THIS.I think that you are misinterpreting the quote. Sometimes dealers simply don't want to do a job for one reason or another. As such, they generally don't refuse to do it, they simply put up a very high quote and assume that the customer will turn them down and go somewhere else. My guess here is they don't have any techs that have done this, or possibly have any experience with this engine. They prefer to do jobs that they have done many times over, therefore they can assure high probability of success with low risk. For something like this, they are taking on a lot of risk that the tech will screw something up and grenade an expensive engine, and therefore they really don't want to do this. However, if the customer is crazy enough to pay them $20k for rod bearings, well then it may be worth it for them.
I am a maintenance tech at a BMW dealership and rod bearings isn't a job any of our member/certified/master techs have done before. You have to understand that BMW dealerships main work is performed on vehicles under factory warranty and CPO warranty. Warranty work doesn't approve "preventative maintenance" so components have to fail in part or as a whole for repair approvals. If a engine fails, we don't rebuild it, we just install a crate engine. When it comes to customer pay, most customers are disgusted at our price quotes for 3 reasons, 1-our labor rates are pretty high-BMW dealers average $190 a hour. 2-our FRU (flat rate unit)how many hours of labor we quote for the repair is too high. 3-we only use OEM BMW parts which can be very expensive on late model cars due to lack of production and stock. For these reasons, MOST customers take their out of warranty vehicles to independent shops who aren't governed by BMW rules like dealerships are, and can do repairs for much cheaper than we can. That's my TED talk for the evening.