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opinion or .02 cents worth(long) (archive)
[ Follow Ups ] [ 5-series (E34) Message Board ] [ Msg. Board FAQ ]
Posted by Bill S on July 09, 2000 at 20:36:28:

In Reply to: Your opininon on rel. vs. performance please... posted by Adnan on July 09, 2000 at 14:50:43:

: Hi,

: Upon bemoaning the fact that my 535 wasn't holding up as well as my Toyota, I received the following response:

: "Dearest Adam "Please" We all know how reliable Toyotas are. Have owned many Japanese cars in past but you know it really sucks flying into a corner and you cant get the car to turn. If you wanted reliability your right BMW is not the car for you. Go to another web page. As a famous Harley Davidson saying goes if you have to ask you dont understand!!!!!!!"

: This raises a couple of questions in my mind and I'd like to hear the opinions of other BMW owners.

: 1. When you bought your BMW, what were your expectations of its reliability? Am I being naive in expecting the "best car BMW has built" to be extremely reliable?

: 2. I understand that a moderately high-performance car will need more upkeep and have more complex systems that an average performer but if you pay that much more for the BMW, shouldn't you expect proportional quality and reliability? Should performance and reliability be mutually exclusive?

: 3. If any of you have owned other similar performance cars, how would you rate the E34 against those?

: 4. For those who bought your E34 brand new, how long was it before little things started to go wrong?

: 5. Incidentally, judging by the response I received, is mentioning a Japanese car a major faux pas on this board?

: I would appreciate your feedback on this.

: Many thanks,
: Adnan

Having owned British, German, French, Japanese and domestic autos, I think the german cars are the most reliable. I worked dealer and my own shop and still do as much of my own maintenance as I can. The only car that came close to the longivity of my '80 or '88 6 series BMWs was a Citroen ID19 that run over 300k miles, was wreck, sold, fixed and driven on for serveral years after.
You did not say why you think yours is unreliable. My current '93 525iT has 177K miles, I bought it at 1 year, 12K, it has had the radiator, water pump and a valve in the transmission replaced. The valve in warrentee, the others at 90K+ miles. All things I have seen fail in any number of other brands including Honda, Mercedes, and Lexas SC300. The SC300 never was rattle free, so much for Japanese quality.
Some of us just have better lucky then others I guess.

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