Wow, Good People In Miami

I'm blow away by an event that has transpired over the past 2 days.  I arrived home from work yesterday and got my mail and found I had a letter from the Traffic Citations department of Miami.  At first I thought it might have been those new video cameras in Coral Gables that had busted me doin' a "California Roll thru a stop sign or something but when I opened it up I found a parking ticket inside.  ""WTF?", was the only thought that entered my mind.  Not that I'm immune to parking tickets by any means.  I get them occasionally when I don't have change or something.  This one was different though.  I knew I didn't have my car that day.

I went online and found out where the ticket was issued.  It was a place I'd only been to once.  I had turned in my car that morning at Bimmer Shop, a BMW repair shop located caddy corner from Braman BMW.  I had wires on both tail lights short out and needed to replace the whole damn panel.  Bimmer Shop repaired it and did a great job.  In fact, I was impressed with how nice everyone that worked there was and that they completed the work within hours.  However, I guess at some point they had to move my car to a parking spot (their place isn't enormous) and while it was there it was ticketed.  I'm assuming they took the ticket and intended to pay it but forgot or something because I never saw it.  I knew nothing about it until I got the late notice yesterday in the mail.

I left a voicemail and sent and email to their office because it was after hours.  I also called the next morning. The girl who answered the phone was really nice and had just listened to my message.  She asked for my tag number and said they would take care of it.  Most of the time in Miami this means you have to call the person every day to remind them to do it.  Not this company.  She called me back within 10 minutes and let me know the ticket had been paid.  I couldn't believe it.

Bimmer Shop will definitely be recommended to any and everyone I know.  They can do body work on any auto and mechanical work on any BMW and they do a really good job in a short amount of time.  The people in both the office and shop are friendly and they showed me that they will make amends to any mistakes they make.  Good stuff all around.

I just saved myself $1000 and Geico had nothing to do with it

I travel a lot and thus my car will stay idle, sometimes for lengthy periods of time. On my 1st of 2 Vegas trips in the last 4 weeks, I came back to Miami to find my car completely DEAD in the Fast Park parking lot outside MIA (quick side note here... This parking lot KICKS ASS. $7/day if you have AAA and the shuttle is very fast and they give you a free cold bottle of water on your way out). On top of this lot's awesomeness with service and convenience, the bus lady came over to jump my car. The thing wouldnt even turn over. So, I call AAA and it takes them 2 sets of cables to get my car going. I go to my shop who installed the battery and they run a test showing that the battery and alternator are fine. That made sense because I bought new ones 7 months prior. So, battery was fine but I think all of that voltage blew out my radio because it went dead. The thing that sucked though was that the light behind the LED display would stay on even when the car was off. The only way to avoid this was to disconnect the battery every time I finished driving and that gets old pretty quick. So, I headed over to Braman BMW to have it checked out since my normal shop (Tires Plus on Bird near Merrick Park - they do good work and the guys who work there are trustworthy) didnt do electrical work.

After about 2 hours of sitting there and waiting, Braman told me that my radio was dead. Wow, amazing what 2 hours and $150 can get you! Information you already know! Braman also told me that I needed a new battery and alternator which was odd because I had a printout from the guys who installed my battery and alternator that said they were fine. All in all, they wanted $666 for a new radio and another $600 to install it. The girl in service advised that getting a new stereo from Best Buy would be better and I agreed. So, I headed to Best Buy and bought a new stereo. Later on I found out that I need a special harness and kit to have someone mount this thing in my car. That seemed like a hassle and I had to travel the next day so I postponed the install.

In the meantime, I checked out eBay. I was able to find a BMW factory stereo for $200 and it was in Miami! That and it was plug n play! I bought said stereo and searched the internet for install instructions. I nearly crapped myself when I read how easy the install was. I just got the stereo today. I was able to install this puppy in LESS THAN 10 MINUTES!!! THat is no exaggeration either and I know very little about cars. Id like to send out a big fat "EFF YOU" to the crooks over at Braman who were going to charge me $600 for a job that took less than 10 minutes. Thanks to eBay and the internet, I saved myself $1000.