UPDATE: Albeit long after their snappy social mar...

UPDATE: Albeit long after their snappy social marketing team responded below, I got a call from their service director. Nothing was offered. No apologies or explanations as to why things went down as they did. I did get the transfer case motor gear and replaced it myself for the $62. Dash lights cleared and running great. Worth saving $2K for sure. They missed a sale from us and now my Uncle- He's getting a new 550. Oh well.

ORIGINAL: We've had a couple disappointing experiences with Schomp. We've been going to them for the last 5 years or so. I have a 335 and my wife has an X3. We purchased the X3 from them. The buying experience was mostly what I expected it to be. No complaints. Shortly after purchasing the car we were in a fender bender caused by another driver. Schomp didn't help much in our favor during the claim. They wouldn't tell the insurance company that what caused the engine light to come on within 10 seconds of the accident was caused by the accident. Fortunately the other drivers insurance company (props to nationwide!) questioned that judgement. Despite Nationwide not representing us, they decided to pay Schomp in full for the work so we didn't have to. We were annoyed. But because full reimbursements were made we foolishly continued to use them for our needs

Fast forward to last week. My wife is carting my son to and from his doctors appointments and a bunch of lights come on in the dash. The car shakes a bit and loses most of its power. On her way to the dealership (only a mile from the doctors), all of the lights go out and the car begins to behave normally. She drops the car off and gets a rental.

The next day I get a call from our service advisor indicating that we need a new transfer case motor and the charge is roughly $2000. At that time, I'm told the rest of the car is in great shape, which I expected. We had it in for service less than 3 months earlier. I told the advisor to hold off and have a salesman contact me about trading it in and purchasing a new car. It has 95,000 miles on it now.

Sales guy calls and offers an insulting $5800. He has two similar X3s on the lot for near $14000. I'm told that with the repairs needed to resell the car, that's what they can do. I refuse the offer and of course the salesman decides to try and do better. I get a call the next day- $6000 is the offer now. No thanks. "But Mr. Moffitt with the $4600 in work your car needs, we just can't give you more than that." I about fainted. When I brought the car in it needed $2000 in repairs and was otherwise in great shape. Now that we may want to trade it in an buy a new car from them it requires an additional $2600 in repairs. They now say the car is leaking like a sieve and needs tons of services and gaskets. Being that the car was there for service 3 months earlier, I was unable to accept that in the last 3 months of the cars 7 year life, all of these gaskets and seals failed. The service manager says that the changing temperatures can really make small undetectable leaks turn bad very quickly. Ha! He should have told me that their technicians are boneheads and likely didn't notice the leaks 3 months ago when it was there for service. Funny thing- There's not a single spot on my garage floor from a leak.

Nevertheless, I did some research on the original $2000 issue and found that they were gouging so much on that alone it was incredible. I'm going to fix the issue myself. I've ordered a $62 part + shipping.- it's secured by 5 bolts that are easy to get at to remove/reinstall.

In the end, they felt bad so they offered me $7000 on the trade. Gee thanks.

Learn from our mistakes- DO YOUR RESEARCH before authorizing ANY repairs to your car that are out of warranty form them. Be an educated consumer and you'll be rewarded. They flat out lost tons of money from us this week. I don't see how this can be a profitable model for them, but I guess we're only a spec on their map.

There is a plus to this story- The relief I felt when driving off their lot for the last time.