many occasions. Just look at all these applications on offer. This part is on the iPhone tab 'With iPhone, you get secure corporate network connectivity, access to thousands of business apps, and tool for developing your own company apps.' Are you really telling me that you are selling people apps that they are not allowed to use?

It is irrelevant whether I wish to use my purchase for personal of business benefit. I am a VAT registered individual and I am requesting a VAT invoice. By UK law you have to supply me with one. Please see the [tax office website] for confirmation.

I note that you have already sent me VAT invoices for transaction IDs:

<Invoices Received>

I am currently missing VAT invoices for:

<Invoices Missing>

I look forward to receiving them, etc…

There’s also a similar experience posted here.

[Update 09/09/2010 – 16:00]

All missing VAT receipts received…

Pixmania – Buyers beware!

Be very careful when buying from Pixmania. For sure, their prices are very competitive, but the goods are shipped from France… and sometimes they’re selling the French version. It is normally noted on the page for the item:

This means that:

• They’ll send you an adapter plug (European to UK) that you have to fit yourself – a minor effort

What they don’t tell you is that:

• The goods will have French manuals included. You may get lucky and have the English manuals included as well, but a lot of manufacturers are only shipping the manual for the locale to save weight and costs.
• The number given on the order confirmation email is ‘no longer in service’

  

The correct number is 0844 369 0372 and it is possible to contact customer service via email as well – first you’ll have to log in with the email address and password you created when you purchased the item.

Calling the Customer Service number is fun too, the system doesn’t respond when you enter the order number and keeps asking for it to be repeated. Eventually, you’ll get to a message that says “All our operators are busy, please call back later” and you’ll get cut off.

I’ll let you know how I get on with sourcing a UK manual…

<Update> In the end I gave up with Pixmania and downloaded the PDF from the manufacturer’s web site.

User Interfaces

I use DxO Optics Pro for processing my camera images as the second step in my digital workflow after importing the files in to Lightroom.

I was originally introduced to it by Ken Rockwell and it does a great job of correcting the lens errors and gives excellent results, but it doesn’t currently include one of my lenses – a Nikon 35mm  f/2, so I used the DxO site to register my interest for a module for the 35mm.

It is very easy to do with an online form to be completed.

The bit that foxed me was the spam check at the bottom of the form.

The attempt show above was the fourth or fifth one I’d tried… It seems that you need to type all the characters in upper-case. Obvious!

ReedsCo – A Work in Progress

They say that in football that it is a “Game of two halves” and it seems that my watch is similarly one of two parts…

I had left the watch for a couple of days whilst I was abroad; it had stopped and I needed to set the time.

I unscrewed and pulled out the crown the two clicks to engage the hour hand; set the time and pushed it back in. It didn’t seem to be sitting properly, so I pulled it out again. At which point I had the following in my hand.

Reed Tan was very apologetic and has agreed – to save on the postage between here and Singapore, for me to get a local watch maker to refit the crown + shaft.

I have used Geoff Allnutt on several occasions and he provided great support. I’ll let you know what he says.

Postscript

Have just received the final quotation from Sytner, who have also very kindly reduced their labour rates.

The original estimate for parts, labout and VAT was;

• Gearbox - £3,700
• Injector - £470
• Glowplug control unit - £226

Giving a total of £4,396

The revised quotation is;

• Gearbox - £2027.46
• Injector - £450.13
• Glowplug control unit - £209.67

Giving a new total of £2,687.26, which is a reduction of £1,710.

It is still a massive bill and it has taken a huge amount of effort to articulate my case to BMW in order to achieve this result. 

However, I've learnt my lesson and will ensure that I don't keep a vehicle - especially a BMW, past its 5th birthday.

BMW Customer Service

An update to yesterday's post.

Earlier today, I sent the following e-mail to Klaus Kibsgaard (MD, BMW UK), Chris Willows (Director of Corporate Communications, BMW UK) and Uwe Ellinghaus (Marketing Director, BMW UK)

Dear Mr Kibsgaard,

I am writing to highlight the completely unsatisfactory experience I’ve had with BMW ownership over the past 2 years.

I have suffered from very poor customer experience and excessive levels of unexpected maintenance.

Owning a BMW has wasted many days of my time, the financial costs have been significant and the disruption to my personal and business life has been extraordinary.

Your customer service team have been uncompromising, even though the car falls well within your goodwill guidelines.

I have tried to be reasonable, that hasn’t worked, so I’ll be making my experiences more widely known.

The detail are in the attached document, with a summary blog posting here and forum posting here. I will be posting more widely later today.

--

Best Regards

etc...

Although I am still waiting for a response to the email, I have (just) received a call from Jonny Combe - Customer Service Manager BMW UK. They have offered to contribute 50% towards the cost of the replacement gearbox. I am now waiting for the full details from Sytner.

As an aside, it seems to me that Sytner have missed an opportunity here to (a) generate a sale and (b) create a product champion. 

I would have responded very positively to a call from a (smart) BMW salesman who offered a suitable replacement vehicle with a good trade in value (typical AutoTrader private sale) against mine.

My logic is that the internal parts and labour costs are lower than a customer pays and there is no VAT. The 330D could be repaired and then sold on to the trade. The cost of the repair would be factored in to the discount on the replacement car... especially as I've seen prices drop by more than £3,000 on a £22,000 used BMW in a few weeks.

Sytner would have achieved a financing deal; sold some stock and had a succes story to talk about.

Perhaps there aren't any smart salesmen at Sytner?

A postscript and final costs here.

BMW Reliability?

Where do you go when the manufacturer digs their heels in and says 'non!'?

I thought I'd post this to provide a reference for anyone considering buying a BMW in the UK; highlight how they can expect to be treated and the risks involved.

The headline is that I've spent £9,200 on maintaining my BMW 330D over the past 2 years or 46,000 miles, which is £350/month. This is in addition to the £485/month that's been 'spent' on depreciation and finance charges...

The bulk of this cost (£5,650) is due to the following failures;

• Xenon controller failure - £860
  
• Seized rear calliper - £620
  
• Injector replacement - £470
  
• Gearbox replacement - £3,700
  

The car is currently at the Sytner dealership in Coventry where it requires £4,400 maintenance to replace a failed injector, glow plug relay and gearbox.

BMW's goodwill policy sets an upper limit of 6 years and 100,000 miles. A goodwill request was made by Sytner on 30th January 2008, but BMW said (today) that they would not make any contribution to the parts or labour charges and reprimanded the dealer for having made the goodwill enquiry in the first place!

I should point out that the car was bought as BMW approved and warrantied with 36,000 miles. It was first registered in May 2003. All these failures have occurred in the last 10,000 with the gearbox failing @ 82,000 miles.

I have accepted some of the 'unexpected' (non-service related) costs in the context of running a 4 year old car and the eye-watering depreciation as a result of the economic downturn, but feel that a gearbox failure @ 80,000 miles is unreasonable.

We used to durability test Jaguar cars to over 125,000 miles and all the Mercedes (I've owned) completed 90 to 120,000 miles without major issue.

I approached BMW Customer Services directly; provided a breakdown of the costs and illustrated the high level of background maintenance. They were unmoved and weren't prepared to consider the case in the context of their own rules.

So what do I do now?

• BMW don't care. 
  
• I'm not important to them as a customer and have no way of having a reasonable conversation.

All I can do is publicly state my case and allow others to use the information in their car purchasing decision.

The original intention was to sell the car after the next service and replace it with another BMW. Given my experience of BMW ownership, I am unlikely to do this.

I suggest other people look elsewhere too.

To provide some more detail;

I purchased the BMW from Rybrook in Shrewsbury in December 2006. I had been a Mercedes owner for the previous 10 years (E430 Estate, E280 Estate, E320 Saloon). The Mercedes cars were very good – well made & reliable, despite the press reports, but the dealers were arrogant and customer service was very poor.

I’d had a good reliability and customer service experience with two BMW motorcycles (K75S and K1200RS) and the press reviews of the E46 were very complimentary. Rybrook had prepared the car very well and it appeared to be in very good condition – one owner, low mileage.

During my ownership, the car has been used for business commuting – mainly motorway work; long journeys and light load. As in indication, the rear tyres require replacement every 20,000 miles, the fronts at 38,000 miles and the front pads were only 60% worn after 38,000 miles.

Rybrook or Sytner in Coventry have inspected or serviced the car at the correct intervals.

As an aside, I have also had a number of issues with the level of customer service at Sytner – something for another post. Whilst I am dubious about their claim that the headlight seal failure (that caused the Xenon controller failure) and the work on the headlamp washers are unrelated, I have no proof and have accepted their offer of a complimentary service.

There's an update on this here.