Normally the travails of two lawyers with a minor defect in their BMW 1-Series wouldn't be enough to even lift our fingers from the Xbox controlers, but when you're threatening lawsuits because your navigation system doesn't show your house, it's time to press pause.
Earlier this week, one half of the Las Vegas couple asked VWVortex for advice about what to do with his troubling 1-series. The title of the post was "Suing BMW USA and BMW Dealership Soon . . . Anyone else tried this?" Here's how the message began:
Long story short, the wifey and I are both lawyers, so it won't cost us anything (aside from filing fees) to do the suit. The bottom line is that we custom ordered two 2011 1-series cars last year. One of them we ordered with navigation (a $2,200 option), and the navigation system doesn't even recognize that our street, development, or major streets leading into our development exist (they have all been there for almost four years). The one with the navigation is on a lease, and we have already had it over a year of its three years.
After unbelievable levels of hassle and rudeness by the dealership, we are finally just going to sue and demand a full refund of the $2200 as damages.
The owner also suspects the dealership of pre-hooning his car since the run-flats went bald with less than 8,500 miles on them.
And here's where the Internet wins. Because while many forums would immediately devolve into a toasty flame war, the Vortexans not only remained civil for a few dozen entires, but suggested many reasonable ways in which the lawyer might be misguided. Like that the nav system might not follow private roads, and that because their car is leased, any lawsuit would end up in binding arbitration, and maybe they could just buy the update and not be so douchy.
In fairness, the original poster did offer some explanation for why he needs a map to his house; having moved to Las Vegas around the time they bought their cars, they live in a far-flung desert suburb and expressly ordered the option to help them drive home through several unmarked streets. Turned out a $99 Garmin unit had their address that the BMW unit just couldn't find, even after updates and what the owner describes as 13 months of being jerked around: "I would have been happy with a giftcard to the service department for $200 or something. But at this point, I have wasted an amazing amount of time and energy on this."
After several more days of back and forth, the thread has gone sour, hitting 360-odd posts and ending with the lawyer likely discouraged from filing any suit. Congrats, Internet posters, for defending the good name of BMW dealers everywhere. Mention that next time you're in the showroom and see what kind of discount you get.
Hat tip to Brent and J.P.!