hey guys who rules the roost for reliability is that Mercedes is a BMW
let's talk you're at the local car show and you're wondering I'm gonna go check
out some great brand new German made sedans and coupes I'm not sure you know
what I'm buying I'm looking at Audi BMW Mercedes Porsche VW checking them all
out but today I'm really kind of focused in on the BMWs and Mercedes what are you
looking at for reliability because that is in fact one of the main priorities
and of course today I'm gonna share with you guys which one between Benz and BMW
is the most reliable now I dipped into resources I've done a lot of research
and resources such as AM online and repair pal tell me a lot of what I need
to know and so a lot of these ratings are going to expose the most reliable
between Benz and Beamer so let's get rolling into this so in the first five
to six years first of all all cars are very much the same whether you're
driving a Bentley or a BMW or a Ferrari or whatever you're driving these cars
are all pretty typical in the first five years and that's no different between
Benz and BMW and Audi of course they're very comparable in terms of reliability
not Lots goes on because to be out quite frank a lot of these parts are
engineered to last for five six years but then after five years after six
years that's when the parts mortality starts to kick in
that's when what you find is a lot of the engineering lifespan of parts in a
lot of these cars like Benz and BMW are starting to expire so it's from that six
years to twelve year time frame that you're going to find where you're gonna
see a lot of the big expenses what a coincidence warranty's expired now
you're into the big repairs of course and of course you know what's what's the
magic number with the 12 years well historically 10 to 12 years is where
people start really giving it down and to be honest with you that's when they
start letting things slide you see an engine light if the car is running you
let it go nobody really cares at that point but somewhere between that
five-year and ten-year window is when people still care and they're trying to
keep the car running they're trying to extend the life span and that's
unfortunately when the engineering lifespan of a lot of these parts in
these cars start to fail now since we're talking about BMW and Benz in that five
to six year time onward the majority of the failures start happening in a BMW
BMW has historically seen a little bit more frequency of failures than Benz
does within that six year and on six to ten years timeframe BMW starts to fail
and a lot of the failures are related to suspension bushings suspension parts in
general of course cooling systems where they start to deteriorate because we all
know that there's plastic tee stats and plastic Rad's and plastic water pumps
and these parts start to crumble and start to fail and you wind up with a
leak so lots of failures starting hitting BMWs after about six years where
a band starts to see failures but it's just BMW starts to see a little bit
increased frequency now like everything generally speaking with all the
additional new electronics and technology and performance enhancements
that you see in cars today you would expect a dramatic increase in failures
but in reality most cars nowadays are getting better in terms of reliability
versus the technology levels that are actually in the cars
they learn from their mistakes but you know historically there have been a lot
of really bad engineering mistakes and designs that have left to premature
failures for example in the benz world leaky and loose power steering systems
that allowed the car to sort of wander and sway even though you're driving down
the road it's hard to keep a straight line vacuum door actuators that fail
either locking the passenger in or locking the person out from getting
inside the car doesn't release single roll and if you can believe it single
row timing chain installations all for the sake of saving money single row
timing chains that were historically known to fail in certain entry level
engines and as well a more recent issue with sudden acceleration to the point
where it's out of control and the car almost gets away from the driver
creating a very hazardous experience that's another one with a Benz all
examples in mercy these were some bad engineering took
over then we talk about BMW bad designs historically the s65 SAT five engines
with the extremely tight rod bearing tolerances that led to premature rod
bearing failures failing cooling systems because all the parts made of plastic
eventually led to them crumbling and failing and leaking possibly resulting
even further in overheated engines and warped heads because of aluminum heads
and certain bad designs like the n47 the turbo diesel inline four-cylinder engine
that BMW created that had timing chain failures way prematurely and it would
essentially wind up with a catastrophic failure so no question
both BMW and Benz have historically had problem areas issues poor design
engineering problems as well as quality control in general so fortunately
there's a lot of people out there and a lot of resources and I like to use a
resource called repair pal which is sort of an independent group that likes to
collect statistics and share them with the public for the sake of transparency
and sharing knowledge and wisdom with the public like you guys to help you
make wise decisions on cars now repair pal digs in traditionally from cars from
about 2010 to 2017 so it gives you a pretty good idea of relatively late
model cars and the failures that you see and what's the rate of repair for these
vehicles so we'll dig into the repair pal statistics and we'll compare BMW to
Mercedes now not only will we share you the statistics such as rate of failures
the cost of failures the average ownership costs per year as well as the
overall frequency and the ultimate rating of each vehicle we'll share all
that information with you for each vehicle but we're also going to
summarize at the end how good and how bad these two different vehicle brands
really are so of these statistics they compare the national average for the
average vehicle now the BMW for example on the average cost you annually about
1081 dollars us one outage for you know combining all the different vehicle
types models you're essentially looking at about a thousand eighty one dollars
per year of ownership costs for your average BMW between 2010 and 2017
compare that with 631 dollars for the average vehicle the average
consumer lightweight vehicle that you would buy today so as you can see it's
virtually double what a normal vehicle a typical vehicle might cost now in terms
of the frequency so BMW is ranked at 1.4 times per year for an unexpected
unscheduled failure versus the national average and vehicle industry average of
0.4 times per year so less than half so every other vehicle in industry would
have one unscheduled failure during the year whereas BMW is one and a half so
there's substantially higher failure rate with BMWs and then we talk about
the severity or how major those repairs are and of the BMW significance in terms
of repairs 14% are considered major failures in the BMW world while 11% is
the industry standard so again not dramatically different although you know
large costs associate with BMW repairs are higher than most vehicles so as a
result the BMWs as a summary from 2010 to 2017 rated by repair pal an
independent group not associated with any particular brand rates the average
BMW at 2 out of 5 which puts them below average in terms of overall reliability
and cost of maintenance however if you want to buy a BMW but you want to focus
on something reliable there are a handful of cars that are recommended 328
the 128 the z4 528 and the x1 and with the x1 I would say stay away from the 35
series stick with the 28 series again you see the theme those are the more
reliable versions of those vehicles so then we'll talk about the Mercedes
statistics based on repair pal and the average Mercedes costs per year is one
thousand one hundred and fifty eight dollars us three year for maintenance
and more or less servicing costs per year again versus the six hundred thirty
one dollar industry average and versus the thousand eighty one for BMW now
you'll see that's interesting because the Mercedes on average is a little bit
more than the average BMW overall for a particular year for
servicing but that's not the only indicator here so let's talk more about
this and why those aren't the only indicators is because only one point
zero unexpected visits to the shop buy a Mercedes owner is the current rating
versus the one point four four BMW and the zero point four four industry
standard so you'll notice even though the costs
per visit might be a little bit higher with a Benz you're visiting the dealer
less often so which essentially makes that more reliable less unexpected
breakdowns and then the other rating of course being the severity or how major
that failure is well the Mercedes has a rating of about twelve percent of their
failures are of significant or major failure rates and of course while again
BMW at fourteen percent an industry standard being around eleven percent
you'll notice Mercedes is very close to the average so they're actually a higher
rating in terms of overall reliability and how robust they are so in the final
rating for Mercedes is actually a three out of five based on yourself which puts
it at average which happens to be better significantly better than BMW for
reliability and overall durability now you want to understand where some of the
more reliable Mercedes cars can be found how about a c 300 C 350 a C 250 glk350
as well as the III 50 you'll notice the 350 series again a consistent theme
there's certain drive trains in the Mercedes world that are consistently
more reliable just as there are in the BMW world at 28 I here we've got the 350
s in the Benz so at the end of the day as a summary both these cars are very
well built and both manufacturers take great pride and great strides to improve
their cars reliability over the years and the generations they also both take
great pride in new technology being the latest and the greatest in terms of
introducing new things to the industry they're both great vehicles to drive in
general Benz and BMW a lot of great options on both sides of the fence that
being said if you're looking for Strictly durability or reliability
Mercedes currently owns the they're wearing the crown for most
reliable German car and that includes the Audi's which we featured before
because the BMWs are slightly better than outie
but Benz is better than BMW in terms of overall reliability in the last 10 years
so thanks again everybody and as always make sure you guys don't forget to
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thumbs up like and I'd love to hear in the comment section below what you guys
have to think do you agree with it do you not agree with what I've been
talking about today so thanks again everybody I'd love to see you on the
next one hope to see you soon bye bye