Confidential buyback information DIRECTLY from a BMW employee

I was reading some of the buyback information that you have on your website, there certainly seems to be some misperceptions out there.  Mainly about the release, first, every manufacturer does or should require a release when a car is bought back.  It is logical, if you are getting a new car you should not have the opportunity to come back and sue the manufacturer for problems with the old car.  Secondly, the dealers are not specifically indemnified in the release, indemnification for dealers is somewhat complicated and every case is reviewed individually, indemnification for dealers is driven through language in their franchise agreement. 

Every manufacturer buys back cars, BMW did not create the release document just for the 7-series.  BMW has that document and many others which are required for myself to complete internally for any buyback.  We do buybacks first and foremost for customer satisfaction and secondly to avoid expensive legal action (in some cases).

Sometimes customers have unreasonable expectations about their cars and in those cases we often refuse to do a buyback, but we will try and do anything we can to make the customer satisfied.  We do have certain guidelines and parameters that a situation must meet before we will do a buyback.  But if you spend $70,000 plus on a product and it does not work as it should, and BMW has been unable to fix it, in most cases you can and should get a new vehicle.

It is just like returning a defective product to any retail store, but it is much more complicated. 

001:

Cool...I really appreciate to being open and up front on this...

I'm sure our readers will appreciate this information.

You're a real asset to BMW.

It's too bad more manufacturers aren't this helpful in working with customers to understand these types of issues.

The reason most of these things get out of hand through gossip and on the net is because of poor communication between customers and manufacturers.

BMW spy:

What you are saying is absolutely true, and these things are not a secret, but there really is a lack of understanding mostly because only a small percentage of people have actually gone through a buyback.  When I do a buyback, I can honestly say 95% of the people are extremely satisfied.  Maybe you and I could discuss in further detail and come to an agreement on something you may want to communicate in an article.

For BMW the real key is customer satisfaction.  The problem is when we have customers that abuse the system, and more than you can believe try.  As an analogy, think of a woman who purchases a dress at Nordstrom's, wears it for some event and then returns it.  We have customers that buy cars and then later change their mind, have financial problems or something else, and then expect BMW to buy their car back, they will go to great lengths to try and prove that their car is defective and cannot be fixed.  The reality is that every car can be fixed, sometimes it is just too late, too many attempts of inadequate repairs.  Some of these people will go to no end in their pursuit.  Good customers with true product problems should be and usually are treated fairly, at least by BMW.

Most customers are honest and very patient and will allow the dealer many attempts at repairing a car.  The problem is that if the dealer cannot get the car repaired in a reasonable amount of time, they need to contact the manufacturer.  Like I said, usually by the time this happens the customer has rightfully lost their patience, had a horrible experience and it will be very hard for the manufacturer to satisfy them.

001:

You're right, we see quite a few on the message boards trying to get their cars bought back because of a minor intermittent problem.

But there definitely are people having major troubles with their early production 7-series cars.

It's great to see that BMW has corrected most of the early problems and are now being so proactive in trying to satisfy customers who TRULY have legitimate problems with their cars.

Keep up the good work!