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RE: <E36> 318ti foglights

My apologies if this is posted twice.  The first time, I accidentally sent
it to the owner-bmw-digest address.  Sorry for the goof up. :)

Christopher Kean wrote:

> From: "Christopher, Kean" <Kean.Christopher@domain.elided>
> Date: 07 Aug 1996 10:35:15 -0700
> Subject: FW: 318ti foglights
>
> several 318 ti owners posted info on installing fog lights on their 318
> ti active models. Iam interested in any info reguarding price the dealer
> charged for the work and any problems if any.  If you bought the fog
> light kit from Bavarian Autosport or BMW store did it include the
> harness. I have a '96 318 ti and wasn't able to locate a prewired
> harness.

First, my apologies for the delay in replying to your request, Chris. 

I have a '95 318ti Active and when I heard that BMW had came out with the
long-awaited foglight kit for the 318ti, I knew that I had to had it; the
car looked "incomplete" without it. :)

When I took my car in for an oil change, it just so happened that they had
it in stock!  So I told the service dept. to go ahead and install it,
after being told that the estimated labor will be about an hour to hour
and half, @ $64/hr.  The 318ti foglight kit retails for $199.

To my horror, the dealer called the next day and said that it was done,
but it took more than four hours to install it!  If you do the math,
you'll find that the labor costs more than the foglights!  Finally, after
complaining to my salesman who brought it up to the service manager, they
agreed to reduce the costs significantly.

Apparently, the service tech had to install a wiring front to the
instrument cluster (which involved removing the whole entire instrument
cluster off the dashboard), run wires to the fusebox, install a fuse,
which was why it took more than four hours. The cost breakdown was: 

	BMW FOGLIGHT KIT	P/N 63 17 1 469 706	160.00
	BMW FUSE/15A		P/N 61 13 1 372 626        .30
	LABOR (4 HOURS)					144.00

As you can see, they gave me a price break on the labor ($34/hr. vs the
standard $64/hr) and also reduced the price of the foglight kit.  I don't
know if my BMW CCA discount applied but I'm sure they took that and
applied an additional discount/reduction on top of that.  Bottom line:
they said that they don't want to see another 318ti in for foglight
installation because it takes too long! :)

By the way, I'm surprised (and pretty sure) that the '96 318ti's, with the
exception of the sport package, which comes standard with fogs, aren't
prewired for foglights.  What is BMW's rational for not prewiring them at
the factory, with the exception of the sport package? 

Anyhow, my '95 318ti Active now looks like the Sport package. :)

Regards,

- --
 Tay Systems Research            David Tay (BMW CCA #130574 '95 318ti)
 3554 Chain Bridge Road, #100  tsr@domain.elided CompuServe: 74213,2471
 Fairfax, VA 22030-2709, USA      Tel. 703/760-9022 - Fax 703/893-1154