Brian ROSEN said:
You cannot but anything of any value nowadays without the dealer offering you an extended guarantee. It is all part of the deal (like finance etc) and you have your choice. It certainly does NOT mean that the item is more likely to go wrong if you pay more! Computers, TV, Telephones, washing machines, fridges etc. An extended guarantee on any of these can be expensive - and nowadays, with luck, they go on until you just hope they will break down to give you an excuse to buy the latest model!
Ask your dealer for his advice - 'is it necessary, would you recommend it?' If you are a good customer he will probably say 'don't worry, we will look after you.'(A good customer is someone who buys a new bike every few years, doesn't quibble about servicing and repair bills, and reccomends 'his' dealer to ohers. Mine is Recchia Motors in Lyon who knows what he is talking about & is not cheap of course but you get what you pay for.)
Brian,
I think you may be missing the point?
I think a lot of people, including myself, realise that purchase of extended warranty (whether from the original manufacturer or via an insurance policy) is a matter of personal choice and that it's a 'hot sale' item in many shops. Nor is anyone suggesting that, simply by paying £600 for indemnity, is a customer necessarily getting a better extended cover product than one costing, say, £250.
Indeed, whether £600 (less than two ponds a day ie. less than a pint of beer) is ‘Good value’ is a matter of personal opinion. To one person it might be a price worth paying to bring peace of mind, whilst to another it would look like a complete rip-off. It certainly might be ‘Good value’ if the vehicle failed dramatically and required perhaps a thousand pounds of work done. But, if nothing failed, it might look less so. That is always the problem with insurance type products, if the customer sees them only as an investment ‘guaranteeing’ at least a 100% return within a reasonably short period.
Whether or not a ‘friendly dealer’ waived a substantial bill for work gone one of warranty would, of course, depend on a host of factors, including I guess:
Goodwill
The cost of repairing the failure
The amount of money the person had spent in the dealer’s over the year
The cause of the failure
The timing of the failure
Whether the dealer might be able to recover all or part of the bill from BumW
However, how successful the claimant might be is naturally very variable. I doubt if any dealer would give a blank cheque, verbal promise, to any customer, no matter how valuable.
What I am trying to find out from BumW is why the cost, for what appears to be very similar products, varies so widely. Maybe I am wrong and there is a huge difference in the quality of the indemnity in the UK (apparently the most expensive) when compared with another country’s? If so, fine. I am also trying to find out if a British owner bought a similar product in say, Australia or France, whether the indemnity would apply to the UK bike? BumW seem reluctant to answer my first set of direct questions, giving a very bland (non-committal) response) so I will try to shake the tree again to see if any choice fruits drop down.
As you are in France I would be very pleased if you could find out:
(a) Does BumW France only ‘guarantee’ its bikes for two years? If no, for what period does the manufacturer’s original guarantee run?
(b) Does BumW France sell third year warranty cover?
(c) If yes. What does it cost and what does it cover?
Any other none UK owners wishing to answer feel free to contribute.
Richard
.I agree its not the way things should be with a bike costing over 9k 
but as long as BMW keep there heads up their back-side cant see there's another option !
