BMW Drops Pricing On Genuine Parts

BMW Australia has announced a reduction in pricing for common genuine parts, with the list price of many high-demand items being reduced by 15 percent.

Oil filters, microfilters, brake pads, and brake discs are all affected by the price reductions, and BMW Australia is confident that dealers will pass on the savings to customers.

Under the new pricing scheme, the retail cost of an oil filter for an E90 325i sedan drops from $27.48 to $23.33. A set of front brake pads for the same car falls from $300.39 to $255.98 - a saving of $44.41.

BMW Australia's General Manager of Aftersales, John Fairman, hopes the price adjustment will provide an incentive for BMW owners to use only genuine parts when servicing their car.

“Customers should insist that their repairer use Genuine BMW Parts to maintain the integrity and safety of their vehicle,” said Mr Fairman.

“Using non-genuine, or parallel imported parts may compromise a vehicle’s factory warranty and simply isn’t worth the risk.”

While other manufacturers a gradually moving to fixed-price servicing schemes in order to keep customers returning to dealerships for scheduled maintenance, BMW Australia won't be adopting any such schemes in the near future.

For all new BMW cars, servicing costs can vary widely as there are no set maintenance intervals. Instead, each car's on-board computer monitors components like brake pads to assess their condition, only recommending a service when those components are no longer serviceable.

It's called 'condition-based' servicing, and it's why BMW recommends servicing when the car says it's due, rather than simply having you pop into your mechanic every 15,000km or so - at least not for its new models.

"In relation to fixed price Servicing for all models, this topic has been talked about however it becomes difficult as Condition Based Service doesn’t support that structure for our newer models," said BMW spokesman Scott Croaker.

"We have however recently launched a programme called BMW Value Service," he said.

"This is a fixed price Service programme for older BMW models, specifically BMW 3 Series (E46), BMW 5 Series (E39) and BMW X5 (E53).

"It not only provides transparency and reassurance for customers with these vehicles in terms of cost, but also offers the services at a discounted rate."

Under the BMW Value Service scheme, the cost of a basic service (oil, oil filter, microfilter) for an E46 3 Series starts from $359. The more comprehensive "Inspection II" service replaces the oil, oil filter, microfilter, fuel filter, air filter and sparkplugs, and prices start from $499.

The BMW Value Service scheme is not offered across BMW's entire national dealer network, so consult your local dealer before booking your car in for a service.