Who's Owned A Bmw? Or Can Comment On Them?

[Jake F6]

What's the 335i coupe like? They look great.

[aiboart]

The 335i is a great car.

In many respects it is also a little brother to the XR6-T, and, at only three times the price of the Falcon platform.

The engineering of the 335i is perhaps slightly above that of an FG XR6T/F6; then again perhaps not. The alloy block in the 335i is more advanced than the iron block on the FG. BMW engines also operates sans throttle, that is pretty cool. The rear suspension of the FG XR6-T despite being made of steel pressings is a miracle of advanced mass production; you would not change a thing even if you could.

Cabin quality is higher on the 335i than that of the FG XR6-T. BMW also put a few more pennies into NVH control, which pays big dividend in perception.

The 335i does not have the bullet proof design or endurance of a Falcon (apart from a Hilux, Landcruiser or Commadore what does?). BMW parts are jaw droppingly expensive in Australia. Dealer service is much worse. Check!!! After market parts supply is not that great and certainly not up to the level of what is available for say Porsche, so you have to pay BMW prices.

More generally BMW:

Beware of any car with sequential gear boxes. Old style SMG's are rubbish to drive even when they are running perfectly according to the manual. Dual clutch boxes are brilliant when they are running. Both SMG's and dual clutch boxes typically cost around $13K+ for a service/repair. CVT's are the same.

Beware any high revving engines. M3 is a case in point. M3 with SMG is simply a no-no

(M3-SMG is a pig, basket-case and a money-pit).

The M5 V10 engine despite its brilliance, suffers frequently from oiling problems that lead to catastrophic failure. The root causes are, high revs, high load, high temps and dynamic loss of oil viscosity caused by oil shear under those conditions. BMW refuses to acknowledge the issue... The cost of repairing a munched BMW V10 would buy you a brand new XR6-T

or even a F6.

Run don't walk from any BMW-7 series. The larger the engine, the faster you should run. These things have the reputation for being the fastest depreciating cars in the market; there is a good reason for that.

In summary

BMW make some very nice cars indeed, whose only fault is their price in Australia.

However, any BMW that is not an M-Series, or, does not have either the x35i-Turbo, or, one of the larger V8-Turbo's, is a waste of time. Ownership of this type of car proclaims to the whole world the owner's technical and financial ignorance and their gullibility.

BMW's like all Euro cars in Australia are a spectacular rip. (Get on the US car sales sites for a reality check!)

If you have the means for all the rips and price gouges, and, still have the motivation, enjoy!

If not, it may not be as much fun as you hoped.

Edited 23/06/12 01:09 AM by aiboart

[SuckSqueezeBangBlow]

I'd love one of these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_M_Coupe

a 2002 model would be awesome.

[MX Dave]

Coming from me as a mechanic in a small business: pain to work on and annoying to get parts for haha.

The ones I've driven haven't gone as quick as my falcon. But I gotta admit I love the grills and some of the body shapes they put out

[Guest XR09]

The $$$ factor goes all theway down to the VW's and Skoda's too. In service and repair bills.

And 07 Merc E500 with everything and about 50,000k's will set you back bout sixty grand. Five years old and down to 30% of it's initial value. You would think they would start loosing less than 10% a year now. Not a bad daily and an under the radar missile.

How good would that be pulling up to a work site. Your mates all proud of his new seventy grand Nivara and you pull up in your E500 with a trailer. Like how much shoite do you guys need for one day at a job ??? Farken tradies

[SuckSqueezeBangBlow]

whoops I just dropped my ladder on your Merc.

[turbotrana]

I wonder if my nail gun will reach that Merc

[Shyfrd]

There's only one way to find out..haha

[1600dave]

Looked into the 130i a few years ago, RWD hatch, 3l 190kw N/A 6cyl with 6 speed manual, bit of a sleeper.

Read a long term review where they clocked up over 100k on it and they had no major issues, had pretty good things to say about it except for f*ck all rear leg room.

The 135i coupe would be good too, same engine pretty much but twin turbo. Seems a few people are getting them into the 11's relatively easy too.

I'd be having a good chat with a BMW mech before buying either though.

[turbotrana]

Bmw have their issues. My wife had a pretty new 318 some years back and it had plastic right thru out the radiator system. So one hot summers day, driving along, no red lights just a smell then holy sh*t the temp gauge is way off its mark.

Open the bonnet and the bottom radiator hose connected to the engine via a plastic connector just broke off.

But the cylinder head cracked, was out of warranty a couple of years and cost what would be equivalent to 4-5k todays money for BMW to fixed it. Her daddy paid for it. I really hated that car.

So a car can be the greatest engineering but then they go backwards using some cheap plastic crap that is causing headaches for millions of drivers around the world. At least if there was a red warning light it would have saved the engine. Temp guages are useless.