Welcome back everybody. Mark with Exotic Car Play Place. Today we are at a
BMW dealer to discuss if BMWs in fact are reliable. Are BMWs reliable? Lots
of people are asking that question so we're gonna talk about that today and
I'm gonna share with you what my what my opinion is on the matter and why that
actually is the case. I hope you've checked out my series because I've
addressed a lot of these questions and given you very very good specific
examples of cars that are reliable and cars that are lacking reliability in
terms of the BMW world so today we're gonna talk in generalities our BMW is
reliable so generally speaking there's two ways to answer this question are
they reliable first part short answer no they're not reliable but generally
speaking that's consistent with a lot of German upscale premium brands like
Mercedes BMW Porsche they're all premium brands they all lack a complete
reliability they don't have the reliability that you might find in a
Lexus for some reason Lexus they've nailed it out of the park in terms of
overall reliability the worst part though unfortunately with a Lexus is it
lacks the performance and driving dynamics in most cases with the
exception of safe for the LFA for example they generally don't have the
same exciting levels of driving enjoyment that you'll get out of a BMW
they don't have that same level I've driven Lexus' and they're great cars
and reliable but they don't quite have the the overall driving appeal and so
that's why people choose to buy the BMW brand or in the any of the other German
cars if it weren't for the driving experience why would you buy these other
cars because they bring something to the table so let's get rolling in this and
explain this whole concept so firstly number one yes there are examples of
BMWs that are really bad they either have catastrophic engine failure related
issues they have inherently really bad design flaws or there
just poorly built poorly engineered and poorly constructed vehicles there are
exception cases like that but generally as a rule when we're talking about
reliability 80 90 percent of the make is very very solidly built and it's not the
engine it's not the transmission that's ever the problem with most of these cars
it's all that little stuff in between and people ask like well if I maintain
my BMW is that going to save my butt well sadly enough maintenance isn't
usually going to do that for you I mean it's easy to say well you need to
maintain your BMW and then you'll be trouble-free but in reality it's not
about maintaining it all the time sure oil changes frequent aisle services
coolant flushes brake flushes that's good stuff for the engine for the brakes
you know doing your coolant flushes that'll save your water pump in some
cases the oil changes will often save your engine if you do this stuff for
religiously that'll keep the engine running well but those aren't usually
the issues that BMWs are faced with it's usually the other problems it's all the
ancillary bits and this is a consistent problem with BMW I mean let's face it a
lot of the German cars are very very complex today now you have things like
actuators modules drive-by-wire SMG transmissions dual clutch transmissions
whole host of new electronic technologies you've got I drive systems
apple carplay all sort of plugins heated seats power seats electronic gadgets for
mirrors and controls over all things that allow you to move things
automatically with your key fob or a OneTouch button that operates a whole
different host of things there's a lot of complexities built into these cars
they even said when the e60 m5 came out that the computing systems within the
e60 were more complex and more powerful than the NASA space shuttle would you
believe that I do that's why these cars have inherent issues because there's so
much complexity in put it injected into these cars now if
you can get around that and you're not worried about replacing the odd module
or a relay that fails and if you want to stay ahead of that stuff and just be
willing to tolerate that the rest of these cars are well crafted so this is
part two to this answer the long answer of course being they are not inherently
unreliable as a rule you want unreliability I've got great examples of
unreliability how about my Lamborghini Gallardo right here these cars have
problems with the clutches the clutches lunch at ten to twenty thousand
kilometres is all you're going to get out of a clutch on this car how about
cars that start on fire because of power steering lines so you've got power
you've got clutch issues power steering lines
you've got things that go on these cars that aren't that reliable either how
about I'll show you some other examples so let's talk about some of these other
problems well I don't know if you guys seen the review I did on this Mitsubishi
Eclipse here's an example everybody wants to blame BMW for being unreliable
but they're not the only ones that have their inherent problems this car here
only has a hundred and fifty thousand kilometers and it burns a core to all
every two thousand kilometers so it's got heavy oil consumption also did you
see the video where I was doing the review on this car I want to close the
door boom and the handle ripped off wonderful 3.8 liters of v6 fury what in
the hell just happened here well that looks like something that you won't find
typical in a BMW so anyway let's get moving so that's a problem these aren't
all that reliable how about my truck this here is my toy hauler here this
pickup truck is actually the vehicle I use to haul you know if I'm moving the
transporting the Lamborghini or the boat we do boating in the summertime so you
always need a pickup truck to haul a car around haul the boat around this is the
truck here so this thing has had plagued with issues and I'm gonna pop the hood
here and I'll talk about that a little bit now one thing of course this this
piece of junk was this right here so this is a Dodge
pickup I had I went through three of these already this truck only has 90,000
kilometers and they always get a leak in this area so it's a weakness in these
cars garbage another issue I've replaced a water pump
on this piece of garbage already a starter and word has it that
transmissions are also weak on these trucks so I am also expecting a
transmission to go on this at some point so this thing is not lacking in its
issue so Dodge has its problems Mitsubishi has its problems for
definitely has its problems and we know Ford's you know they burn up like like a
candle essentially I'm not picking on any brands in particular all I'm simply
stating is that every brand seems to have its Achilles tendon and so the BMWs
often are similar to that and I'm gonna explain a little more about that
that shows that any brand has its weaknesses and BMW is no exception we're
not pretending that BMWs a perfect brand they have their issues but I'll tell you
one thing there's nothing worse than putting money into a vehicle that is
weak it's loose its wobbly and has a weak drivetrain inherently from the
factory at least with a BMW a lot of these faults tell you what's going on so
when you replace the respective part it helps optimize the driving experience
the idea is to drive the car in its perfect state how many people have you
ever seen I know people that have driven around in Honda's with engine lights on
permanently and they never checked to see what the problem is
well the vehicle never seems to drive any differently for some reason and it
just keeps on trucking but that's obviously not good for you know for
anything obviously if there's an issue related that actually spits out a code
that's trying to tell you something and I've seen lots of people driving with
engine lights on for years and they don't even worry about it at least with
the BMW if it puts it into limp mode puts the car into limp mode because you
have some failure it doesn't allow you to drive with that failure active
because that failure may not directly impact the way the car drives overall it
does in fact have some sort of an issue and the car of course will spit out a
coat now there's no secret these cars are not short of engine lights and so
that's really what this all comes down to and so if you really want to get down
to it the BMWs are they that are unreliable or is it just that the brand
likes to quickly identify the fault let the driver and the user know what it is
and then you could take care of it so you can be on your motoring way and
enjoy the car in its perfect running state that is a big part of why BMW does
that it's very complex systems on board and of course when something small fails
are slightly out of sync it will give you a code that does seem like an
unreliability issue but that being said generally speaking it appears that BMWs
are getting better and better as time goes on they're recognizing some of
these issues and they're making the cars better so generally as a rule seem to
have less and less problems which is kind of ironic being that there's more
complexities as cars move on there's more safety features there's more
mechanical technology in place for example like turbo charging now where
there wasn't in a lot of the cars 15-20 years ago we didn't have that and now if
you look at more recent JD Powers and also the consumers reports you'll notice
BMWs are coming up in in ranking they're getting better and better
in recent years than they were say 10 12 years ago going through the e60 era they
are getting better and they're ranked better by the customers should we
believe that consumers absolutely they're the people that have to
experience a roadside hauling when the car dies on the side of the road you've
got to call a tow truck they're the people that have direct
vested interest they're the ones you want to listen to and so those are where
these things are coming from you can look at a magazine and it'll tell you
how good the car drives a road and track a car and drive it'll tell you how good
the cars perform and drive but they don't tell you long-term issues the
long-term issues come from the JD it comes from consumer report and generally
I would say as a rule BMWs are very well constructed the doors
things are built like a vault they're well made they wear well they don't rust
very quickly and that's one thing I've noticed particularly with the BMWs I've
had other German makes I won't mention the names at this time but they actually
had premature rust set in the BMW I find typically a little bit more resistant to
rust suspicion in northern climates the doors are solid everything is solid the
driving experience is very tight and as a rule the BMW is a very very well made
car the only problem again it's some of the little electronics the modules the
relays the actuators the pumps those little things which of course add up to
a lot of money over time but those are relatively small things the core car is
very very well constructed and that's really what it boils down to and that's
not unique for BMW Audi Benz Porsche generally as a rule are very well made
so guys that's all I'm going to talk about today but hey I'm gonna throw this
out here for the next video you guys let me know I was recently in California and
I just want to share this guys I had some experience with some MacLaren's and
I just want to ask you guys if you guys want to see any of that content I kind
of had a little comparison between a mclaren 570s on berg in new york on now
i know it's kind of out of flavor for the BMW content but if for those of you
guys who are interested in seeing that if i see at least 50 references in the
comment section below that say 5 70 i will create that video and i will share
with you my mclaren experience in california from this summer so anyway
thanks everybody make sure you give it a thumbs up like turn on the notifications
and we'll talk to you real soon hope to see you then bye bye