Autoblog

The saga of Ken Tanisaka and BMW of Lincoln, Nebraska is almost over, as the embattled eBay winner of a nicely-priced BMW M3 sedan has exchanged funds with the dealership and the car is set to be shipped for delivery. It's been a long road for Ken involving lawyers and lots of patience as the dealership, part of the Husker Auto Group, stubbornly fought not to honor its eBay auction that Ken won for $10,000 below MSRP.

Now that it's almost over, BMW of Lincoln should be glad that the firestorm of negative media attention with which it's had to deal is about to end. That's what you would think, but this particular dealership seems to relish in making the wrong choices. Autoblog reader Dale pointed us to this advert that was emailed to him from the Husker Auto Group, which paints the whole ordeal as a case of the dealership bending over backwards to make a customer happy. Read the most choice paragraph below.

Being the honorable dealership that Husker is, [it] agreed to honor the price of $60,000 for the BMW E90 M3. This vehicle typically would have been priced around $70,000. At Husker BMW, we honor all contracts. And in this case we covered the $10,000 for the vehicle to make our customer happy.

True, the Husker Auto Group eventually honored the auction that Ken rightfully won, but we'd hardly describe its behavior as honorable. The decision to let go of the car for $10k below sticker appears motivated less by the desire to make Ken happy than to get out from under the harsh spotlight of attention that was aimed at the dealership by a loosely organized but large group of compassionate internet citizens. The last thing this dealership should be doing is bragging about its customer service.

[Source: imakenews.com]

UPDATE: Ken almost got his BMW M3 sedan this afternoon, but things fell through yet again. BMW of North America has now been contacted by Ken's lawyer. Click here for more.

Ken Tanisaka's battle to get his M3 sedan from BMW of Lincoln, Nebraska is not over, despite encouraging words posted by Ken himself on Monday. While the embattled eBay winner had reported that he would be sold the brand new M3 sedan for his winning bid of $60,000, there were "special conditions" that had yet to be discussed. Having spoken with the dealership now, as well as retained his own attorney who specializes in internet law, Ken has revealed what the conditions are.

First, the dealership asked that the car could not be sold for a number of years. How that has anything to do with the dealership, other than them not wanting Ken to profit from their mistake, is beyond us. Ken's lawyer got this condition removed, thankfully. The second condition is that Ken would be asked to help defuse the internet firestorm that began after he posted on M3post.com about this situation. Ken did just that when he posted on Monday that things were moving in a positive direction, prompting us to remark that we can call off the hounds now. Apparently the hounds need to be unleashed again until this dealership gets it.

Ryan Mathis, the sales manager for Husker Auto Group of which BMW of Lincoln is a part, was recently quoted in an article about the situation saying, "These bloggers out there, they have lots of time on their hands to do this." Ken shoots back in his latest post, "Did it ever occur to the dealership that they created a situation that compelled complete strangers to MAKE time?" Clearly there are many people out there who identify with getting screwed by a dealership, hence the outpouring of support and demands for internet justice, but until BMW of Lincoln sells the M3 sedan to Ken with NO strings attached, this isn't going to end. Seriously, BMW of North America, can we get a little help here? Thanks for the tip, everyone!

[Source: M3post.com]