Service

[Sheilz]

Tomorrow Dougall is going into JC for a service. Its the one that most cars get around 35 thousand (Dougall sitting at just under 37). I phoned JC to ask them if they'd put on my new wheels to save me the hassle of two trips to garages. What I didn't know is they only visually check the brakes and discs through the holes in the alloys which begs the question, how in hell's name they will manage to do that through steelies? I'd have thought they'd have to take off the steelies to do any sort of visual inspection which of courses makes me think the greedy b*stards shouldn't be wanting to charge me for putting on the new wheels I bought from Fi. Have I got this wrong? Question doesn't relate to the g... b..... bit!

[Scottie]

I was charged £90 from our local mini dealer for changing my wheels over.. Yes that's right your not seeing things... £90. Stealing buggers don't talk to that dealer anymore. Oh and that was changing over on to a new mini that I was buying.

[Sheilz]

Thieving gits. Am still puzzled as to how they intend checking the brakes and discs through steel wheels:confused:

[Duncan Stewart]

I found this out the hard way with my black Cooper - brake wear light came on shortly after the service because the inner pad had worn, they only check the outer pad because They do it through the holes in the wheels (steel or alloy) without taking them off !! :ragin:so they told me

[Sheilz]

Would this be the norm for a service at any garage or just BMW/mini dealerships. Darren is coming round to load the wheels into the car for me tonight so will get him to take off the hub caps so that the wheels are naked. That way tomorrow I will be asking whomever from the service team to show me exactly how they will check the brakes and discs through the relatively small holes in the steel wheels. I think I'm quite cross about this.

[N16SHP]

John Clarks...I'm saying nothing otherwise a'l end up in the referee's book!

[Gismo]

While the car is up on a ramp draining the oil they could look at the pads then without taking the wheels off

[Sheilz]

I won! (Kind of)

Asked the lassie on the service desk about inspecting brakes etc through steelies, she got a bit sharp with me and said "they can take the wheels off " like I was half-witted which nicely opened the door for me to ask why they then felt the need to charge me to put on the new wheels when they clearly would have to put some sort of wheel on the car. There wasn't really an answer to that so they halved the charge to £25.
Thanks to a certain tyre fitter in Aberdeen for wrecking three bolts on a wheel when he put on my steelies getting all four wheels on correctly took a bit of effort so I guess I got value for money.

Now after I've hunted down said tyre fitter and got him to fork out the three hundred for new bolts and a hub I am going to kill him!

[Forbes]

Ouch.

JCs changed mine for free. Sure it was during a service aswell.


Though they did say they would charge me for getting it on the ramps next time. Took 45 minutes apparently last time. So £120 + VAT an hour....

[Mon the fish]

There's a hole in the pad, accessible through the caliper which BMW have a tool they can stick in to check pad thickness. The wheel would only have to be in the right position for this tool to tell them pad thickness.

And as has been said, they can check the lip on the disc from the inside

[Mon the fish]

Ouch.

JCs changed mine for free. Sure it was during a service aswell.


Though they did say they would charge me for getting it on the ramps next time. Took 45 minutes apparently last time. So £120 + VAT an hour....

Did you have the GP bumper on at the time? Cos it'll only be worse if you didn't :lol:

[Forbes]

Did you have the GP bumper on at the time? Cos it'll only be worse if you didn't :lol:

The Cooper S and GP bumper are roughly the same height. GP went back on the other day

[Mon the fish]

Ah, didn't know that. Had it in my head that the GP bumper was lower

[Forbes]

Well my experience on the same car is they roughly are the same. Scrape on same speedbumps, miss others etc. Think it is the lower trim on the S bumper is much chunkier than the GP splitter