[Tunbridge]

While my car was in for a recent service I got them to have a look at the gloss black trims between the front door and rear door windows (which are attached to the front door on E90/E91 models). Mine have started to show signs of corrosion along the leading edge. Its not too bad at the moment, but it’s not going to get any better with the winter coming.

The dealer acknowledged that there was corrosion but tells me these aren’t covered under warranty as they are a ‘trim item’. I have to say I’m a bit pissed off about this, regardless of whether it’s a trim item or not BMW shouldn’t be fitting items to their cars which rust within 4 years.

The dealer mentioned it was a common problem and even knew the price off the top of his head (£87 each) and did say that they could probably fit them FOC as a goodwill gesture but that’s still going to be a bill for £174 to replace rusting parts of my car!

Has anyone else had this or had success complaining to BMW about this?

[doughboy]

I thought they were plastic?

Maybe they're aluminium?

Since I stopped using hand-car-wash places and their nasty corrosive acid traffic film removers (now hand wash at home with proper car shampoo only) that all the black trims / roof rails / grills etc have stayed a lovely gloss black without any of the discolouring or streaking I used to get.

Hopefully they'll last longer too.

[Osian85]

what an a$$ this dealer bloke is! i had similar thing on my 'high gloss shadowline trim' around the windows, and it was at the time VERY minor but like you said these things only get worse. when i took it in to my local dealers the guy inspected it and said yes sir no problem we'l order the parts and get it all sorted for you, free of charge of course.

Dont take anything less than completely free of charge on this one!

[phil200tdi]

Originally Posted by Osh

what an a$$ this dealer bloke is! i had similar thing on my 'high gloss shadowline trim' around the windows, and it was at the time VERY minor but like you said these things only get worse. when i took it in to my local dealers the guy inspected it and said yes sir no problem we'l order the parts and get it all sorted for you, free of charge of course.

Dont take anything less than completely free of charge on this one!

1 mine had the same.

If you are in 3 year warranty this is covered. These parts are not covered by the corrosion warranty though. With an insured warranty it's anyone's guess.

[Tunbridge]

This is indeed on the high gloss shadow line trim. It must be made of plastic but it must have some sort of metal sub frame under it and that is what is creeping round the corner. The car is out of it's 3 year warrenty as it's an 07 reg but is covered by the BMW warrenty which you get with the used approved cars as I only got the car in April.

Might try a different dealer, the only problem is that the only other dealer near me are Cooper Teesside and they are useless. Was going to get the car serviced there but after trying to book the car in twice the receptionist said there was no service advisers avaliable so I left my details and neither time they called me back! I've delt with them a number of times in the passed with my E60 and never had good service. So in the end I booked the car in at Stratstone Tyneside but they have told me it's not covered! Apart from that the service was great though.

[sufchenko]

My previous car had bubbling paint on the strip on the side of the front windscreen. Dealers said it's not covered by the warranty (car was 4 yrs old then) as it's not part of the main body.
My current car is about 3 years old and had the same problem on both sides. They replaced it under warranty but wondered that it can't be a coincidence can it?
I thought it could be a dodgy solution in the screenwash but I hadn't used screenwash on my current car.

[creepy coupe]

I've heard of owners getting wheel centre caps repalced under warranty.What are they if not trim?

[phil200tdi]

I guess you need to check the Ts