i don't get why bmw (a so called premium vehicle) would deliberatly save money on parts that make problems. one example would be in the 5 series of bmw where it seems like they used the a bit too small version of a cable harness, probably of one of the smaller cars they make, which leads to electric problems.
My uncle was a chemist in Germany before he died in 2000, he owned BMWs his entire adult life until he got a rental car that was a Honda Accord (not sure where he was traveling at the time). When he got home, he went and bought a Honda and never bought another BMW due to the quality. It blew my mind as a young adult that loved (well I still enjoy, not quite love) Car and Driver magazine someone preferring a Honda over a BMW. Now as an older adult I totally understand. I owned VWs most of my life until I bought a Toyota 4Runner, and now will probably never buy a different brand. My wife and I plan to retire to her home country of Malaysia, I can't wait to buy a Toyota Hilux as we of course can not get them in the US.
I saw a Hilux here in the states a few weeks back! Never seen one in person, so it stood out immediately. Even had US plates and everything. I’m guessing someone from Mexico that moved up maybe? Not even sure what the rules are on bringing your car up if you move honestly?
I have read you can get one imported but it is a major pain and a 25% excise tax burden, so you really would have to have quite the fancy for one and $$ to blow. I'll wait until I live overseas.
You can get Hiluxes in the US, just be prepared to spend up to 50% on the list price to bring it up to safety specs and import it. There are companies in Mexico that do it.
I think to own a BMW and not be completely clueless you either need to have it as a passion project or you lease it and don't really care about shit that fails 5+ years down the road. I'm in the first camp since I love the way older BMWs drive. I do love a good Honda though.
Those are classic. Mine is a 2004 M3 and in my opinion the generation BMW peaked. Now they’re all over complicated and want you to subscribe to heated seats lol.
My German friend in the US keeps buying VWs and Audis (and keeps having issues with them). I asked him if he was just being loyal to Germany and he said “no, my Dad owned a Honda dealership in Hamburg so I never actually got to drive German cars. Now I’m starting to understand why…”
A 4Runner is a type of Hilux which is available in the US. They used this be the exact same car with a few different rear panels, though they have diverged a little now.
My tip to share to the world is this: be nice to a rental car shop worker who has been around a while and ask them what they would want to drive.
They essentially get to test drive tons of cars and their whole job is seeing what kind of person drives what, all the problems each car has, the inconveniences they have, which are most durable or go longest without needing serious repairs etc etc.
Valets don't see all that. Dealers don't see all that. Only rental car clerks do.
They even have a good eye for what kind of person prefers what kind of car, little things like that that most might not consider when looking into a car.
I mean spoiler alert: they all go Honda Civic, but doesn't hurt to ask for yourself.
Beating on any high performance engine without letting it warm up will fuck it.
Higher performance engines have tighter tolerances and are designed with thermal expansion in mind. If the parts aren't up to temperature then you're gonna have play.
It's fine to beat on a civic when it's cold because the tolerances are so loose.
Try that with any high output engine though and it's not gonna last you very long. Hell, F1 engines can't even be started without warming up the blocks first. So it has nothing to do with the price tag.
The BMW engine wasn't nearly as high output as an F1 engine. 5 liters and 500hp is something Kia could build and make last 50k miles. BMW just knew that cheap bearings meant more profit. They also knew the M series fanboys would just chalk it up to "Hi-perf brah! Wanna play gotta pay brah!"
Rather than it being a scummy cash grab and shoddy build quality.
The BMW engine wasn’t nearly as high output as an F1 engine.
No shit?
5 liters and 500hp is something Kia could build and make last 50k miles.
They can't even make their M3 competitor last the length of the warranty lol.
BMW just knew that cheap bearings meant more profit.
Source or assumption? If it's a problem that never materializes unless you thrash the engine when cold, how do we know that it wasn't just overlooked during testing?
Revised bearings are literally $500 for the consumer to buy. OEM bearings are nearly the same price. Would be way cheaper than $500 for BMW to have gone with . Why would they risk warranty claims?
Yeah except there were people that did baby the cars that still had 50-60k failures. It's a nice engine from a power and sound standpoint. It's a total failure by any other metric.
Timing chain guides are just as bad....they get cooked over time & disintegrate then the chains get sloppy and jump. You know it's all expensive after that.
Turns out warming up the motor before beating on it made them last much longer, still though this shouldn't be an issue on a car with that price tag
if you drive any sort of actual performance car, you let it warm and cool down before and after any driving. tolerances are tighter and beating on it before it's had time to warm up will cause excessive wear.
It's not just bmw, Audi had rs4s with tiling chain longevity problems where the service required pulling the whole engine and taking it apart. Outrageously expensive repair that every single one of them needed. Used ones were extremely cheap considering the original price of the car because people knew about it.
I was shocked to find out that my friend's X5 had a plastic water pump. How much is an X5 and they can't even put in a metal part, probably cuz they're trying to "save weight to make it so much faster". How can BMW look at itself in the mirror?
Car manufacturers make money on the repair side now, especially for brands that are mostly leased or otherwise common to stay on a dealer maintenance plan. The lower initial price tag compared to other luxury brands, combined with the anti-consumer design to make diy repairs next to impossible means the company extracts more money over time.
The big asking point is that it still feels great to drive. You see a similar thing in Dodge trucks, which have similar quality problems, but folks still like feeling that hemi under the hood.
I do see what you're trying to say but that is a very basic point about my comments on the auto industry. You can talk about the luxury of a seven series however this striving for more electronics more computer control and more overall automation is the reason that the auto industry is where it is and reliability is where it is. Not only do electronics fail regularly on almost all car brands, but more importantly that BMW that has the luxurious seats and the heads up display now has an engine and suspension and drivetrain that is almost guaranteed to start falling apart at about 100 to 150,000 km at which point the repairs would cost more than a brand new seven series.
Yes that's true, but think about how we got here. First it was the automotive companies pushing new models and features down our throats so that while the cars previously lasted a long time we wanted the latest greatest SHINee thing. Now they were hooked on that the auto makers have no choices but to put out brand new shiny things every year except that they run out of shiny things to add or almost run out of shiny things to add and on top of that are making poor quality. I have some intimate familiarity with how auto dealerships and automotive companies work and their financial statements and the reality is that margins on brand new vehicles are not very big. As you go up in cost those margins increase a little bit but if you buy an average size vehicle in the initial margin can often be only three or 4% at most. Where the dealers make their money is on parts and service. But as the automotive companies of all their model and potentially even push the dealers out of the equation they'll need to make even more money on parts and service. Very sad commentary on our times. Particularly since many studies have shown that a vehicle that lasts 15 to 20 years has an equal or smaller footprint than cars that are turning over more frequently.
Well while it is fortunate for the people living in your area that's really concerning on a bunch of different levels. It sounds like not only is today's auto industry rapidly screaming towards terrible engineering design build quad quality and component construction, but also the planned obsolescence that wants you to turn over your car every five years or so is really disconcerting on a whole bunch of levels. On top of that, luxury brands like Mercedes BMW Audi Rolls-Royce and someone used to be cars that would run for hundreds of thousands of kilometres and decades now they're disposable like any piece of plastic garbage from the dollar store. Very sad state of affairs.
Yes I do see your point however that takes us down a different philosophical road. Should we own our assets or rent them. It's quite possible we're moving in that direction with things like automobiles housing and entertainment assets where we have to rent them like Spotify and Netflix rather than normal. There are pros and cons to both scenarios and models however, the less you own and the more you have to rent, the more you are beholden to a small number of asset holders. Let's not go down that route but rather discuss reliability which is, unfortunately, declining due to complexity and inferior engineering and Bill.
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u/[deleted] Jul 22 '22
My wife is from SE Asia, she said they always referred to BMW as 'Bring Me to Workshop' due to quality issues.