BMW as a Dependable Car

It's behind industry average

VW is crap

Not quite sure I understand what a "problem" is though. I've taken my Audi in for a software update here and there that I heard about online, and to get windshield washer nozzle alignment adjusted. So I guess there's 2 or 3 problems right there? I'd still call it a dependable car over my 2 years of ownership though.

It's interesting to see where the Koreans fall on that list. The Hyundai Sonata was just named JD Power's most dependable mid-size sedan.

It's a dopey survey. Toyota avoids the problems by recalling for everything. The only interesting thing is to see which manufacturers have changed a lot from the prior year and which ones are way below average. BMW is right on the average and that is fine by me.

VW is surprising. MB has gotten their act together. Rover? I'm trying to convince my wife to get a Range Rover Sport and this just killed that.

No matter how you try and sell yourself into believing anything else, the fact remains that BMW's are not reliable cars. Especially, if you follow the "no maintenance-maintenance" schedule that BMW recommends (since it out of their pockets.) Sure, you may have a car right now that hasn't given you any problems. Consider yourself lucky and count that as the exception rather than the norm.

These car manufacturers will put their R&D dollars into where they think it will help sell the car. Toyota has built an image of a reliable and boring brand so that's what they focus their R&D dollars on because if not, then they will immediately get blasted in the press and such about how their cars aren't reliable. BMW, on the other hand has built their image on sporty and fun cars so that's where they focus their R&D dollars on. If they made a car that handled poorly, they would immediately get blasted from all angles. In theory, they could design a fun and sporty and reliable car but that would take lots of R&D and there's only so much money each manufacturer can allocate to each area.

The other fact remains that BMW has the highest lease rate of any manufacturer so most people only have the car for 3 years before they're given up and sold to another person. Usually, during this 3 years, nothing will go wrong and of course, there's no maintenance to bother the owner with so many people who lease these cars report that the car has been great. Of course, ask everybody with the N54 engine and I'm sure they'll tell you that keeping that car past 100k or was it 120k (that bmw extended the warranty on the hpfp to) if they think the car will last and I'm sure they pause before answering.

Good luck to all that think their BMW are reliable. Know what the positives of your car are and accept the negatives. Stop lying to yourself because we all know BMW are not reliable cars but they sure know how to make fun and good looking cars.

this is why i dont understand all the dudes coming here lately and asking if they should get a 328 and their last car was a honda/toyota/some other dependable, "wiser" car. you're either into saving money or spending it.

It looks like BMW is about average. The difference from the "industry standard" is probably within the margin of error. So the BMWs are about as reliable as anything else. The big thing polls like this miss is the type of issue customer had. They give equal weight to a car catching fire and car having a missing floor mat.

The other interesting part about this story is that the brand with the lowest quality, Range Rover, had record sales last year. That shows the importance that most people put on the initial quality of their cars.

Mb has come a long way. Just a few years ago they were way down there.

thats probably more the result of Range Rovers being incredibly overpriced, and the people who buy them dont see repairs as necessarily something to worry about.

You have to take these reports with a grain of salt becuase as someone else mentioned, they don't qualify what exactly constitutes an "issue" per 100 car. Therefore, this can range from something serious like a HPFP failing to a broken ash tray cover. Of course, at the end of the day anything wrong with a car is something wrong that needs to be fixed and you'll be inconvienenced with having to bring your car in.

Like, I said, there's a trade off with everything in life. You either get a reliable car like a toyota or a fun and stylish car like bmw. You can't have both. Pick one. Accept your choice and move on and deal with what it gives you.

Just know that BMW's are average when it comes to Toyotas. If oyu've never owned a Toyota, you'd never know any better so the BMW will be good to you but if you've owned a Toyota, then it won't ever measure up to Toyota standards.

If you take the worst (Landrover) and assume 2.2 issues per vehicle,

Well if I bought one, had two issues and got them resolved will I have more?

Or is 2.2 issues over a few years?

I don't see a big difference between 2 issues on a Landrover and 71% of all Lexus having issues ( assuming one issue per vehicle).

A side note

My 2008 VW GTi had the struts replaced when new (they were making noise), no more issues since purchase in 5 years.

My 2011 F10 has had no issues after 2 years of service.

So perhaps some vehicles have a lot of issues, and a lot of vehicles have no issues. Hard to tell from the survey.

Shrug. No shocks.

My 5 month old F30 has now had:
broken interior trim piece
brake clip popped off (right front wheel)
recall upgrade (backup camera now doesn't work when I put the car in reverse - awesome upgrade, BMW!)
RFT had to be replaced under warranty

My last car never had a single issue. My previous BMWs, a list as long as my arm. Shrug. It's a BMW.

Good luck to all that think their BMW are reliable. Know what the positives of your car are and accept the negatives. Stop lying to yourself because we all know BMW are not reliable cars but they sure know how to make fun and good looking cars.[/QUOTE]

I really don't understand some BMW owners. Always negitve. I'm on my 3rd BMW and not once was I left on the side of the road and I don't think that is unusaual. My 88 735i bought with 112,000 miles on it keep me going for 7 years and I only speant $2500 in 7 years to keep it running great. If that is not reliable I don't know what is.

I argree that they do cost more now then before to keep up with maintanence, but there is no reason to think it will ever break down and leave you stranded.

Originally Posted by bam

.......Just know that BMW's are average when it comes to Toyotas. If oyu've never owned a Toyota, you'd never know any better so the BMW will be good to you but if you've owned a Toyota, then it won't ever measure up to Toyota standards.

Well if some of your cars have roll up windows and basic controls (such as on/off fan and manual heat settings like some Toyotas and Hondas) you certainly have MUCH less to go wrong! Taking that logic, let us just look at the listed luxury cars:

Lexus = 71
Porsche = 94
MB = 115
Acura = 120
Cadillac = 128
BMW = 133
Infiniti = 138
Audi = 147
Volvo = 149
Jaguar = 164

BMW is in the middle as far as I can see.

Originally Posted by jjp735i

I really don't understand some BMW owners. Always negitve. I'm on my 3rd BMW and not once was I left on the side of the road and I don't think that is unusaual. My 88 735i bought with 112,000 miles on it keep me going for 7 years and I only speant $2500 in 7 years to keep it running great. If that is not reliable I don't know what is.

I argree that they do cost more now then before to keep up with maintanence, but there is no reason to think it will ever break down and leave you stranded.

Statistics and you've been on the good side of the curve. 2 new bimmers in 3 years, problems galore. They range from minor to hpfp which broke down on me 4x.

Originally Posted by chuck92116

If you take the worst (Landrover) and assume 2.2 issues per vehicle,

Well if I bought one, had two issues and got them resolved will I have more?

Or is 2.2 issues over a few years?

I don't see a big difference between 2 issues on a Landrover and 71% of all Lexus having issues ( assuming one issue per vehicle).

A side note

My 2008 VW GTi had the struts replaced when new (they were making noise), no more issues since purchase in 5 years.

My 2011 F10 has had no issues after 2 years of service.

So perhaps some vehicles have a lot of issues, and a lot of vehicles have no issues. Hard to tell from the survey.

I remember having a vehicle many years ago where I would get an undefined occasional noise from the Passenger door. After a few years of ownership, I had removed the door panel to repair the window that came off the track. Low and behold a lunch bag with unrecognizable contents. The old joke was to never get a car built on a Monday, Friday or day after a holiday!

She may be kind of high maintenance but she's drop dead gorgeous and wild....

Originally Posted by jjp735i

Good luck to all that think their BMW are reliable. Know what the positives of your car are and accept the negatives. Stop lying to yourself because we all know BMW are not reliable cars but they sure know how to make fun and good looking cars.

I really don't understand some BMW owners. Always negitve. I'm on my 3rd BMW and not once was I left on the side of the road and I don't think that is unusaual. My 88 735i bought with 112,000 miles on it keep me going for 7 years and I only speant $2500 in 7 years to keep it running great. If that is not reliable I don't know what is.

I argree that they do cost more now then before to keep up with maintanence, but there is no reason to think it will ever break down and leave you stranded.[/QUOTE]

Like I said, if you've never owned a Toyota, you'll never know what a reliable car is. You don't have anything to compate to. Sounds like you might be one of those where you've always bought BMW's. Nothing wrong with that. That's your cup of tea. I'm not negative. I'm just saying it like it is. Even the report says Toyota's are more reliable so again, I'm not being negative. I'm just confirming what the report has said year over year over year over year. If you did a search for my name and the posts I've created regarding issues with my car, you'd see that I've had more than the "average" bmw issues. They ranged from HPFP, left exhaust flap, replaced dme, replaced fuel injectors, replaced oil filter housing. Dang and this is with 85k miles on the car. My wife's previous 2002 rx300 had over 220k miles with only 1 problem and it was still going strong.

...so not being negative. just calling it like I see it.

Originally Posted by sf_loft

Statistics and you've been on the good side of the curve. 2 new bimmers in 3 years, problems galore. They range from minor to hpfp which broke down on me 4x.

Exactly, like I said, if your BMW has been good, you'r the exception, not the norm. Also, I'd be curious to know how many miles you have on the car. If you put 5k miles on the car vs someone who drives over 20k miles on a car in a year, you're a lot less likely to encounter problems.

I had more problems with my first BMW than with my previous 5 cars combined (Mazda, Honda & Infiniti). My second BMW has certainly had its share of problems as well. I lost track of how many fuel pumps I went through between the two, one of which stranded me in the middle of my nowhere at 11pm 2h from my house, 1h from the nearest car rental place. Nice. While my BMWs generally do ok, I think they deserve however mediocre rating they get.

The simple truth is:
BMW cars are great fun to drive but a real pain to own especially after warranty

They are shocker ....

Originally Posted by SilverX3

The simple truth is:
BMW cars are great fun to drive but a real pain to own especially after warranty

They are shocker ....

And even during the warranty. The repeated trips to the dealer are still just as annoying. Just less so since they are free.

Porsches are bullet-proof. I've had a few. Modded all of them. Driven the crap our of them on tracks, autox, and some rallys. Never needed to take to dealer for anything besides scheduled maintenance.

...let me just add. With all that I've said, seeing that Toyota and BMW are teaming up to exchange some technologies and have also said they will co-develop a car, I have high hopes where the car will be designed by bmw, handle like a bmw, have the luxuries like a Lexus, be reliable like a Lexus, and be relatively inexpensive to own like a Lexus.

Originally Posted by bam

...let me just add. With all that I've said, seeing that Toyota and BMW are teaming up to exchange some technologies and have also said they will co-develop a car, I have high hopes where the car will be designed by bmw, handle like a bmw, have the luxuries like a Lexus, be reliable like a Lexus, and be relatively inexpensive to own like a Lexus.

Can I add : And Look Boring like a Camry