How B***** much?

Coasting wrote: If you're buying a premium car like a BMW you're not buying life long trouble free motoring.  After 3 years or 60,000 miles things WILL go wrong.  That's the same with every car and to suggest it isn't and that BMW have issues isn't looking at the bigger picture. The warranty offered for £720 is acknowledged as the ONLY true extension of a full factory warranty - every other car maker offers extended warranties but they are not a direct extention of the new warranty. Dave could have a four figure gearbox bill in his BMW just as he could in a Honda, Toyota, Audi or anything else.  It happens. No marque and no manufacturer can claim the sort of long term reliability and cost free motoring that you're inferring exists.

Well I disagree.

For example my fathers cars:

Vauxhall Cavalier bought with 40K on the clock, traded in with 130k. Only problems other than routine serving were with consumable parts. Even the clutch lasted although it was getting a bit tierd.

Vauxhall Nova, bought with 25K traded in with 110K, again no major problems other than a carb problem that cost about £50 to fix.

Vauxall Astra, bought with 30K traded in with 100k, no major problems other than the usual wear and tear.

Another Astra. Bought with 20K and still going strong at about 90K although he is thinking of trading it in this year. the only problem to date not related to consumble parts has been a clutch cable.

I could go on and on listing loads of normal average cars that have never had any major problems.

If Vauxhall can do it, why not BMW?

I do know that sometimes you can get a bad car that ends up costing a fortune, or just a single item like a diff can give up, but to imply that all cars regardless of make will start to give problems after 60k miles is just not true.

Problems like you describe should be the exception and if they're not then the car maker has issues with quality, like Land Rover for instance.

None of the cars I have owned previous to my BMW have ever had major problems and they have all been older cars with higher than 60k on them. 

 

 

Edited by Peter Fenwick

MTEC530D wrote: Someone correct me if i'm wrong but lots of companies offer waranties i.e waranty holdings offer aftermarket warranties. Maybe someone like Floody or someone else like him who is in used car trade may be able to point you in the right direction, that is if you would consider paying for a cheaper warranty which wouldn't cover dealer parts and labour ect but would likely cover Indipendant bmw specialists. Not sure if they sell them to people who aren't buying a used car from garage but might be worth a try.

Dave, Mal is spot on with what he said, only problem is Warranty Holding's went into the hand's of the receivers last March Long story after Ford pulled the plug!!!!!!!
As Mal said there are lot's of Warranty Co's some will give you a 1k limit or you can have up to the value of the car,but they do differ and at the end of the day are all insurance "backed" and don't like paying main "Dealer" rate's but Independant, plus alot have a milage limitation when the warranty is started.
After all that it's not what you know, it's who you know, bought Nicola a car for X'Mas, got a warranty sorted for,3yrs, at!!!!! (going to cost you a ) half what BM are quoting!!!!! for 1yr!!.give me a ring with when and where you bought the car and I will see what I can do

Someone correct me if i'm wrong but lots of companies offer waranties i.e waranty holdings offer aftermarket warranties. Maybe someone like Floody or someone else like him who is in used car trade may be able to point you in the right direction, that is if you would consider paying for a cheaper warranty which wouldn't cover dealer parts and labour ect but would likely cover Indipendant bmw specialists. Not sure if they sell them to people who aren't buying a used car from garage but might be worth a try.

Coasting wrote: I just hope you don't get any nasty bills Dave! I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!

This is exactly my point!!

If you bought a Honda you would know that you wouldn't get any nasty bills.

You make it sound like if the car does go problem free in the next year it will have as much to do with luck as build quality.

From a premium car maker like BMW this simply isn't good enough.

If it's worth sepnding £750 on a warranty then BMW have some real quality issues.

Nigel wrote: I can understand people wanting to buy these cheap cars. I will have to replace my vectra estate sometime soon. I can spend £20,000 on a new vectra estate, and after 3 or 4 years with nasa mileage, it will be worth nothing. I can spend £7,000 on a not so good Kia, have 3 years warranty, three years servicing, and after the same period with the same miles, it will be worth nothing. So I can loose £20,00, or £7,000 How do they work out as such poor value ? I only want something to carry me, my tools, and laptop around. This also applies to the likes of hyundai, only I get 5 years warranty with them.

I agree entirely with you Nigel. Sure it woun't be worth anything in a few years time but it was very cheap to start with, comes as you say with a 5 year warranty, which it probably will never need and will cost peanuts to run. The 7K you pay to buy it is going to be less than the depreciation on a a car like a Vectra or even a BMW over a 5 year period

On the original topic, I personally think it is very worrying that to extend the warranty for one year is £750. This means one of the following:

BMW are taking the mick and fleecing customers 

BMWs are not reliable

BMW parts and labour charges are so expensive that even small jobs work out very expensive

Either way this kind of thing would really put me off buying a new BMW

I just hope you don't get any nasty bills Dave!

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!

Warranties are worth it if you've got a car with known faults that are expensive to repair, like S50 powered M's with VANOS and S54 powered M's with 'spinning' shell bearings.

For me it's looking very expensive for the Z - it's a lot of aftermarket parts & independent hours labour, which I would have a lot more confidence in being worth the money.

I think BMW should be looking at why the level of claims has gone up in the first place, they don't build durable quality cars anymore do they.  If they were, we couldn't be claiming!

I did that this time, i bought a 4 year old vectra estate, and it has worked, but so would the new cheapie car.

I can understand people wanting to buy these cheap cars.

I will have to replace my vectra estate sometime soon.

I can spend £20,000 on a new vectra estate, and after 3 or 4 years with nasa mileage, it will be worth nothing.

I can spend £7,000 on a not so good Kia, have 3 years warranty, three years servicing, and after the same period with the same miles, it will be worth nothing.

So I can loose £20,00, or £7,000

How do they work out as such poor value ?

I only want something to carry me, my tools, and laptop around.

This also applies to the likes of hyundai, only I get 5 years warranty with them.

Praktisk wrote:  will be investing in a Kia.

It's quicker and easier just to bundle the cash up and set it alight!

A lot more fun too.

I can't imagine anyone, anywhere, under any circumstances, seriously wanting to invest hard earned cash into one of these.

Top Gear, What Car, Car Magazine and Driven have all demonstrated that they are a total false economy and that over 2-5 years you are much better off buying virtually ANYTHING else!