Welcome back everybody, Mark with Exotic Car Play Place. Today we're talking about
your favorite subject BMW reliability but today we're gonna get down to the
five main things why BMWs the roots, the reasons, the real
history and the story and the underlying reasoning why BMWs are the way they are
and the reliability concerns that they generally have. Let's get started. So
number one the first thing the first reason or contributing factor to why
BMWs may not be that reliable has to do with materials so the first thing is
materials why while there's materials and rod bearings we've seen issues in
the S85 and s 65 engines in the BMW m5 s and the M and the M threes that used a
particular rod bearing now there's a bunch of reasons why those bearings were
failing material coating tolerances oil use oil maintenance a lot of factors all
contributed but nonetheless one of the fixes has to do with a different type of
bearing of a different tolerance and a different material so that in itself is
one part of it but the bigger thing why materials are a problem is did you
know back since around 1991 when all of the the big fad to utilize a lot of
plastic parts around the engine was really kicked into high gear and BMW is
always very innovative and so they got ahead of the game in a lot of ways and
started utilizing techniques whereby they replaced a lot of you know parts a
lot of aluminum parts or otherwise aluminum or cast for example valve
covers water pumps radiator parts like the side tanks fan shrouds that crumble
to parts because of the heat cycling thermostat housings which eventually
crumble and fail and should actually be replaced with a metallic one intake
manifolds that are also plastic and through multiple heat cycles eventually
fail resulting in some vacuum leaks and an engine light and then obviously an
elusive vacuum leak because a lot of times people start looking at
keyline issues where in fact vacuum leaks sometimes comes right from the
intake manifold and even oil pans a lot of manufacturers not just BMWs are these
days are using plastic oil pans now what does all this plastic business come from
at the end of the day there's a lot of selling features it's going to be
marketed in such a way that says plastic you know is cost savings plastic is
lighter you know it's more cost effective and in a lot of cases it's
better constructed some people will use the argument that plastics dissipate
heat better than a lot of metals and while there's some truth to that at the
end of the day molds for plastics or the creation of plastic on the assembly line
is much much much more cost-effective the bigger problem is not just the use
of plastics where your say the company is actually utilizing plastics to save
money and that money is then you know sent down the line and result in a lower
cost product for the consumer the problem is the process that the price
for the product stays high but the the bottom line reduces and that increases
the margins for the company and of course the only person that suffers is
the person that that owns the car that has to make the repairs when one of
these parts cracks split warp or fall apart altogether so the second reason
why BMWs may or may not be reliable comes down to the suppliers of the parts
while about fifty percent of the parts that go into BMWs are built and made and
manufactured supplied in Germany the other there's about 35% that are coming
from other parts of Europe whether in Western Europe Eastern Europe all across
the continents so to speak so they're coming from all over the place and a lot
of the parts are high quality there's no question for example brakes come from
Brembo moly parts are supplied for the Pistons and cylinders and a lot of other
parts GKN supplies for axles but unfortunately some of the parts come
from emerging markets and even more importantly that quality control that is
in some of these emerging markets such as Mexico and Brazil and unfortunately
some of that quality gets handed down obviously there is a
shoes at times not just from the parts themselves but in the quality control of
construction as you saw in one of my recent videos I featured the new x3 one
of the issues there was the rear spoiler would fall off the fix was basically
redo some of the mounting hardware that to me strikes me as a quality control
concern the third issue that afflicts the BMWs in terms of reliability comes
down to engineering it's no no secret that engineering is a huge reason why
things are successful or not successful there's a need to be a better risk
manager and when I say risk manager you need to look at it holistically
understand what is going on when you're designing a car what the longevity is on
a lifespan for a part the overall car how you're going to manufacture that car
how are you gonna make all the pieces work together part of the problem is
just you know putting everything together so it works in good unison not
all the time is that done another issue around engineering has to do with losses
losses because of supply chain and when supply chain doesn't get the part to the
manufacturer or the assembly line on time that creates a backlog that backlog
then essentially creates a loss in profits now loss in profits then
unfortunately pushes the car company to a place where the next go-around when
they create the next series or next line of cars they have to increase their
margins because they've made losses in the last run and when a losses
contributes to an increased need for market improvements what that usually
means is more cost cutting more issues with you know cutting corners and trying
to save even more costs that of course reflects back down onto the consumer
which hits hard again more plastic parts more cutting of corners you know things
that are you know an effort to try to maximize profits the fourth thing really
why BMWs can maybe not be as reliable as they could be really essentially comes
down to more at the baseline the ownership level and its maintenance one
of the biggest enemies of these BMWs is the service interval
now is there's no secret BMW has really extended some of the oil service
intervals and some of the other intervals in general for satisfying a
market that demands this in a place where every car manufacturer is
essentially looking for ways to market their product to make it more desirable
people love to hear things like oh you don't need to change oil for twenty
thousand kilometers twenty-five thousand kilometers you don't need to change
spark plugs for a hundred thousand kilometers you don't need to change
coolant for a hundred thousand kilometers or brake fluid for 50
thousand kilometers these are all marketing ploys and sadly
enough the maintenance really essentially boils down to you the
consumer the owner of the car yes the car manufacture usually you have to
trust what they say but oils haven't changed that dramatically brake fluid
hasn't changed that dramatically antifreeze hasn't changed that
dramatically yes there have been improvements in all of those products
but unfortunately oil is oil it is still a lubricant it's still a coolant there's
things that they still function and if you extend those intervals
you're gonna result in a lot of issues in areas like rod bearings cam lobes
cooling system of course we already spoke of some of the cooling system
issues that BMWs are afflicted with like plastic water pumps and radiators that
have side tanks made of plastic that will break at the necks of the
connections a lot of these parts if you neglect them and you don't do all your
servicing coolant and changing your fluids regularly you'll see more of
those failures a lot of those things they're inevitable so you have to take
care of maintenance pretty much regardless of what the manufacturer
states really in a in essence you know do a bare minimum with the manufacturer
states but there's nothing wrong in doing more maintenance than they
recommend again remember oil service intervals that is a marketing game and
all the brands are doing it to a different degree or another
BMW nonetheless the same story so just get on top of your maintenance some
people just maintenance all together that in itself
is a big problem don't ever neglect the maintenance another problem is engine
lights if you have an engine light that's flashing and beeping in your you
know on the dashboard don't neglect that don't let it go too long make sure you
get on that learn out what the problem is and deal with it because sometimes if
you let that problem continue it'll fester into a bigger problem or it will
mirror itself in other ways and create other problems elsewhere it will make
other parts of the system pick up the slack and in essence create other
weaknesses in the system so whatever the problem is if you have an engine light
deal with it yes we've already spoken in other videos that BMWs are not short on
engine codes engine faults engine lights but that's just because the brand
suggests keeping the car running optimally and that is the best thing you
can do is maintain your car do even better maintenance than the brand
recommends and you should be good to go now the fifth thing really boils down to
why our BMW is so unreliable is the fact that maybe they're not as unreliable
that a lot of people say they are and that comes down to reputation reputation
can come from a lot of different ways you talk about forums there's lots of
inter you know with a with the current advent of social media today there's no
shortage of communications out there whether it be forums social media you
hear things on TV now of course friends are gonna say hey I had a friend that
had an issue with his BMW he'll never buy another one
but you know what all brands have their issues BMWs not unique to that the
product is very high quality there's no no denying that but it is a mechanical
part and essentially a car can fail of any brand and BMWs no difference to that
but the problem is people often blow these reputations and blow some of these
problems out of proportion and blowing things out of proportion can only lead
to more confusion more disarray more animosity and things that just don't
need to happen so my best thing is my best recommendation is do
your research before you buy a car listen to some of the forums
absolutely but don't listen to the bandwagons get on board listen to the
real things the people that you know they're real credible locations listen
to where the issues really come from and to make your own determination yeah and
if there are reliability concerns just understand where those weaknesses are
and deal with it yourself find ways to mitigate some some of those problem
areas and just manage it so everybody I really hope you enjoyed the video that
is the five things that create the unreliability factors around the BMW
brand overall it's a superb brand and for sure BMWs are at the
state-of-the-art they're always at the leading edge of innovation they do
awesome things they're always trying new things and every new version of a new
BMW that comes out whether it's a 3 Series 5 Series X whatever it is always
is fresh clean and always one of the greatest cars to drive that you can get
on the market in its day so thanks for joining along guys make sure you give me
a thumbs up share the video and subscribe to the channel that little
button right down there at the very bottom hit that subscribe button if
you're not already a subscriber I'd really love you guys to continue joining
the channel and for those that do thanks for coming back again everybody and
would love to see on the next one see you soon bye bye
and I just can't help but mention I've already had a few people talk and make
references to Scottie Kilmer that huge car channel youtuber that talks about
the real nitty-gritty of mechanical failures and yeah - that so special
shout-out to Scottie Kilmer