[Christien]

It was bought through an independent dealership. They hooked me up with the local BMW dealership and I had no problem. Same thing happened with a Porsche dealership in N. Carolina - that was a private sale, had the PPI done at the dealership and they provided a recall letter, no charge, 10 minutes.

With a relatively late-model BMW, you have to go through the BMW system if you want full warranty coverage, but with a 98 that's really unfortunate that they're giving you such a hard time. What are they saying when you ask? Just "we don't provide that"? You can try calling RIV and asking if they'll accept the carfax's indication of no open recalls. I doubt it, but there's been talk of them starting to accept carfaxes for some models. Might be worth a phone call - explain that you're having issues with BMW. When Porsche changed the rules, the woman I spoke to was sympathetic and suggested that if they continued to deny me the letter they might be able to bend or change the rule.