Originally Posted by MCompact
Originally Posted by jeepman3071
Any car regardless of brand will be expensive to own and maintain if the owner is ignorant about how the car works and what it needs. I'm not saying everyone needs to be a mechanic, but at least be somewhat familiar with what the price of a repair should be.
I agree- and I think that's the reason I haven't had many reliability issues with any of my cars. German cars tend to be designed and engineered with the presumption that the car will be maintained by the book. Most other manufacturers assume the worst with respect to owner maintenance and design the vehicle accordingly.
Most of the issues on these cars that are at least 3 years old are well documented, and so are the repairs. In fact I'd rather have the BMW community where you can do a simple Google search and find lots of info on forums. Compared to when I did a search on a problem my friend's 2008 Tacoma had and came across a bunch of threads where people just took it to the dealer. Not a fault of the vehicle itself, but just a different base of owners.
No vehicle is better than another, they just serve different purposes. My mom has owned Hondas most of her life, and they suit her perfectly. She doesn't care how a car drives, just wants it to work on minimal service. When it does break, she can go basically anywhere and get it fixed. My 1998 Wrangler is probably more maintenance hungry than my 09 BMW, but then again it's 22 years old and I bought it knowing it wouldn't be a gas and go appliance.
Originally Posted by jeepman3071
Any car regardless of brand will be expensive to own and maintain if the owner is ignorant about how the car works and what it needs. I'm not saying everyone needs to be a mechanic, but at least be somewhat familiar with what the price of a repair should be.
I agree- and I think that's the reason I haven't had many reliability issues with any of my cars. German cars tend to be designed and engineered with the presumption that the car will be maintained by the book. Most other manufacturers assume the worst with respect to owner maintenance and design the vehicle accordingly.
Most of the issues on these cars that are at least 3 years old are well documented, and so are the repairs. In fact I'd rather have the BMW community where you can do a simple Google search and find lots of info on forums. Compared to when I did a search on a problem my friend's 2008 Tacoma had and came across a bunch of threads where people just took it to the dealer. Not a fault of the vehicle itself, but just a different base of owners.
No vehicle is better than another, they just serve different purposes. My mom has owned Hondas most of her life, and they suit her perfectly. She doesn't care how a car drives, just wants it to work on minimal service. When it does break, she can go basically anywhere and get it fixed. My 1998 Wrangler is probably more maintenance hungry than my 09 BMW, but then again it's 22 years old and I bought it knowing it wouldn't be a gas and go appliance.