I gotta take the time to give props to the new service center for Greenwich BMW (which is oddly located in Port Chester; not even the same state as Greenwich). As I had been having problems with my headlights flickering and going out for the last two months, I finally had it taken care of yesterday. This was my second time visiting their brand new service facility, but the first time I just stopped in to make the appointment. This time I got the full experience.

As you enter, you drive into this enormous brightly lit white space that has the space and feel of an aircraft hangar. A gentleman greets you with a smile and asks if you have an appointment and takes your name. He then goes and gets the paperwork for you and calls your service advisor who promptly comes out and also greets you with a smile and a handshake. Already this is way friendlier than any other car service experience I’ve ever had. They take your key and insert it into the machine that identifies the key and brings up your service history. Cool. The SA takes your license and credit card to set up the paperwork for the loaner car, returns a couple minutes later and hands you off to the guy who takes you to the loaner vehicle and then you’re off. The whole time, everyone regardless of whether it was a suit or a mechanic, would stop to say good morning and make sure you were being helped. They were all obviously trained that customer care comes first and that’s the way it should be. Here’s a pic of just the mechanics’ bays (the entire facility is waaaay bigger than just this aisle):

For my loaner I got a 330xi with an M front spoiler, low profile tires and about 10k in mileage on it. Very nice. The last loaner I had was a 325 and I was not impressed, so I figured this would be a much better experience. In reality, it was still disappointing. While on paper the specs show that this 330 should have significantly more horespower than mine, it did not show. It was also a noisy ride, although I’m fairly certain that was just due to their choice in tires. Handling was also kind of shaky when going through rough patches like on certain stretches of 287. It kind of felt like after any slight bump, the car was liable to want to go off in any random direction. On the positive side, the guages are definitely nicer and cooler looking than mine, but the rest of the interior and amenities are still not to my liking. As I had mentioned in a previous post, the window controls are now on the drivers side and placed just too far away to be reachable from a normal driving position; there’s no reason, not even aesthetically, as to why you’d want that armrest to be angled down and away from you like that. In any case, let’s just say I was happy to be back in my own car when I got it back at the end of the day.