Quote Originally Posted by Big H View Post
Have BMW no confidence in their engineering or are they just not interested in building cars with longevity any more ? Are they only interested in shifting cars with PCP and once that's up, you're on your own ?
I'm not sure that BMW marketing ever really had much concern for the second and subsequent owners, but in the past they made cars with a level of quality that despite this still had lots to offer to the second hand buyer in terms of quality and reassurance of solidity, etc. Residuals also reflected this. Long term BMW quality has gone downhill over the past decade or so, but by coincidence they also increased their production output by over 70% between 2005 and 2015 and residual %'s (not absolute £'s) are now there, or thereabouts, with Ford Focus and Mondeo at 3-4 years old in the UK. Your quality systems need to be fairly robust to handle that kind of growth without a compromise in the end product.

I've been putting the replacement of Mrs D's touring on the long finger for a while, but its probably 90% certain that it won't be a BMW. I'm not sure that a low-ish end 3 series really warrants a premium over other quality alternatives these days, either in terms of driver experience or quality. I honestly never thought I'd say that. She loves the car but from my perspective it has been far more niggly than it should have been, given its fairly easy life. The meaningless niches that BMW seem to find it hard to resist filling means a sprawling range with much less depth.

The prevalence of n4x engines and cars that have had significant fundamental problems, timing chains, injectors, leaking like sieves, cracking floorpans, etc. means relatively little real choice anymore - approx. 94% of BMW 5's from new back to 2010 on Carzone are 2.0d's, and within that I'd guess that 99% are 520d's. There's nothing wrong with a 520d as a car (if you discount the chocolate timing chains, etc.) but its not a car you'll buy to stand out from the crowd in. Aside from the timing chains, done under BMW goodwill, my last f10 520d (3-4 years old) cost more in wear and tear and unscheduled maintenance over a 14k mile interval than the 12 year old e39 I ran over a fairly similar timeframe and mileage immediately before it and the 10 year old e60 that I've run for more than twice the miles since.

If this all sounds a little rambling and disillusioned, then so be it......