Are BMWs really reliable cars...

I was chatting to a mate the other night who has a 2002 E46 330D sport. A nice looking car in black with balck leather, 18" alloys and the full sport kit.

He bought it a few years ago for 12k with about 45k on the clock and a FBMWSH.

However he warned me off buying a car like it because of the bills and the running costs.

This month it was due it's MOT and it failed. The result was a bill for £700 most of which was down to the handbrake not working and the car getting new rear discs and pads. On top of this the car needed two new rear tyres which came to over £300.

About three months back it was due an oil service which wasn't too bad but they also found two oil leaks which pushed to total bill to over £400. Then about 3 days later one of the front calipers siezed. This then cost him another £600 to grt this fixed .

So all in this year he's spent almost £2000 before he's considered insurance and tax. This is all through the BMW dealer.

last year wasn't any better. An inspection 2 service, coolant and brake fluid change. Front discs and pads, front anti roll bar bushes, a new sensor for the alarm as well as 4 tyres means that last year the car cost him close to 2k on servicing/maintenance.

Now I know all cars need repairs but it is just me or is this just a little bit excessive. Yes he could have saved money by going out side the dealer network, but still.

Oh and the car is now showing signs of rust around the back wheel arches. This is a car that's garaged every night.

His last car, a 1992 Rover 214, had less things go wrong with it in his entire time with the car which was about 6 years IIRC.

I have to admit, i'm reassessing my desire to buy another BMW...

In roughly the same time as Steve in his 318iS I've covered 100k miles in my 523i.  I did a tot of all the bills through that time and the car has cost roughly €0.06 per mile in maintenance and repairs.  That may not include quite every tyre its had but its fairly close.  The servicing was done probably 2/3 dealer, 1/3 specialist.

To me that's a fairly reasonable figure.  To put it in context, its probably cost me 2.5 to 3.0 times that per mile in depreciation.

Obviously, buying secondhand you are going to offset some of the reduced depreciation cost against a higher maintenance and repair cost versus a new car.

In approx 350k miles of BMW driving between Mrs D and myself over the past 11 years we've only had 2 episodes of "unreliability".  My definition of unreliable is to leave me by the road or fail to start rather than faults that have materialized but not caused the wheels to stop turning.  My 330Ci ruptured a fuel line and left me by the road.  The 523i failed to start once because I flooded it.

Peter - to gauge your pal's running costs, do you know how many miles he has covered in the car in that time?  Working it out on a cost per mile may make the figures more reasonable than just looking at a cost per year.  If he's doing 10k pa its probably expensive.  On the other hand, if its 30k its probably cheap enough.

I think it goes :

The older cars (E34's as an example) were built, then priced, very good build quality, very reliable, rather expensive.

The newer cars, built to a price, still nice machines, still expensive, not nearly as reliable (they are also getting more complicated).

BMW customer service seems to be getting poorer

All just my opinion, largely based on what I read on various forums

Just my 2p worth..

From my experience of certain BMW dealers, they are out to get you for as much cash as they can.

Replacing various parts of the braking system is easy money for them.

My E39 went to a BMW dealer for a service and I was presented with a list of faults that was as long as your arm.  I was presented with this list as I had told them not to do any of the work when they phoned me to advise me of these faults.  One of these items was that my front discs and pads needed changing. 

10,000 miles later it went back in to the same dealer for another service.  They did not pick up on the things that had been identified 10,000 miles earlier,  I asked why, the same set of front discs and pads were not identified as worn this time around but had been adviced to replace them 10,000 miles ago.  The chap looked very sheepish and put it down to "a difference in opinion of the mechanics".

Aye right!