the Cost of BMW Repair

We have a 1991 BMW 318 that my boyfriend drives around to school. However, it was preowned and the guy that had it before put a sports suspension on it, making it lower to the ground. One day after school, my boyfriend bashed the upper and lower oil pan while driving in the rain because he swerved out and jumped the curb. We towed it back home and then we towed it to the BMW place that was closest to us and they were really nice with helping us out. However, they definitely overcharged us on the upper and lower pans. They also tried to get us to purchase some insane plan for oil changes that would have cost us $30/change. Their per hour rate was close to $120 and the pans themselves we found online for much cheaper than what they were charging us for. While the people were incredibly nice and seemed to care about the car and helped us out right away knowing that he needed the car as soon as possible, it was frustrating because I feel like they took advantage of a situation which made me pretty upset. The pans cost $350 (upper) and $180 (lower). The gasket to place around the lower was $7.00 and the oil to fill it up was $35.00. They took about an hour and a half to do the work at $114.78/hour so the total came in at just over $800 with tax and the material disposal fee (which made no sense considering there was NO OIL IN THE CAR).

Their service was really nice and very accommodating. When we go to the shop, we had to wait about 20 minutes to talk to someone because there were quite a few people there. However, they were really nice and told us to take a seat, get some beverages and food if we'd like, etc... The receptionist was really sweet and the mechanic came up front to talk to us after we signed in with the receptionist. Even though he was really nice again,he said he'd like to bring the car in for a quick check to be sure that this was the only work we needed. He brought it in and about 45 minutes later, he came back out and told us what we already knew, but also tried to sell us some system flush out thing, which my boyfriend, being an aspiring mechanic, refused to allow them to do, considering it would have cost us an additional $287. Riiiiight, my thoughts exactly. So they did the work on the car and the guy came in after about an hour or so and explained to us each of the charges, which I thought was nice even though it was painful to hear. We paid and left.

I think I'd suggest going online for parts for cars. This can help you even if you bring the part to a dealer. However, dealers also overcharge for EVERYTHING and if they aren't your dealer, they'll try and get you to have ridiculous services done on your car that are not necessary and completely a waste of money, which is what happens to me everytime I go into a dealer. I'd go online to e-bay or other online car-parts stores (such as bavarian motor sports for BMW cars) and shop around for oil pans and parts if you think you or your personal mechanic at a mom/pop mechanic shop could do the work. Dealers kill you every time and they'll take advantage of the fact that you might not know what is or isn't needed. Also, I think it's important to shop around at dealers too because a friend of ours told us that he could have done the work and gotten the parts at his shop for much cheaper (He works for BMW in a "cheaper" area of Northern New Jersey). We kind of got stuck considering we had to have it towed where ever we were going to, so that really didn't matter in the end. Anyway, best tip I can give is shop around online for auto parts. The oil pan got busted up again (the lower one only this time) and it only cost us a whopping $48 for the lower oil pan for that car when we paid $180 for it from the dealer. Insane.