Recent Reviews from BMW Encinitas

My experience was very good, until my service associate recommended I speak with the Service & Parts Director at BMW Encinitas named Matt. I had a question regarding the plastic timing chain guide that failed, causing my 2013 X1's engine to fail at 84,000 miles. I asked if it was possible to the timing chain guide failure could of been avoided by replacing the plastic component with a metal substitute. My question was not addressed. Instead, the entire background of BMW Encinitas paying 75% of the engine replacement cost was re-explained to me. I restated my question and was then very coarsely told my car was out of warranty and the engine is a "part" that needed to be replaced and verbatim, "should take it up with the manufacturer." Next, I was very strongly and condescendingly asked "Are you using one of MY loaner cars?" I replied 'Yes' and I was met with an aggressive response to return the car today or have my credit card charged the $75 day rate. I attempted to steer the conversation back to my original question, but was then categorized as "unwilling to pay my previously agreed amount" that I had to defend. I explained I was willing to pay the amount, but with some of the research I had done since my engine failed I felt it could of been avoided. With that insight, I had a new perspective around the overall cost and the reason for our conversation was to understand the timing chain guide component and my original question. Unfortunately, this resulted in another repetition of the entire background of BMW Encinitas' generosity paying 75% of the cost. The conversation continued and I truly feel I kept my cool, while the Service Director's language and tone grew increasingly disrespectful. Lastly, I said I was quite shocked at the way he was speaking to me and felt this conversation did not need to unfold the way it did. I could not make out his response, because it was very emotionally charged. Next, it took me a second, but I then realized he hung up on me. After the phone call, I reflected on the call and feel the way I was spoken to as a customer was unlike any other I have ever experienced. Last night, I picked up my car, returned the loaner, and paid the balance. My car is working much better than it was before, but my experience over the phone has left me with the hope this was an isolated incident.

Alex Dakin Mar 26, 2019

Predatory or Disorganized. Either way, don't use this dealership! I have been leasing BMWs since 2007. And I basically dealt with most dealerships in San Diego. This has been by far the worst experience I have had with a BMW dealership! On the surface, they are extremely nice and they promise you the moon. They are not rough and standoffish. Instead, they are all smiles and are very “accommodating to your needs”. That is when you should be very careful! As I mentioned, I have leased several cars over the years: usually when the lease is near its end, I start shopping around. Historically, the dealers are able to waive the remaining 2-3 months of the old lease. I never had that in writing, it was understood to be a part of the deal. This time, BMW of Encinitas said that they will do the same, and since it happened 4 times before, (especially with all their smiles) I let my guard down against my best judgment. I DID NOT GET THAT PART OF THE AGREEMENT IN WRITING. After the new car deal was signed, the confusion started: initially they tried to have me pay for repairs covered by the warranty. The second time they called me to sign the (end of lease paperwork) and after waiting for 20 minutes they claimed that the papers are not ready and made up some excuse. Then they called the next day and said “we are good”. 2 weeks later, the bill came and BMW is now asking for the remainder of the lease payments! It took me a week to speak to someone in the dealership in person, and by then of course they denied that it is their responsibility. They claimed that it is a “misunderstanding”. I mostly blame myself for not being vigilant and letting my guard down and not having the agreement in writing. I considered taking them to court, but since (other some texts from their salesperson) I have no proof of their promises, I opted not to. I am writing this review to alert other potential customers of the behavior of this dealership. They are either predatory or very disorganized. I really can’t decide. Either way, PLEASE BE CAREFUL AND DON’T BE FOOLED BY THEIR SMILES LIKE I DID! I think this will be my last BMW. This dealership really has turned me off this brand. And the worst part, I am not able to enjoy my new car. Every time I look at it, I remember this negative experience!

Fadi N. Feb 15, 2019

I have been leasing BMWs since 2007. And I basically dealt with most dealerships in San Diego. This has been by far the worst experience I have had with a BMW dealership! On the surface, they are extremely nice and they promise you the moon. They are not rough and standoffish. Instead, they are all smiles and are very “accommodating to your needs”. That is when you should be very careful! As I mentioned, I have leased several cars over the years: usually when the lease is near its end, I start shopping around. Historically, the dealers are able to waive the remaining 2-3 months of the old lease. I never had that in writing, it was understood to be a part of the deal. This time, BMW of Encinitas said that they will do the same, and since it happened 4 times before, (especially with all their smiles) I let my guard down against my best judgment. I DID NOT GET THAT PART OF THE AGREEMENT IN WRITING. After the new car deal was signed, the confusion started: initially they tried to have me pay for repairs covered by the warranty. The second time they called me to sign the (end of lease paperwork) and after waiting for 20 minutes they claimed that the papers are not ready and made up some excuse. Then they called the next day and said “we are good”. 2 weeks later, the bill came and BMW is now asking for the remainder of the lease payments! It took me a week to speak to someone in the dealership in person, and by then of course they denied that it is their responsibility. They claimed that it is a “misunderstanding”. I mostly blame myself for not being vigilant and letting my guard down and not having the agreement in writing. I considered taking them to court, but since (other some texts from their salesperson) I have no proof of their promises, I opted not to. I am writing this review to alert other potential customers of the behavior of this dealership. They are either predatory or very disorganized. I really can’t decide. Either way, PLEASE BE CAREFUL AND DON’T BE FOOLED BY THEIR SMILES LIKE I DID! I think this will be my last BMW. This dealership really has turned me off this brand. And the worst part, I am not able to enjoy my new car. Every time I look at it, I remember this negative experience!

Fadi Feb 15, 2019

Fadi N. Feb 15, 2019

I have been using BMW Encinitas for several years and have always been happy with their service. My 1 series was recently hit (lightly) by a car backing up, and it sustained a light scratch above the driver side rear wheel. The other driver was a young colleague of mine, not a lot of money, and very apologetic. I told her I would get a quote from the service department since I already needed some other work done on the car. After the repair/body shop department looked at the scratch for all of 10 seconds, they came back with an estimate for $2,200. This involved basically disassembling the entire driver side panel, and then all the fancy paint stuff. Most of the cost is labor. Now I understand that they want to offer the best job possible. I work in a field where we create estimates on a daily basis. But, I also let clients know that there is more than 1 way to treat/fix something. Knowing that $2200 would bankrupt the girl who hit my car, I told her I would explore other options. SO I went and purchased a scratch kit from auto zone for $10. After 20 minutes of gentle buffing, that horrible paint scratch that I got quoted over $2K for was 95% gone. The majority of it was paint, and there was only a very superficial scratch that I plan on fixing with touch up paint. Again, I know that have to offer the best treatment option possible, but if the guy actually felt the scratch and told me that another option would be to just remove the pain and touch it up, I would have appreciated their honesty. On a side note, my routine oil change then turned into another 4-5 problems, totaling an additional $2500 (which I obviously didn't go for). The lady couldn't explain to me what exactly needed to be done and what my other options were. It was do this, or nothing at all. They also said my rear tires were going, even though I just purchased brand new Pirelli's last year with only about 5K miles on them. They definitely lost my trust.

scottyd123 May 9, 2016

I first came to BMW of encinitas to purchase a used X5 diesel I saw for sale on the internet. I got to the dealer pretty late at night and tired so I wanted in and out of the place. I got there and didn't go over the car as well as I should have but being in the car industry most of my life I assumed a new car bmw dealer wouldn't put junk out on the lot to rip off the locals and ruin their reputation, I was wrong... On the way home I noticed a tail lamp failure, I didn't think much of it but when I got home I found the light was working but the malfunction indicator was still on and this is a bigger problem then just a bulb. The next morning I walked up to the drivers side and got in, I started to adjust my mirrors when I saw something looked wavy and not straight on the passengers side (saw this in the mirror). I got out to investigate and was horrified to see that the bmw I just purchased and was assured by the dealer had never been in a accident had clearly been in a accident and repaired poorly. I called and they tried to tell me that just because a car has been in a accident doesn't lower its value... idiots... then tried to tell me if the car has been repaired properly then it shouldn't matter, I stated if the car had been repaired properly I wouldn't have noticed the repair... They reluctantly took the car back, I told them to sell me a brand new X5 at a good price and they did. I had a X5 built to my specs and waited for it to be ready. I stated I wanted to take delivery at the BMW factory as I saw online available and even asking several times for this they ignored it and sent the car to the dealer in SD. Whatever lets go get our new car, I get there and the car had 10 miles on it, this may seem like no big deal but when a car is delivered to a dealer from the factory it comes with under 2 miles on it every time (I sold cars for over 20 years so yes I know this for a fact). My car also had none of the little nipples on the tires that are there when they are new. I have to assume the rest but I believe they took my car out and beat it, did donuts or something because the driver side rear tire had a rip in it when I got home and as I stated there were no nipples on the tires and the car had 10 miles on it. Then the phone calls start. I would get a phone call and ignore it because I was at work and it would immediately ring again so I would silence it again, then it would ring again right away. It was like I was being harassed by a drunk ex girlfriend or something. After this happened a couple times I called the dealer and asked them to stop calling me, they assured me the calls would stop, they didn't. After a few weeks of calls I called and bitched out the salesmen who sold me the car. Once again he assured me the calls would stop. A week later same thing calling and calling and not leaving time between calls making my phone ring over and over while I'm in a meeting. Finally I answered and it was the very salesmen who assured me the calls would stop!! I was so mad he was acting like a child (Juan Duff), this clearly must have been because they were mad I returned the first car and mad I wanted to order my car the way I wanted it instead of picking one off the lot. This is a run down dump not worthy of a BMW badge on the building. The place is falling apart in every way. The sales team is weak, the cars are junk. the building is falling apart, they have no idea how to treat customers and apparently no idea how to pick or repair used cars since the first car had been in a accident and either the used car manager didn't notice or their body shop did a horrible job fixing it. Either way the used car manager shouldn't be working there because he either couldn't tell a car had been hit when he bought it or he didn't check the body work after their body shop fixed it. Either way he doesn't deserve his job and should go to a $5k or less lot in the ghetto or something if those are the kind of cars he picks and sells. GO TO ANY OTHER BMW DEALER IN THE WORLD!!

Josh Stinson May 7, 2016

I had been 'browsing' the car ads for a few weeks now, and stumbled on a car I liked at Encinitas BMW. Though its a good 45 min from my house, I decided to make the drive to give the car a whirl, not really expecting to make a purchase. Though the car I initially was interested in had already sold, the internet sales manager Ray showed me a car that had just arrived and wasn't even processed in their system, but based on what he sensed about my tastes encouraged me to take it for a drive. The car was a perfect fit, had everything I could ever want in a car and more, plus the price was more than fair considering the upgrades that were included and the condition of the car. Although I know you are supposed to haggle over trade in, and car price ect. I much appreciated the no-nonsense approach Ray took when we looked over the numbers. He told me what my trade in was worth, and where he could go with the car price and suggested we just get to brass tacks rather than play with the figures like so many sales people do. Not only were the figures comfortable for me, there was no pressure to buy and he even offered to call me if something he thought would be a better fit came along at a future date. Although I was eager to drive the car immediately, the dealership has very high standards about how they sell a car, and were very insistent the car needed to go through their refinishing process to ensure it was up to their quality expectations, and they even discovered one of the tires was patched so the tire was replaced with a new one. More than worth the days wait, and I respect the fact that even though I was pressuring them into just letting me take the car home they preferred to make sure it was perfect before releasing it. Even after I had purchased the car, Ray was very thorough in making sure I was satisfied, even offering to help me get some of my upgrades out of my old car despite the fact I had already signed on the dotted line so to speak. At every aspect of the buying experience my expectations were exceeded and I can wholeheartedly recommend this dealership to anyone interested in a car. Just be careful, they are so good at sensing your needs they will probably find a car for you that you just cant live without, I know I did and I'm much happier for it.

TresWatson Oct 28, 2014

ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE!!!! **STAY AWAY** I have been in a family of owning BMW's, Mercedes Benz's, and Range Rovers my WHOLE life. For those of you who know, it truly is a different experience owning one of these cars...the customer service is outstanding as well, UNTIL I CAME TO BMW of ENCINITAS. This place has THE WORST customer service, I had a problem with a salesman (bc he was new & clueless) and he HUNG UP on me!!! If you knew me, I am a super easy going individual. I asked to speak with the MANAGER of the sales department and Justin Beck was put on the phone as the "manager." I asked if, "are you the sales manager?" and he said "yes, I am" SO...I told him my problems etc. He let me know OVER & OVER how they were losing money on my deal...made me feel like utter [violative content deleted] until I realized I just got a sick deal they can't back out of (they totally gave me WAY too much money for my trade in :D...Mike Hayden was willing to do anything to make his first sale apparently) Anyway, after hearing Justin Beck, "the manager" tell me how he needs more time to think about this and how they are losing money on this deal, I was like SORRY..not my problem, very unprofessional to let a customer know how you guys are losing money on the deal. Everything was on paper so it was impossible to back out of :o). Justin told me he would make an appt. for me to get my car in to get scratches fixed on it. NEVER HAPPENED. I called him 3 times, wrote an email and then had to talk to the DIRECTOR of the service department because Justin Beck was clearly ignoring my calls!!! My fiance had to call him and tell him to be more professional and how horrible the customer service is here. THEN...I went to drop my car off for servicing, after they had my license for over 45 minutes (with my DOB on it...), it came down to the time to sign papers for a loaner car...... then they realized I am only 24!!!!! [violative content deleted]!?!?! So, i can OWN a BMW but I cant LOAN one at BMW of ENCINITAS?!?!?!? This place IS A JOKE!!!!! I called other BMW places and ENCINITAS is the only one with that "insurance policy"...yeah, because they SUCK. I told them how horrible their customer service is compared to Range Rover, Mercedes Benz and BMW back in NY. These people need some SERIOUS HELP!! When people found out I was potentially going there to lease a new car, I was told the place was a joke and I also talked to a couple who literally returned their X5 and re-bought it at another BMW dealership! Please do yourself a favor, PLEASE....if you're used to 5 star customer service since you own a nice name brand car, STAY AWAY FROM BMW OF ENCINITAS bc you feel like crap walking in and walking out. I am in the process of switching from them :o)

rambent Apr 6, 2011

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