There was a bit of a rant that Tavares did on Jalopnik about how unreliable BMW
drive trains really can be, and while there's some truth to that, there's
always a flip side to the coin. In my mind, there's always a price to pay for
some of that performance and now it's sort of like marrying a supermodel.
Not every day is reliable and blissful, sometimes it's unpredictable, sometimes
it throws you off, but often it is an experience nonetheless, and there's risks
as well as rewards in being married to a supermodel. Not unlike the commitment
that you have when you purchase an M car, or any other BMW for that matter. Let's
walk down that list of the top five. Number one is the car right behind me. It's
the BMW E60 M5 equipped with the S85 motor. Now if it was just an engine
problem, then we could probably chalk that up and kind of keep on moving, but
the reality is the E60 M5 has other issues related to it as well. Let's walk
through some of those issues. Some of them being of course the actual engine
itself the S85 v10 motor eats and has a severe appetite and devours rod
bearings from at least you know 60, 70, 80 thousand miles. It is just sort of that
warning zone. You want to take care of that idle actuators, throttle actuators,
SMG pumps differentials, and the lot. A lot of different issues you can find
yourself with an E60 M5 and unfortunately it is not short of
problems and this always makes a top list for one of the most unreliable BMWs
of all time. The second one on my list is another fan favorite and it's the n54
engine often found in cars like the 335, the 535, likely the 135, any of those 35
series in the mid 2000s were equipped with the n54 motor before they went into
a single turbo. This n54 was the dual turbo system. There was a multitude of
problems: coolant leaks, boost leaks, fuel leaks from the injectors, high pressure
pumps gone, turbo chargers went, waste gates, leaks from the valve cover, gaskets,
vanos problems, this car was plagued with issues. That doesn't change the fact that
it's still a relatively good performance bargain in the BMW world today,
hence the car is still very popular in a lot of the tuner circles. The third one
on my list happens to be the E92 M3. Now while there's a lot of forums where
people really love the cars and find minimal issues, or minimal issues that
they care to report on, the fact of the matter is that car was very, very closely
based on the S85 v10 motor that you would find in the e60 m5, and the problem
with that car is obviously as I mentioned before, actuator issues, vanos
problem,s and more specifically we had the rod bearing problems. The rod bearing
issues were exactly the same in the m3 as they were in the m5. So that problem
was consistent through and through. It again it doesn't change the fact that
this is arguably one of the best drivers cars that BMW has ever produced, and I
understand why people really love them and defend them in a lot of ways, but the
reality is they are not short of their own problems. The fourth thing is the
E46 M3 that happens to be the early 2000 models. That's the 3.2 litre straight-six
engine, high-revving motor that was equipped in the m3 before they switched
to the illustrious v8. It is a great car to drive and has a lot of great
attributes, but there were problems there too. Like Vanos issues, we had a lot of
electrical issue,s like Sun roof problems that were coming off the rails, you had
window problem,s HVAC control problems, and some of the big ones of cours,e rod
bearings again as well consistent with a lot of the M cars, but a big one
is the subframe issues that you had to get reinforced because the car
essentially started to fall apart. And topping on my list of the top five
most unreliable BMWs happens to go with the E70 35 dx5. That has a multitude
of issues from turbochargers, EGR valves, DPF filters plugging off, you also have
if you operate the car in very cold temperatures, you can experience a high
reductant pressure issue, where your DEF fluid can actually freeze up and cause
you problems, spitting out codes and the like. This car also has rear airbag
problems, those are almost always typical issues that you'll find that they'll
start losing air, and the car starts to sag in the rear end. It also has the
dynamic Stability control systems on the front end that start to leak, start to
fail slowly, become a problem as well, the core engine is good, the core
transmission is good, but it's all the other little ancillaries around that car that
create a multitude of issues. And so in summary, that caps off the top 5. You have
to ask yourself the question. Do you want a high-performing car that is designed
to run at 95 percent of its design tolerances, runs hard, runs strong,
and it is extremely fun to drive? But the trade-off is there are reliability issues.
There are great parts that go into these cars, but they cost a lot of money, and of
course these cars aren't lacking on breakdown issues, or the other side
of the coin is, you buy a car like a Toyota Corolla. It will never let you
down, the problem is you slowly, slowly wean away the horsepower over years. The
car starts to leave billowing smoke from the exhaust, killing insects in its wake
and you basically essentially have a car that drops 40% of its horsepower before
it finally decides to give up the ghost. I don't know about you, but I still think
the BMWs were you know, at least if the car is running, that it's running really
well. So I hope that helps everybody, top five cars in the BMW world with some of
the most significant reliability issues. Thanks again everybody. I hope you
enjoyed the video. We'll talk to you real soon. Bye bye.