If you have been following me on Twitter or Instagram you would know that I purchased my CPO’d (Certified Pre-Owned) BMW F30 328i back in mid-May and may have been surprised not to have seen any follow ups since. Well, there’s a reason for that.
The day after driving it home I had to return it to the dealership for what I thought would be a simple fix. There I go figuring again. The problem, you ask, was something called the Auto Start Stop feature. The idea behind ASS, giggggggity, is that the engine will turn off when the car comes to a stop in order to conserve fuel.
On the tachometer, where 0 would normally be now reads Ready and below that reads Off. When functioning properly the engine shuts off and the needle goes to Ready. Then the engine will restart when you take depress the brake to take off. While not perfectly seamless, it works well. Well, I mean it worked well. What I really mean is that I only drove my car long enough for the feature to active twice. The first time it worked. The second, it did not and a check engine light came on. The good news is the Auto Start Stop feature can be disabled. But this is a CPO’d car! I want it working regardless of if I use it or not.
So I drop off my new-to-me 328i and received a 320i loaner. The 320i was the bad news. A week later I get a call that my car is ready for pick-up and was so beside myself I raced over to the dealership as quick as 180 horsepower would allow. Twenty minutes of shuffling my personal garbage from the loaner back to my 328, I was finally off. Only to stop and turn around. Auto Start Stop was not working.
“Did the technician even drive the car after fixing it? Cause the paperwork shows a completed road test!”
Things were about to get disorderly.
“Calm down, J.”
Now I’m back in the service lane explaining to the service advisor that the problem persists. She tells me that all vehicles returned for continuing symptoms will be escalated to the shop foreman. In my head I’m screaming, “Is that supposed to make me feel better???” But to her I’m as cool as the other side of the pillow. It was nearly 7 PM. All the technicians were gone and I knew nothing was going to happen that day. I might as well just take another deep breath, repack the loaner car and go home.
Lucky for me, my loaner car this time around was a 328i… which I still have in my possession. As for my 328i? I’ve nearly forgotten what it looks like. To my dealership’s credit, my Service Advisor has been calling me daily at 4:30 PM on the dot to inform me of the status. The latest is that the usual parts replacements haven’t resolved the problem and that they are in contact with BMW directly to further troubleshoot.
I just looked at the weather. Today and tomorrow are going to be cold and rainy. No doubt that’s when I’ll get the call that it’s ready for pick up.
