Quote from brokerboy:
BMWâs are far better then American cars. I think the Japanese higher end cars are a lot cheaper then the BMWâs and are built just as well. I think the BMW might be a drop better but the real thing you get with a new BMW is the great service with short waits. I honestly think American car makers are jokes. They do make ok trucks but i still think they fall short against Japanese makers overall.
I'll say my 740iL had an awesome interior and very comfortable. Many aspects of BMW are better, they better be for the price tag. I liked the automatic shade on the rear window at the touch of a button, heated steering wheel great in winter, traction control worked great on this heavy vehicle in the snow. Solid feel on the road no doubt, but quality, reliability, durability not any better in fact in my opinion and many on the BMW message board it is lacking in many areas. Here's a list of problems I had and they are common, so common you will see the same problems over and over on that board.
Radiator is plastic and has catastrophic failures. From that message board average life of the radiator is 50,000, some suggest changing it every 40,000 miles but this may not always work because many state only 19,000 miles before going. BTW thiese are all from neck failures and BMW will not cover them regardless of how much negative publicity they get.
Resevoir tank and heater core and water pump are all very weak on these cars and go just about at the same time the radiator goes. Very expensive to fix them all. I replaced all of these on my car.
Engine block and heads are aluminum and get damaged far sooner than the cars electronics notifies the owner of a dangerous heating problem. Engine costs $12,000 to replace.
45-55 MPH shimmy that just about everyone with a 740 will tell you they have. You can spend thousands to fix this problem but it will return in months.
Steering wheel kick back at 45 MPH and up when hitting certain bumps.
Cold morning 10 second shake at start, very common on these. I avoided this by having to floor the gas pedal and turn the key then let off on the gas as the engine would smooth off. Again, this is a re-occuring problem.
Throttle linkage is really poor, gets stuck at full throttle resulting in a dangerous situation.
Front suspension is very weak and you will always find yourself replacing one part or another.
The interior electronics always always lose some pixels, and BMW is quietly covering this but only for the big complainers that go direct to the top.
Oil pump has bolts that get loose and fall into the sump, so you regularly have to go in there and tighten them.
Besides all these problems I have always thought in my mind that a BMW engine is at least very durable but from many many other posts, if you are lucky enough to get 150,000 miles on one of these they very commonly develop a fatal engine knock. Bring it to the mechanic and they will find the oil pump has been spitting out plastic broken pieces thus causing slightly lower oil pressure which damages the engine internally giving that nasty knock.
Still think BMW is better?
