Is BMW abondoning long-term ownership model? I just got off the phone with BMW customer service to confirm my conclusions, and before that I had a long discussion with dealer technical stuff. It appears that BMW now changes software on both, cars and at dealer service centers, so often, that car purchased in 2008 (in my case 535XI) will be 2-3 (!) releases behind if computer diagnostics is needed 2 years after the purchase. Normally all car diagnostics is computer based. Our car can potentially have number of engine or pump/injector problems. So dealer will have to install new software to diagnose it, which will mean charging a lot for it, since it is not part of warranty package, at least not after 50,000 miles. Imagine Microsoft charging you for every Windows update! BMW effectively does this. In my case we have 52,000 miles and now feel that we should have sold the car earlier, instead of expecting it to perform at least until 100,000 miles mark, in line with Japanese or American cars. This is lesson learned, and I wanted to share it with others. There might be no point in keeping new BMW-s as we used to do 5-10-20 years ago, when BMW car was reliable enough to last many years and become a true family car. BMW of today, as some dealers will honestly admit to you is a good short-term car, mainly rental, and not techically viable in-house car it used to be. In my view of new car owner, high potential maintenance is what makes BMW not a good choice for long-term buyer, compare to VW or Lexus. I hope BMW will come up with replacement models with less software complexity and more pure authentic mechanics, which used to be the selling point in the past for their cars. Otherwise it may follow the path of Mercedes Benz which became known as "less reliable luxury car" and is now mainly a flashy rental option for housewives vs quality choice for performance seeking drivers.