Just rolled over 100K miles...my take on BMW

Even though well maintained and only driven by me (and still looks
great),
I have to conclude the car has been.let's say, a bit of a POS....list
of electrical
ailments a mile long, total transmission failure at 86000 miles, and
more electrical problems. By FAR, the most problematic pain in
the ass car I have ever owned.

My advice to anybody cruising this group thinking about buying a
BMW: don't.

On 11/20/2007 7:53 AM, went clickity clack on
the keyboard and produced this interesting bit of text:
> Even though well maintained and only driven by me (and still looks
> great),
> I have to conclude the car has been.let's say, a bit of a POS....list
> of electrical
> ailments a mile long, total transmission failure at 86000 miles, and
> more electrical problems. By FAR, the most problematic pain in
> the ass car I have ever owned.
>
> My advice to anybody cruising this group thinking about buying a
> BMW: don't.

Cars are made by people and people make mistakes. Every car company,
without exception, has produced lemons. It happens. I've owned 2 BMWs,
a Dodge, a couple of Oldsmobiles, a Buick, two Hondas and a Toyota.
I've driven many more cars. Of those, I had more trouble with the
Dodge, both Olds and the Buick. (The only time I was happy with the
Buick was when I was rear ended. I couldn't even see any damage and the
Honda that hit me didn't fare so well.) In any case, the best car I've
ever had was the BMW I currently own, a 1994 530i. The only thing I
don't like is the gas consumption. (I wish it had a smaller engine, but
it was what I could get at the time.) I've had some problems, but no
car is problem free. It handles better, it feels better and drives
better than any other car I've had. In short, I do not regret buying it
and it has over 150,000 miles on it. (I've put on about 45K on it.)
I'll be happy to buy another BMW when this one is ready to go, but the
way things look, I wouldn't be surprised if it went another 150K.

--
Welcome to America...now speak English

> wrote:
>Even though well maintained and only driven by me (and still looks
>great),
>I have to conclude the car has been.let's say, a bit of a POS....list
>of electrical
>ailments a mile long, total transmission failure at 86000 miles, and
>more electrical problems. By FAR, the most problematic pain in
>the ass car I have ever owned.
>
>My advice to anybody cruising this group thinking about buying a
>BMW: don't.

What is this car you're referring to? And what kind of transmission does
it have? Aside from the fact that it's a BMW of some kind, we don't know
anything about it.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In article
>,
> wrote:
> Even though well maintained and only driven by me (and still looks
> great),
> I have to conclude the car has been.let's say, a bit of a POS....list
> of electrical
> ailments a mile long, total transmission failure at 86000 miles, and
> more electrical problems. By FAR, the most problematic pain in
> the ass car I have ever owned.

> My advice to anybody cruising this group thinking about buying a
> BMW: don't.

Signed
A Cadillac Salesperson.

--
*I can see your point, but I still think you're full of ****.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

> wrote
> total transmission failure at 86000 miles,

How often was the oil changed in that tranny? Or is it one of those
"lifetime" fills, in which case the lifetime for this tranny was 86k miles.


Jokes aside, I do agree that while not complete show stoppers, some of the
electrical gremlins on these cars can be irritating and costly to fix if
you're like me and can't stand if something is not working as it should, no
matter how benign. And I'm at only 40k miles right now.

Pete

On Nov 20, 11:03 am, "Dave Plowman (News)" >
wrote:
> In article
> >,
> > wrote:
>
> > Even though well maintained and only driven by me (and still looks
> > great),
> > I have to conclude the car has been.let's say, a bit of a POS....list
> > of electrical
> > ailments a mile long, total transmission failure at 86000 miles, and
> > more electrical problems. By FAR, the most problematic pain in
> > the ass car I have ever owned.
> > My advice to anybody cruising this group thinking about buying a
> > BMW: don't.
>
> Signed
> A Cadillac Salesperson.

How's that? A Cadillac? LOL! Wouldn't have one!

On Nov 20, 11:13 am, "Pete" > wrote:
> > wrote
>
> > total transmission failure at 86000 miles,
>
> How often was the oil changed in that tranny? Or is it one of those
> "lifetime" fills, in which case the lifetime for this tranny was 86k miles.
>

The auto trannies they put in these cars are proven pieces of crap.
By far, this was my biggest expense.

Take a gander at the countless case stories at this link. My
experience was VERY similar. And BMW has behaved shamefully.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/autom...bmw_trans.html

> Jokes aside, I do agree that while not complete show stoppers, some of the
> electrical gremlins on these cars can be irritating and costly to fix if
> you're like me and can't stand if something is not working as it should, no
> matter how benign. And I'm at only 40k miles right now.

I'd say you've got a f-u-n future.

Scott Dorsey wrote:
> > wrote:
>> Even though well maintained and only driven by me (and still looks
>> great),
>> I have to conclude the car has been.let's say, a bit of a POS....list
>> of electrical
>> ailments a mile long, total transmission failure at 86000 miles, and
>> more electrical problems. By FAR, the most problematic pain in
>> the ass car I have ever owned.
>>
>> My advice to anybody cruising this group thinking about buying a
>> BMW: don't.
>
> What is this car you're referring to? And what kind of transmission does
> it have? Aside from the fact that it's a BMW of some kind, we don't know
> anything about it.
> --scott


I must admit I expected a much longer post, with some supporting
information and details about the model/year etc. Its a bit of knee
jerk reaction.

I think this is the way most mfr are going (not just cars), it is what
people want (when they buy a car), just not really what they need. A
good name for reliability only goes so far for sales and companies that
put too much effort that way go to ground eventually.

We have a 1997 323i (96K miles) and 1995 Volvo 940 SE Turbo estate (138K
miles) between us. The BMW has several breakdowns and failures,
including alarm system, some engine sensor, MOT failure on ball joint,
no-compression start problem, ABS sensor failure. It is pretty
rediculous to have these sort of problems in a car built in the 90s
there is just no need and easy to avoid for the designer, unless they
are experimenting with cost reductions.

The Volvo on the other hand comes from a company who's reputation for
reliability was well known, but it was about to go under because of it
(at the time), galvanised body! metal ball joints! RWD!. They changed
to the more popular light/cheap/FWD rubbish everyone else was making and
the difference is clearly apparent to anyone buying older cars (compare
a 95 940 with say a 98 850/V70), however it has allowed them to stay in
business.

In order to make a really good handling, nice looking, fast, long
lasting car it costs alot more and takes longer to develope. Most
people want the latest thing, trendy and are not prepared to pay enough
to sustain a company providing a real quality product. Also of course
most companies do their best to cover up reliability problems so buyer
are not really informed.

Finally I would say that in many areas a well designed long lasting
car/transmission/ball joint etc cost pretty much the same as a bady
designed one. Most of these problems are results of design
experimentation and lack of testing. It is possible to have your cake
and eat from a function/unit cost point of view it just takes more
engineers time.

The world is broken and it is isn't getting any better.

--
Tony

> wrote
> I'd say you've got a f-u-n future.

That's for sure. In the last year alone (12k miles) my 530i has cost me $4k
in maintenance and repairs. Then again, I never expected this car to be
ultra reliable and completely trouble-free. If I wanted something
dependable and boring, I would have bought a Toyota. Although judging by
the latest rankings, even Toyota's quality is slipping nowadays...

Pete

> wrote:
>
>The auto trannies they put in these cars are proven pieces of crap.
>By far, this was my biggest expense.

Which cars, what transmission?

I mean, personally I would suggest that ALL automatic transmisisons are
pieces of crap, but that's another story altogether.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."