BMWs brilliance is it by design or is it due to method?

[genphreak]

Is the reason BMWs last so well more than just good engineering? It seems to me that the dealers have very clear service procedures and disciplines dictated by Germany- in comparison to the other automotive brands.

It appears that those of us in the second hand market do well to get cars that have been so well looked after. The only trouble is most of us (excepting those onn this forum of course) have NFI about maintaining the regime and the cars goto **** due to a couple of big maintainance items cropping up and a whole bunch of missed maintainence...

I have an idea about what can be done to help prevent this. We need a distributed, open version of the BMW Technical Information System where we keep a log of all the work we do, and can see anything we miss... the current TIS does not have this, or any sections for updates, upgrades and modifications...

What do you peeps think? Nick

[Blitzkrieg Bob]

marshmellow chicks


anyway....

I seem to see that the BMW was made to be maintaned, where other cars were made to be discarded and replaced.

[genphreak]

marshmellow chicks anyway.... I seem to see that the BMW was made to be maintaned, where other cars were made to be discarded and replaced.

You're right on the money there, Bob as ever... I guess cos of this, a lot of things on the car are new (for an old car) when one buys one second hand... still look how many things last 20 years and are still good... GM can't seem to manage it... door rubbers last like 5 years on their cars. Nick

[Paul in NZ]

also with most bmw owners i would think that initial maintenance on the car would not be an issue,and generally the cars would get looked after....for instance I beleive the first two owners of my car did not take it out in the rain.....

[Jr ///M5]

Along with what Bob says about the ridgid maintenance program and inspection, my thinking was that if someone could afford to drop $40-60k on a new car 10-15 years ago, they could also afford to keep the damn thing maintained, and cleaned.

Don't bet that the new BMW cars with the ******** extended oil change intervals and 4 year coolant flushes will last as long. BMW has doubled the mileage on just about all maintenance since they started footing the bill for the first 50k miles.

But if you were to buy a new BMW now, and use the older maintenance program, along with initial break in fluid changes with the trans and diff, I would bet it would last too!

[e39dream]

I realized right away that unlike my other car, I actually enjoy working on the bimmer. I too think the extended interval is too much time, I'm going 10k on synthetic oil before change.

[632 Regal]

if you stick to the regular service inspection I and II you would inspect everything that can fail. aside from that following the same service you replace the cooling, belts, antifreeze, fluids etc etc. this is what keeps these cars alive.

[Zeuk in Oz]

I suspect it goes deeper than this Nick.

Certainly the vehicles are well engineered, however as you say, without the rigorous application of a logical approach to maintenance, including replacement of components before they fail, BMWs can be as unreliable and short-lived as other marques.

As the owner of a 4 yo Mercedes M class, I can assure you that Merc appears to have adopted many of these same fundamental concepts when it comes to maintenance of their cars.

The big issue, I feel, is that older cars of any other marque, excluding possibly Jaguar, are not as exceptionally nice to drive.

I think it is this "Freude am Fahren" that makes the smitten, like us, work so hard to maintain our cars.

Can't see anyone resurrecting 18 yo Mercs in the same numbers ........

[rob101]

i was actually talking about this with a guy from work who is according to some people in the company one of the best maintenance minds in the country. The topic came up because one of our german cranes which we recently purchased had a problem, which is the 2nd in as many weeks nothing too serious. I mentioned to him this insurance company's findings on the relative failure rates in cars (in warranty periods) and why mercedes and bmw have higher failure rates whereas hyundai's are at the lower end of the scale. this type of failure is much more common in more sophisticated machines, but most importantly it has nothing to do with the longevity of the machine. then we started to talk about the bathtub curve of realiability and he told me in a machine that doesn't wear (ie all wearable components can be replaced) if you maintain it properly and overhaul it when necessary it never "wears out". i see where he is coming from
but unfortunately we are nerd engineers not the usual car user who doesn't have a f-ing clue how a car works or how important changing the oil and filter is to the car, its the only way you can actually clean the inside of the engine.
personally i would like to get a younger car although my 525i has been fully maintained by dealers all of its life she is old (250 000 km), and if i implemented my own maintenance regime on a car with sub 100 000 km i think it'd last me alooooong time

[genphreak]

Tahnks Zeuk.

I think older Mercs are great looking, but the driver position is weird (you either feel liek a taxi driver with that massive, mung wheel) or liek driving an old Valiant (Chrysler) where you are upright and still have to peer over the steering wheel. Old 280 and 300Es are nice, the SLs of course. I would love a 70s 450SEL 6.9 not to mention a 600 limo, but all of them have mung wheels and are hardly performance vehicles... so it'd have to be a 560SL (if it wasn't for the wheel) and that is way OTT for me. They made a huge leap with the 80s plasticised models, but with Daimler in control now who knows what the Americans will do to the brand, I was riding in a Kompressor 2 door and it felt like it was made of balsawood and plastic (no racism intended good Cousins) I just can't think of a better way to get ithe multinational money-ideology-control factor across at present- apologies in advance. Nick