My last BMW vehicle

[fmdualexhaust]

Steve
Any time you want to test drive a Miata, stop by.
I think you would find it a tight fit.
Don't know about the newer versions.
I have a Gen 1.

 

[PoorUB]

This reminds me of a statement I had heard about the Japanese Car Invasion-

“If the Japanese cars hadn’t started arriving in the United States, we would still be driving rattle-trap ****-boxes with a thirty-thousand mile lifespan”. Or something like that.

And, from Frank Zappa- “All that we have here is American made. It’s a little bit cheesy but nicely displayed”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXH5Wy_8BbY

OM

I understand the idea, but American cars were always improving on there own. Was a Model A Ford better than the Model T? Certainly! 60's cars were better than 50's cars, and they were better than 40's cars.

Perhaps the Japanese invasion helped speed things up, but I think it would have happened anyway. Plus other technologies were rising at the same time that helped improve automobile quality. If the microchip had never been invented we would still be using breaker points and carburetors.

 

[PoorUB]

Not really a fair comparison-
Seems like you were not aware of any alignment problems, so-
Your mechanic has the car and seen the problem first hand.
The BMW dealership was answering a phone quote.
Until a dealership or service provider, be it carpenter, excavations contractor or house painter, actually see what the job/repair actually is, a real quote can’t accurately be given.
This phenomenon of non-accurate comparisons has become the “Way of the New World”.

OM

I have a friend with a newer Jeep. She had tires put on last year at the dealer. The rears wore out on the inside edge, both tires in just a few thousand miles. The Jeep had about 80K miles on it. She took it to the dealer and they told her the rear suspension was shot and needed about $5K in repairs. I talked to her and told her to take it to a tire and alignment shop. They looked it over, claimed it needed an enlightenment and tires for something like $1,000. She even told them she had another shop tell her how bad it was so she wanted to be certain, nope, no problems.

 

[motodan]

I have a friend with a newer Jeep. She had tires put on last year at the dealer. The rears wore out on the inside edge, both tires in just a few thousand miles. The Jeep had about 80K miles on it. She took it to the dealer and they told her the rear suspension was shot and needed about $5K in repairs. I talked to her and told her to take it to a tire and alignment shop. They looked it over, claimed it needed an enlightenment and tires for something like $1,000. She even told them she had another shop tell her how bad it was so she wanted to be certain, nope, no problems.

“Enlightenment”? I have never had that done to any vehicle, unless you count each time people and cargo are removed. LOL!

 

[Omega Man]

I have a friend with a newer Jeep. She had tires put on last year at the dealer. The rears wore out on the inside edge, both tires in just a few thousand miles. The Jeep had about 80K miles on it. She took it to the dealer and they told her the rear suspension was shot and needed about $5K in repairs. I talked to her and told her to take it to a tire and alignment shop. They looked it over, claimed it needed an enlightenment and tires for something like $1,000. She even told them she had another shop tell her how bad it was so she wanted to be certain, nope, no problems.

Could be something with Jeep Dealers.
I had someone mention to me that it would be $700.00 or so to fix the blower motor in the dash, at the dealership. I recommended the $23.00 part and told them that they could fix it themselves……in about 20 minutes.
OM

 

[pauls1150]

Alignment results in enlightenment!
As in, not only is "The Dealer" guaranteed to be THE most expensive repair shop, but they WILL try to screw you. You are Not alone here!

 

[pglaves]

The last "shop rates" I saw at a car dealership were $180/hour. And at an independent two-man shop, $135/hour.

 

[brownie0486]

The last "shop rates" I saw at a car dealership were $180/hour. And at an independent two-man shop, $135/hour.

My bmw mechanic [ a 6 man independent shop ] charges me 125.00 an hour. But I think I get a little better rate than others there because I've had no one work on the motors but him for years.

 

[stevenrankin]

Let me be clear

Let me be clear, I love airhead BMW bikes! They are nearly perfect as far as I see. So, I don't hate BMW.

I hate and loathe what BMW has become. Just took some flak in another post and want to clear this up. Love BMW if you want fine, unless the company changes its direction I cannot, will never tout the greatness of current BMW products. St.

 

[globalrider]

Let me be clear, I love airhead BMW bikes! They are nearly perfect as far as I see. So, I don't hate BMW.

I hate and loathe what BMW has become.

I know. I can have the rotor and stator out of my airhead in 10 minutes. Try that on my 2016 R1200 GS Adventure.

Sometimes I wonder what goes through the minds of engineers that were never out of their cubicle in the office.

 

[globalrider]

I wrote my final paper in grad school on Dr. W. Edwards Deming. The man was a genius.

Sadly, nobody or a very few in the US thought so.

I remember installing a factory AC system in my Toyota. And when you do, you realize how well thought-out everything is. No cursing, no nothing. I also remember working on the brakes of a Pontiac and other cars (of friends of mine) from the Big Three. all I could do is roll my eyes. Little wonder they are always playing catch up.

 

[stevenrankin]

True lovers

Sometime in at least BMW Motoradd's history they must have built a great product. I can write this because I see the huge number of people like me who spent a bit more for a bike when new, and in some cases like mine still have the new bike OR at least one or more airheads in the garage.

We have two major clubs Vintage and Airheads dedicated to this era of BMW bikes and while number of members may be shrinking there are a lot still around. Not only have we got a lot of airhead bikes still on the road but small companies have brought back into production parts that were NLA. Some companies have been started making improved systems for the airheads in charging and ignition.

Would a crap bike have such a following! NO! So yeah, I don't hate BMW as far as what I ride. I love BMW for the fact they still have a ton of parts on the shelves for my old bikes. But sadly, in my eyes, they are no longer a company I would buy any bike newer than 1995 airhead.


Oh my car I complained about, I will keep it, it rides nice has performance, good gas mileage, fun to drive but ha, I am so disappointed to have put so much money into it versus a plain Jane Japanese car before it even reached high miles. I mean come on, the cheapest domestic cars now can reach over 100,000 miles without spending a ton of money on major parts breaking.

OH, I am repeating myself. St.

 

[stevenrankin]

News

https://www.rochesterfirst.com/news...mers-dont-want-bizarre-new-car-subscriptions/

Yeah, sure. St.

 

[Visian]

I wrote my final paper in grad school on Dr. W. Edwards Deming. The man was a genius.

My ad agency clients were all technical and mostly mechanical engineers. I used to apply Dr. Demings principles to the process of creating and closing sales. The engineers all used to get wood when they heard my sales pitch!

 

[Visian]

Sadly, nobody or a very few in the US thought so.

I remember installing a factory AC system in my Toyota. And when you do, you realize how well thought-out everything is. No cursing, no nothing. I also remember working on the brakes of a Pontiac and other cars (of friends of mine) from the Big Three. all I could do is roll my eyes. Little wonder they are always playing catch up.

This was the beauty of 3D CAE software (many of my clients). You could visualize how systems were built, installed, and serviced all without actually making a prototype. This is how the Japanese shortened their product cycles and beat us to market with new features in cars that buyers preferred.

Product design is one of the areas that marketing influences the most and people do not realize this.

 

[Visian]

Sometime in at least BMW Motoradd's history they must have built a great product.

The difference between the BMW, motorcycles of yesterday versus today is that the older bikes were the products of 50 years of iterative refinement. Nowadays, it’s all about margins and show room appeal.

The showroom appeal these days comes from more horsepower more techno features, and more overall performance versus long-term reliability and lower cost of ownership.

To me, the modern motorcycles are needlessly complex for the purpose of driving higher prices and higher profit margins.

 

[brownie0486]

Dumb me, I was fooled by the reliability of my current and past airhead BMW bikes into thinking I covered all BMW products. What a laugh, fool me once shame on me, won't be a second time. St.

1991, owned a 85 K100rs. Every year I took it to the local dealer for a thorough once over front wheel to rear and oil and fluids/filters changed. There wasn't a year I didn't spend 1K to get it ready for it's 30K+ miles a year I was putting on it. One year, it needed the steering head bearing replaced, another year a shock, but every year the bill came to or near that 1K mark.

That's $2240.00 in todays dollars. Just before this summers trip, I took the RT to my mechanic and for 36K service along with new oil in the fork tubes. Needed new rear brake pads and they changed both the tires out that I'd brought them. Cost me $1600.00 out the door for the service.

That K100 was costing quite a bit more every year than this later RT has cost me for service [ inflation adjusted ]. I don't wrench, on an older one or a newer one, but it seems this 11RT has cost me less for a full service than that 85K bike did. I could afford to own that K bike, I can afford to own the two beemers in the garage, and that's all I'm concerned with.

The K bike was utterly reliable and had 163K miles on it when I was taken out by a cager. The 16RS and the 11RT have been utterly reliable since I've owned them as well. Doesn't matter how much they cost to maintain them then or now, I don't and have never wrenched on any of the cages or motors.

 

[lkchris]

Sometime in at least BMW Motoradd's history they must have built a great product. I can write this because I see the huge number of people like me who spent a bit more for a bike when new, and in some cases like mine still have the new bike OR at least one or more airheads in the garage.

Would a crap bike have such a following! NO! So yeah, I don't hate BMW as far as what I ride. I love BMW for the fact they still have a ton of parts on the shelves for my old bikes. But sadly, in my eyes, they are no longer a company I would buy any bike newer than 1995 airhead.


Oh my car I complained about, I will keep it, it rides nice has performance, good gas mileage, fun to drive but ha, I am so disappointed to have put so much money into it versus a plain Jane Japanese car before it even reached high miles. I mean come on, the cheapest domestic cars now can reach over 100,000 miles without spending a ton of money on major parts breaking.

OH, I am repeating myself. St.

See the reality ...

Reality for the most part is that reliability of Airheads is overstated.

Who else ever built a cylinder head that would suffer from valve recession? Blame unleaded fuel all you want ... nobody else had that problem.

Then there were the "big valve" heads for R100s. These are subject to warping as there isn't enough metal left. It's the reason they went away on the last R100s and were never on USA R100GS.

During the 1970s BMW's car business was growing rapidly and it's pretty obvious in hindsight they were doing nothing much with motorcycles. GM across the board introduced electronic ignition in 1974 ... took BMW until 1981. Any vehicle that suffers ignition system failure at 10,000 mile intervals can't be called reliable.

Can you name any cars that require regular greasing of their transmission input shafts?

The miserable failures of the first K-bikes are ample evidence BMW didn't have its best engineers assigned to motorcycles.

Cars

It's always better from a business standpoint to be in the high end of the market. Higher prices equal higher margins.

BMW 3 in your era were cars designed for 4-cylinder engines, but of course 6-cylinders are so much nicer and appeal more to the American market and it was a "stuff" to get them into 3 series. Had to keep the weight down and there wasn't much room and cooling systems suffered from the engineering compromises required. Big aftermarket appeared for heavier duty items.

Cylinder head for an inline six indeed gets pretty long. Read somewhere that if you experienced, say, a water hose failure at freeway speed you had no more than 5 seconds to shut off motor to avoid cylinder head warping from overheating. 4-cylinder or V6 cylinder heads obviously more stable.

It's good to understand culture differences between USA and Germany. To an American, reliable means run it and forget it. In Germany it means without fail take it to dealer for scheduled maintenance and inspection and if you don't you'll probably be sorry. Germany is the world leader in automotive technology and mission #1 for BMW, Porsche, and Mercedes is to produce cutting edge vehicles. They are closer to being Ferraris than they are to being Camrys. You'll never see them brag about having the same V8 boat anchor engine in production for 50 years as GM has. Those BMW cylinder heads were never going to be iron. That aluminum Oldsmobile V8 in the early '60s flummoxed American mechanics and disappeared quickly ... only to be sold to Rover.

I think it's pretty accurate to suggest that owning a German vehicle with American expectations and performing American style maintenance will lead to disappointment. They certainly don't have anything at American FLAPS for your vehicle. How many Americans have you heard on this forum deny the notion there can be a special formula gear oil and that BMW could mandate it? And, yes, BMW more than any other German brand surely deserves more criticism from German savvy, engineering savvy folks. Mercedes and Porsche give them an inferiority complex and they screw up more often.

 

[stevenrankin]

Yep

It's good to understand culture differences between USA and Germany. To an American, reliable means run it and forget it. In Germany it means without fail take it to dealer for scheduled maintenance and inspection and if you don't you'll probably be sorry.

I have followed ALL the BMW maintenance recommendations. IF my car called for an input shaft grease at a service interval fine, I do what ever it takes to keep my vehicles on the road for as long as possible. I don't buy every three years.

My 335i gets babied compared to my current Mazda and the other domestic cars I have owned. They get driven when the weather is terrible, in the winter here, salt is the number one enemy. They live/lived a hard life yet, without fail, not one of the past three domestic cars I had ever had anything more go wrong than normal wear and tear. I have nearly 50K on my current Mazda and have only just replaced tires and brakes.


No, I didn't expect a Toyota, Mazda, Dodge, or Chrysler when I bought the 335, I got the performance I was looking for. Too damn bad the car is not reliable. I pay a premium price, I expect premium product. I no longer get this from BMW. St.

 

[mjfink420]

I've owned quite a few BMW (cars) and now BMW motorcycle. My experience is that, in the cars, if you're not getting the top of the line, don't bother. The "M cars" (and AMG from MB) really are special machines. No Mazda anywhere is going to compare to an M3. But a bottom of the line 3 series and a Mazda, yeah, not a ton of difference between them. I owned a 325 for a long time (bottom of the line 3 series), had all the expense and BMW headaches of an M3 without the monster performance and luxury on an M3. All the bad, not much of the good, I paid a lot of the roundel on the back.

My wife recently got an X7 M60i; and, much like the M3, comparing that car to a top of the line Mazda (CX-90) is pretty laughable. But comparing a base model X5 or even X7, yeah, they're not that far apart; the BMW is a little nicer, costs more to buy, and costs a LOT more to maintain. If you're not going for the high end/performance variant in a BMW car, in many cases, you really do wind up paying mostly for name on the back (no stones thrown, I did it myself and the prestige is valuable, but don't expect to get a lot more car for a significant increase in cost).

Now, motorcycles, that's kind of a different story. First off, BMW motorcycles don't carry near the same premium as their cars. The CX90 Mazda is ~60K loaded up. My wife's X7 was close to 120K; nearly double the cost. My S1000XR with basically every option (not the carbon/accessory catalog, just stock options) was around 24K OTD. That's all the cases + GPS, without a run through the accessories catalog, not sure you could spend much more. The only thing even like a S1000XR from a non-premium brand is a Versys 1000 (Kawasaki). Fully loaded up, you're probably 19-20K for that bike. +20% or so to go to the "premium" brand in a motorcycle vs +100% in the car.

It's a much smaller price premium in motorcycles, a 1000C superbike is a little more from BMW, but not 2X. And the "top of the line" doesn't really apply either, all 1000CC bikes are "top of the line" from all manufacturers. Even Ducati, seen by many as the "most premium" motorcycle brand, a Multistrada V4 isn't really that much more than a S1000XR similarly equipped.