I have a 750 and have had no problems. I have read horror stories about 740s. It really does not matter- you can find lemons in any car line.
Few cars are truly all horrid (although there are some- I used to have a Fiat X19). Lemons are everywhere.

i also have a 1998 750. i've also been to the dealership a number of times, but frankly, i find the positives of this car outweigh the negatives by a long shot. i too have a dealer (global imports -- atlanta) that doesn't seem to give a crap, but i truly enjoy my automobile (37k miles now).

every morning, i get up, get ready for work, and thoroughly enjoy driving my car 42 miles each way to work. at first i worried about how many miles i was putting on it, but i bought this car to drive. and again, i thoroughly enjoy that experience. i *hope* BMW will clean up their act. in the meantime, my 750 & i are bonding... big time.

mark

Welcome to the club! I had a similar experience with my 750IL and recently traded it after 7 months for a newer 740IL. In 7 months it was in the shop 7 times for an average of 4 days each time. Time and money (even though I had the extended warranty) were a consideration. I was scheduling my life around this car and never knew when it would bite me in the ass again. My wife was fed up and when she suggested I get rid of it I jumped at the chance to upgrade to a newer one. She even thought it was her idea...a real win win and an expensive lesson in this car!
I got my 1998 750 in April of 01 with 27K miles on it. Since then it has spent a total of 14 days in the shop. From the PDC system giving false readings, rough idle and hesitation. To the computer system locking up, the stereo not always coming on or no response from the controls. The list gets quite long. (19 issues in total!)

To add insult to injury, the service from Ralph Schomp BMW in Denver, Colorado is terrible. They replaced the door brakes in both doors and broke the wood trim and the door panels are loose and making noise and they had the nerve to return it to me in this condition. I can't understand the service. These are expensive machines and there are few of these cars sold each year. One would think that the service would be top notch.

This is not what I expect from a vehical billed to be the "ultimate driving machine". So far it has been the "Ultimate repairing machine".

I'm at my wits end with reliablity and poor service BMW has to offer. I'm considering trading the car back in at another dealer(MB) and taking a huge loss. Time is money, and I can't continue to run this car back and forth to the shop every other week.

Thanks for reading my rant...

JR