BMW sells me a car without a feature present in the brochure: Now what?

Not having a feature is no big deal, every car misses out on something or other, however on ground of principles, I feel cheated.

BHPian nileshbhatia recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I recently purchased a BMW 220i. The India spec sheet given to me at the time of sale contains a feature 'cornering light and adaptive light distribution' however after buying the car, when I found this feature was not working, the sales team appeared clueless and referred me to service center where I was told this feature was never present. When I went back to the dealer, they appeared surprised stating they have sold nearly 100 vehicles of this model till date and that no one ever came back to provide this feedback.

Not having a feature is no big deal, every car misses out on something or other, however on ground of principles, I feel cheated. What if there are other features mentioned in spec sheet but not present in the car? How do I trust the company for facts? Today they simply tell me that mention of this feature in spec sheet is human error! I don't want to let them escape with this lame excuse. What are my options?

Here's what BHPian agambhandari had to say on the matter:

"Adaptive headlights" in BMW speak also have the Auto high beam feature which can be seen as an extra auto button on your left steering stalk (next to the BC button), if your car doesnt have the button it doesnt have adaptive headlights. Simple as that

You can check the buildsheet of the car on a website like bimmer.work

BMW has not offered adaptive headlights on cars of this platform in India yet (not on X1/2GC). So I'm not surprised your car doesn't have it but you can try raising the issue on mail with BMW India. But I expect the fine print on the brochure to come to their rescue "Features and specs may change without prior notice ".

Here's what BHPian Nitesh_M had to say on the matter:

Check if your brochure has a disclaimer that says "specs of the product may be changed at any time without notice" or something on the lines. Car companies have been deleting features a lot lately from the initial launch day and rarely update the brochure and hence add disclaimers like that in fine print.

Here's what BHPian Cresterk had to say on the matter:

I'm guessing this was a feature initially offered but then silently deleted during the chip shortage and they failed to reflect it in the brochure.

These features are generally offered as customisation packages that you can pick and choose to your liking in other countries but in India, BMW/Mercedes/Audi/Volvo etc pre-selects them at the coorporate level for each model year and divides them into various trims instead. The dealership can't really do anything about it, you are better off contacting BMW directly via e-mail.

Here's what BHPian SR-71 had to say on the matter:

This is not an isolated issue, rather it seems to be a collective lethargy at BMW India’s end. You will find such issues in other model’s spec sheet too. For example, the 3 series M Sport had gesture control which was recently removed due to chip shortage. Yet you will find the spec sheet mentioning the same even today. Unless you are aware and you press for the information, SA(s) are not forthcoming. Our lax consumer protection laws do not make it any easier for buyers either.

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