Reliability of German marques

[Concept24]

I'm here to buy an Emira but the Supra is more than competent competitor for a little over half the price.

Dealer network, dealer support, warranty, faster, more power, more torque, huge aftermarket, and they've somehow managed to turn the usual rubbery and vague BMW manual into a precise and communicative shifting experience.

It's a whole lot uglier though.

And hey, it also has a bulletproof Toyota drivetrain, correct? I've seen too many horror stories about people who by no-warranty BMWs, Mercedes, and VW vehicles. I keep my cars for at least 10 years, usually more, so German cars are out of the question.

 

[kitkat]

And hey, it also has a bulletproof Toyota drivetrain, correct?

LOL, I feel like the B58 is in more cars than the 2GR-FE was in at this point.

 

[Concept24]

LOL, I feel like the B58 is in more cars than the 2GR-FE was in at this point.

I agree that if you are the type of person who buys a new vehicle every 5 years or so, the vehicle reliability is not a big concern, but I really don't trust BMWs for long-term ownership.

 

[Porter]

I agree that if you are the type of person who buys a new vehicle every 5 years or so, the vehicle reliability is not a big concern, but I really don't trust BMWs for long-term ownership.

Guys it isn't the E36 days anymore. I'm 8 years in on a 328i xDrive right now and have yet to have a single failure other than needing a thermostat once. Call it an outlier if you want to, but honestly I just think a shitload of BMW owners don't maintain their vehicles competently.

 

[kitkat]

I agree that if you are the type of person who buys a new vehicle every 5 years or so, the vehicle reliability is not a big concern, but I really don't trust BMWs for long-term ownership.

It's not like the 2GR-FE in the Evora and the Emira didn't have any growing pains though, it took almost a decade for Toyota to work out the major issues and there are still a couple outstanding minor ones.

Covered in https://www.emiraforum.com/threads/2gr-fe-on-car-care-nut.2335/

If you're looking for a long term reliability and ownership in Lotus in a brand new platform minus the drivetrain, Lotus doesn't exactly have a strong track-record here.

 

[Cachaco131]

I agree that if you are the type of person who buys a new vehicle every 5 years or so, the vehicle reliability is not a big concern, but I really don't trust BMWs for long-term ownership.

i have had 6. No issues at all. My 2003.5 e46 m3 has been bullet proof.

 

[Concept24]

Guys it isn't the E36 days anymore. I'm 8 years in on a 328i xDrive right now and have yet to have a single failure other than needing a thermostat once. Called an outlier if you want to, but honestly I just think a shitload of BMW owners don't maintain their vehicles competently.

I rented a 2015 BMW i8 in 2019 or 2020. By the end of a day of driving it, the HUD was dim and fading fast. The fuel tank door unlock was not working, and a check engine light was on. That was a 4-5 year old car. BMWs do perform well, but if you watch any Car Wizard videos, you'll see that that mechanic does not want to work on BMWs, Mercedes, and Audis. I just saw a video of an 2012 Audi Q5 that has a broken (chipped?) valve at 130,000 miles. The Wizard warns people not to buy used German cars, yet many do not listen.

 

[Cachaco131]

I rented a 2015 BMW i8 in 2019 or 2020. By the end of a day of driving it, the HUD was dim and fading fast. The fuel tank door unlock was not working, and a check engine light was on. That was a 4-5 year old car. BMWs do perform well, but if you watch any Car Wizard videos, you'll see that that mechanic does not want to work on BMWs, Mercedes, and Audis. I just saw a video of an 2012 Audi Q5 that has a broken (chipped?) valve at 130,000 miles. The Wizard warns people not to buy used German cars, yet many do not listen.

Or maybe buyers need to do their diligence more thoroughly...

 

[Concept24]

Actually, once the Audi in question had close to 100,000 miles on it, the Wizard suggested to the owner that she sell it. She didn't and after the broken valve was discovered, she was given $2500 for it by an acquaintance of Wizard. The scrap yard owner would've given her $400 for it.

 

[Porter]

I rented a 2015 BMW i8 in 2019 or 2020. By the end of a day of driving it, the HUD was dim and fading fast. The fuel tank door unlock was not working, and a check engine light was on. That was a 4-5 year old car. BMWs do perform well, but if you watch any Car Wizard videos, you'll see that that mechanic does not want to work on BMWs, Mercedes, and Audis. I just saw a video of an 2012 Audi Q5 that has a broken (chipped?) valve at 130,000 miles. The Wizard warns people not to buy used German cars, yet many do not listen.

I'm pretty sure a totally weirdo exotic one-off electric sports car the BMW came out with almost a decade ahead of trend doesn't qualify as a normal example of a brand's reliability experience, and certainly not one that is rented on Turo. Let's be reasonable.

I mean I rented a pretty well equipped nearly new A4 a few years back on Turo and it drove like a rattletrap, clunks and bangs over pavement and there was loose trim in the interior.

I have a friend who has the same car (A4), same model year I believe and it's a really well equipped, solid little exec sedan with no roughness or noise when driving at all. I was shocked at the difference in condition and driving experience, and it was literally down to rental abuse.

 

[Concept24]

Consumer Reports has always ranked many BMW models with high numbers for road tests. This year, they rated highly, overall. However, BMW's reliability rankings have historically been below average or average at best. Here is a reliability ranking list from December of 2021. Note where BMW and the other German manufacturers place

.

 

[Porter]

@Concept24

I just watched the Car Wizard video that you mentioned. Wow, a lot to unpack there. First, I need to disclose that I've seen a lot of this guy's videos. I take real issue with the guy on some key things in a lot of his videos. He seems to be an almost entirely self-taught mechanic with no significant structured training background for the work that he's doing, either in a manufacturer training program or in any general purpose academic automotive or engineering discipline. I get that he's ex-military and was trained to work on tanks in the military. That's not in ANY way related to the knowledge or context that you need in order to hold yourself out as a "master mechanic" (or even to work competently) on commercially sold automobiles. There's a reason why heavy diesel mechanics focus on that and don't try to fix Subaru Outbacks. There's a reason why Honda mechanics don't just assume that they know everything they need to know to fix a piece of heavy diesel equipment like a Cat D9 bulldozer, even if they can look at the problem and understand what's broken.

Look, I'm not saying he's wrong to be working in the trade, far from it... but he's very obviously leaning on his innate intelligence and ability to make inferences about what "seems right" contextually, rather than operating on any directly acquired knowledge from primary sources. And that's fine when you're just trying to get things done for a few customers and not broadcasting to the world. But this guy is running a YouTube channel and holding himself out as a serious expert (literally the "Car Wizard") and he's just not that.

In the case of the specific video that you mention... this guy's customer is junking a nice Audi luxury crossover in very good condition because it has an engine problem. Literally sending the whole car to the junkyard. I just spent 5 minutes on Car-Part and have a list of sub-40k mile used 2.0T engines out of Q5s for between $3500 and $4500 that can be sourced regionally or delivered nationwide on an LTL pallet for a couple hundred bucks in freight. The amount of time a competent mechanic would take to swap an Audi engine (whole engine) is literally like 4 or 5 hours of labor at most. The whole thing yanks out pretty quickly if you aren't screwing around taking half of it apart for no reason, like he's describing in the "work needed" part of his spiel to the customer. I mean jesus, he literally walked the audience through how he could give her $2500 for the car, fix the whole thing back to running order, then have his buddy sell the car post-repair and have a profit to make everyone whole with... I mean why wouldn't that be the customer's best option under her own ownership, if she didn't want the car? Restore the asset to saleable condition and sell it if she doesn't want it, don't gift it to a junkyard/recycler for $500. That's absurd, the yard is going to make somewhere around $10k in profit over time on the stripped parts.

This stuff just breaks my head. It's certainly not an example of Audis being terrible, it's an example of bad mechanic advice and bad math, used together to construct an absurd scenario for the benefit of YouTube comment section angst. It's just slow-roll clickbait. Stop encouraging this guy.

 

[Porter]

Consumer Reports has always ranked many BMW models with high numbers for road tests. This year, they rated highly, overall. However, BMW's reliability rankings have historically been below average or average at best. Here is a reliability ranking list from December of 2021. Note where BMW and the other German manufacturers placeView attachment 23864.

You know that these are based on survey responses, right? They have nothing to do with actual reliability or incidence of failure, they're like a weird litmus test on "vibes" for certain classes of customers about their feelings compared against their expectations. I mean look at the movement charts... Mini jumped up 13 places on the ranking in a single year, but didn't make any model changes in their line. Ram dropped 12 places in a single year, again without any significant model changes in their line. There's a ton of garbage data used as inputs to this thing, and CR is famous for it.

 

[Concept24]

I've watched quite a few of his videos and he DOES have quite a bit of experience working on all kinds of vehicles. Have you heard of Hoovies garage? Hoovie would take his old exotics to the car wizard. The car wizard would at times send the BMWs over to
another shop because of the costs to repair them.
But let's look at the Audi scenario. If I had a well-maintained vehicle that broke a valve at that mileage, I would not even think about getting an engine with more than 80,000 miles on it to replace the one in my car unless I were going to trade it in. I couldn't in good conscience sell it to a local buyer unless that person were a mechanic. As a Lexus moderator, I can tell you that many Lexus owners have 200,000 miles or more on their vehicles without ever having a valve break. When people ask the wizard what type of used vehicle they should buy, he rarely tells them to buy a German vehicle.

 

[Concept24]

You know that these are based on survey responses, right? They have nothing to do with actual reliability or incidence of failure, they're like a weird litmus test on "vibes" for certain classes of customers about their feelings compared against their expectations. I mean look at the movement charts... Mini jumped up 13 places on the ranking in a single year, but didn't make any model changes in their line. Ram dropped 12 places in a single year, again without any significant model changes in their line. There's a ton of garbage data used as inputs to this thing, and CR is famous for it.

CR gets tens of thousands of survey results that are very specific about the failure areas. I've been subscribing to their magazine for more than 30 years and at the same time, have monitored forums for vehicles I have purchased. The customer base is not comprised of young generation fan-boys who fake their review answers to trash vehicles they do not like. You appear to assume that there is no legitimate reason for rankings to change significantly. I regularly see trends of reliability ratings such that new models do poorly and then gradually get better, only to repeat the trend when a new model is released. This is much more common with German and Americal manufacturers.
Until you dig more into how CR operates, you will likely continue to assume that they are a bunch of media hounds. They accept no advertisements from any company and are not biased.

 

[Porter]

I've watched quite a few of his videos and he DOES have quite a bit of experience working on all kinds of vehicles. Have you heard of Hoovies garage? Hoovie would take his old exotics to the car wizard. The car wizard would at times send the BMWs over to
another shop because of the costs to repair them.
But let's look at the Audi scenario. If I had a well-maintained vehicle that broke a valve at that mileage, I would not even think about getting an engine with more than 80,000 miles on it to replace the one in my car unless I were going to trade it in. I couldn't in good conscience sell it to a local buyer unless that person were a mechanic. As a Lexus moderator, I can tell you that many Lexus owners have 200,000 miles or more on their vehicles without ever having a valve break. When people ask the wizard what type of used vehicle they should buy, he rarely tells them to buy a German vehicle.

Yes, I know who Tyler Hoover is. And no, I don't consider him an expert or an authority either. He's literally just a dude who sold cars in a dealership context once, who started doing some columns for Jalopnik and then started doing weird partial restorations of oddball cars on a YouTube channel. He's not a person with hard technical skills in this area, and I think he's pretty clear with people on his YT channel that he shouldn't be regarded as one.

To your comments... I wouldn't put a used 80k+ mile engine in a car that I owned either, nor would I suggest it to anyone. I literally suggested sub-40k mile options for a reason.

"The Wizard" isn't a car wizard. He isn't even a purveyor of particularly good advice. He probably runs a pretty good D&D game, but I doubt he's charging $150 an hour for that.

 

[Porter]

You've been subscribing to Consumer Reports for over 30 years? I mean, I've been watching what they do for 30 years, but I wouldn't give them my money for it. It's unscientific, subscriber-surveyed junk data.

But hey. I guess confirmation bias will rule no matter what new information may present itself. By all means, go buy whatever their survey responses say is "good" and enjoy yourself.

You'll notice that Lotus is not on their list. Which probably means it's not a thing that people should own. I guess that leaves you in a bit of a pickle.

 

[Concept24]

Yes, I know who Tyler Hoover is. And no, I don't consider him an expert or an authority either. He's literally just a dude who sold cars in a dealership context once, who started doing some columns for Jalopnik and then started doing weird partial restorations of oddball cars on a YouTube channel. He's not a person with hard technical skills in this area, and I think he's pretty clear with people on his YT channel that he shouldn't be regarded as one.

To your comments... I wouldn't put a used 80k+ mile engine in a car that I owned either, nor would I suggest it to anyone. I literally suggested sub-40k mile options for a reason.

"The Wizard" isn't a car wizard. He isn't even a purveyor of particularly good advice. He probably runs a pretty good D&D game, but I doubt he's charging $150 an hour for that.

I wasn't saying that Hoovie is an automotive expert. Rather, he has brought quite a few old exotics to the wizard who explains in laymen's terms what he had to do the fix the issue.
An regarding the Audi, why would you get another engine when the mechanic is advising you to sell the vehicle? You'd be keeping a never-ending money pit. I've had cars like that (2002 Corvette). It's okay if the car is a weekend vehicle but if you rely on it, just don't get a German brand.

 

[Porter]

I wasn't saying that Hoovie is an automotive expert. Rather, he has brought quite a few old exotics to the wizard who explains in laymen's terms what he had to do the fix the issue.
An regarding the Audi, why would you get another engine when the mechanic is advising you to sell the vehicle? You'd be keeping a never-ending money pit. I've had cars like that (2002 Corvette). It's okay if the car is a weekend vehicle but if you rely on it, just don't get a German brand.

I suppose you're a big fan of Scotty Kilmer, too. German brands will ruin your life! Hide your kids so the car doesn't eat them!

And if I had $15k or $20k invested in an Audi that was in perfect cosmetic and mechanical condition other than an engine failure, you bet your ass I'd repair the car for $5k. I certainly wouldn't convert my $15k asset into a $500 junkyard donation just because I was too impatient and pigheaded to repair the car. That's literally vaporizing ten thousand dollars of value for no reason. I mean what intelligent person would do that, unless $10k literally meant nothing to them? It's not even reasonable.

 

[Concept24]

You've been subscribing to Consumer Reports for over 30 years?

Well then. I guess confirmation bias will rule no matter what new information may present itself. By all means, go buy whatever their survey responses say is "good" and enjoy yourself.

You'll notice that Lotus is not on their list. Which probably means it's not a thing that people should own. I guess that leaves you in a bit of a pickle.

You'll notice that there are a few brands not on the list. They explain why in the magazine. There needs to be sufficient data in order to make a legitimate ranking. Alfa Romeo and Aston Martin are two.
I've been subscribing to Car & Driver for even longer. Their "Lightning Lap" at VIR is very revealing to those who wish to track their cars. Do I agree with everything they say? Of course not, but they do try to be consistent when ranking vehicles.