2006 325 warranty... what gives?

Maybe some folks have money to burn. I make a decent living and can afford nice things but I'm not independently wealthy, and I would be a lot poorer at this stage in life if I did not buy large ticket items based on total cost of ownership.

As several posters have pointed out, in the US the first 4yr/50k is covered by a bumper to bumper warranty and scheduled maintenance. You shouldn't have to spend on anything other than gas and tires. I must be one of those with bad luck because I've had several things go wrong - fuel sending units were replace twice, ignition coils had to be replaced, warped rotors needed replacing, and there were 3 or 4 bulb failures. The only thing that I paid the dealer for was an alignment because I had a steering vibration problem.

After 50k, for the original owner, BMW has started selling an extended _service_ warranty which covers scheduled maintenance including stuff like brakes and rotors. The dealer should have more information about this plan and what it will cost for the new cars. It covers the car to 6yr/100k. BMW also sells an extended warranty valid for 6yr/100k, but it's not as comprehensive as the original warranty - there is quite a long list of exclusions, e.g. stereo is not covered under this. At the time I bought the warranty, the dealer didn't have too much information on it, but I bought it anyway. BMW then sent me an information packet on this and I had 30 days to cancel and get a refund. (I'm not sure if this is because it's a California law, but I did have the option to cancel.)

As far as I'm concerned, the pleasure of driving a BMW (even when compared to Acura, Lexus, Infiniti which I test drove at the time I bought the car) far outweighs the pain. If I had to choose again, I'd still pick the BMW.

Anoop

$400 your net? Probably not (maybe). Given the correct circumstances, we can bill thousands of dollars per hour at work (with only 3 or 4 guys working). It doesn't mean I value my time at a grand per hour.

I bet you could phone a salesman at a local BMW dealership and get the goods on the phone. If you explain you're interested but don't have the time to come by, they should give you as much attention on the phone as in person.

Conversely, you can spend several minutes writing messages to this group explaining how you're very busy and how you're unhappy with the fact that BMW doesn't list their extended waranty info on their website.

BMW may encourage you to come by so that you can have someone who is familiar with their (apparently comprehensive) waranty program take you through it, answer any questions, and clarify anything you find questionable. I find that as you're willing to pay more for a product, the better and more personal the service becomes.

Regards,

Robin

As I mentioned before - call the dealer and have them mail you the warranty booklet.

Yes, I was figuring $400 as my bottom line cost.

I already stated I don't WANT the goods by phone. I want something tangible that I can hold someone accountable for. You think some verbal statement from a car salesman over the phone holds anyone accountable?

But I can do that in quick 1 or 2 minute intervals, while I am on my PC, waiting for a background task to complete. No lost work time at all. If BMW is willing to send someone to my office to present warranty information to me, and doesnt mind being put on pause every few minutes or so while I am working, then I will likely buy the damn car. But I doubt that will happen.

I find that a horribly inefficient process and an insult to their clients time. We live in a day and age where a simple FAQ on their website could answer 90% of people's questions. Human intervention should only be required in the other 10% of cases. Otherwise, it means they are paying sales or support people unnecessary wages and passing it on to us in the sales price of the car.

Quite possibly the most reasonable suggestion in this thread yet.

I went to dinner with my gf this evening and asked her to swing by the BMW dealer so I can see the 325 in person. Very nice looking car. I thought it would be a little bigger than it was, but it was nice looking nonetheless. I told her she can just get me one for my birthday and the whole reliability / money pit issue would go away for me. She didn't seem amused.

Some of the posts here with regard to reliability experiences have been encouraging. Ultimately though, I would like to see the Lexus IS before making a decision.

I know I have broken the rules by removing the rest of the post but it was getting too much.

I can't believe you are asking about warranty before sitting in/seeing/driving the car.

What happens if the nice man at BMW sends you the warranty details, and you like the terms but then go and look at the car drive it and decide you don't like it.

If your response is you have already driven it then maybe you should have asked about the warranty during the test drive.

A BMW will cost more than a Nissan! It may also cost moreto run than a Nissan!

It MAy also develop more problems than a Nissan!

BUT it will always be a better more enjoyable car to drive than a Nissan!!!

IF your decision is based purely on logic and running costs of the vehicle the nyou should buy a Toyota Prius

If like 80% of us decisions such as this are based on emotion then the BMW will always win

Then maybe you have an anger management problem. Tried prozac?

What a moronic thing to say. Sitting in, seeing and driving the car is of no value to me at all if it falls apart in 10k miles.

That's fine. It could happen. I dont understand your question here. There are a lot of other things that could get in the way of the deal happening. But I've already said that I place a huge emphasis on reliability and I don't like the fact that BMW is being elusive about their warranty information.

You're just not paying attention. I already said I am not going near the dealership until I have a copy of the warranty details.

Not necessarily. Maybe a fully equipped BMW will cost more than a fully equipped Nissan, but BMW is well known for overcharging for options. Besides I only mentioned Nissan because they put their warranty information online. Infiniti has their warranty as a downloadable PDF file as well. If you are going to start making comparisons, you should compare BMW to Infiniti.

Why? Inferior engineering? If this is the case, tell me exactly why I should buy an inferior car?

Again, use your brain for a second and draw a fair comparison here. Infiniti is Nissans direct competitor for BMW. The G5 is a formidable opponent to the 3 series.

You are once again jumping to conclusions. Did you get far in school? I never said my decision is based "purely on logic and running costs". Obviously if I am looking at BMW, I am interested in a certain amount of performance/overall driving pleasure, but anyone with intelligence is also looking for value. I myself work in engineering, and for the most part I can tell you that well engineered machinery usually does not make its warranty a secret or require you to tolerate a sales pitch to get the information.

After some of the responses I've seen here, I am beginning to think that a good 20% of BMW owners have more dollars than sense, are enamoured by the BMW brand name (possibly due to a case of arrested development left over from the 80s'), and more and more I'm thinking that Lexus, Infiniti or Acura will be a better car for someone who wants both performance and value.

"Choder" wrote

It may be of no value to *you*, but it's of value to others. If your attitude was widespread, noone would ever buy a Ferrari, for instance.

I've driven BMW's since 1978. They've been no more trouble, IMO, than any other of the cars I've owned. Less than our Isuzu Trooper, certainly less than our '91 Plymouth Voyager - crap engine, crap transmission, crap interior parts.

We now own two BMWs, 3 Toyotas and a Porsche. The Toyotas are just as expensive to have work done on them as the BMWs. But they're not nearly as fun to drive. Of course, one is a truck and they're never as much fun...

You're specifically looking at a 2006 325. My opinion is don't buy it. BMW - along with virtually every other manufacturer - has a history of teething problems with new models. The '92 E36 3 series had problems. The 1st year of the E46 did, too (although fewer.) the original X5 had problems.

The new 325i has a *brand new* engine. It's a new body. It's the first time idrive has been in a 3-series. A prescription for trouble. Wait a year, or buy something else. OTOH, you might not have any problems at all; lots of BMW drivers don't.

Floyd

Right. I dont want a Ferrari either. Not reliable enough for a primary car. This would be what I drive to work in the mornings.

Isuzus and Plymouths are crap. Not a good reliability benchmark.

This is somewhat encouraging.. but, Im not looking here at how much it cost to get work done on them. I need to factor in how OFTEN it takes as well. As I mentioned in another post, just taking time off work to get these errands done costs me bigtime.

Very insightful post from the last quote on. Im getting the same initial impression. Im a little scared of a new model, especially when its a german make. Thanks for your input.

Not quite sure how that would help?

I'd email BMW US explaining the circumstances and ask them to send a hard copy of the warranty.

That's an interesting one. When Autocar in the UK road tested one fully, they found the touring fuel consumption of the Prius far worse than the new 320D - a far faster car. It managed 44 mpg while the BMW did 56. Ignoring town only use - and who would buy a BMW purely for town use - the Prius is a bit of a joke. Even more telling was the overall consumption for the duration of the test (about 1000 miles) which of course included performance testing - 23 mpg. The BMW, 28.

Note this was an early Prius. The latest one may well be different, since the new Lexus RX400H gave impressive results for its class. Although it too gave nowhere near the 'official mpg' in real world use.

You can count me out from that one. I bought my E39 at two years old to get the vest value. And although I've had two previous BMWs, I'm not blindly loyal to any brand. I drove all the competition within my price range, and at the time, the E39 was just simply the best, and by some margin. So much so that I'm not tempted to change it, even although I've now had it much longer than usual. I didn't extend the warranty, and in the 3 years or so since it ran out have had to replace a crank position sensor, aux air fan, final stage resistor and drivers door handle, all of which I did myself. But even if I'd had to pay the full cost of fitting, I'd still have saved over the cost of the extended warranty.

I agree, my last 2 vehicles have been new models. A 1999 VW New Jetta and 2003 BMW Z4. Both had problems. Both had recalls. I can tell you this though (and maybe it has more to do with the dealer than the car), BMW troubles were not as anoying. The dealer made the repairs timely and arranged transportation for me when needed. Dealing with VW was *much* more annoying, time consuming and just an overall bad experience.

I loved the Jetta, but hated the service. I went with the Z4 because I wanted more power and RWD. From 2.0(read 2.slow) to 3.0i made a huge difference. I love the Z4, but now that I am married I am trading that in too.

My car is being tranferred to the local deal at this time. I will pick it up later this week. Wondering what it is? Yes, another new model. A

2006 BMW 330i. The new engine (255hp) with 6-speed is almost as fast as my Z4 to 60 - 6.1s instead of 5.9s. Yes it is noticeable, no I don't care. The roominess for the family outwieghs the acceleration now that I have a family.

I'm rambl> >

"Keith Kratochvil" wrote

Let us know how you like it. I've thought about replacing my 330xi, but we generally run cars until they die. I'm thinking that I may buy a diesel 3 or 5 series after they become available after 2007...

Floyd

I was a bit surprised too. Here's the whole story :-)

I started observing steering vibration that was intermittent I couldn't pin the issue down to any speed or road type and in fact demonstrated this to the tech at the dealer.

On the first visit to the dealer for this problem they replaced the front brakes and rotors. They recommended a balance and alignment but I refused because I had just bought new tires and the place I bought them would do the balance for free and the car tracked straight, so I figured the alignment would be OK. However, the steering vibration problem persisted, and I took the car back to America's Tire Co. which is where I bought the tires and had them rebalance. They said the balance checked out fine, i.e. they didn't have to adjust anything. I took the car back to the dealer a couple of weeks later. They again replaced the rotors and brakes and recommended a balance and alignmentment. This time I agreed to do it because by now I was tired of making trips to the dealer.

The steering vibration problem was fixed. They did change the weights on the tires. One of the tires that had a big weight from my visit to America's Tire Co. had no weight at all, so I'm assuming even the balancing was off. They also had a printout of the "before" spec for the alignment and that was off as well. After the alignment was done, the car had a slight drift to the right; I took it in once more and they fixed that by swapping the front tires. Now it feels all OK. The steering vibration is gone and the car tracks straight.

Anoop

Lamers like you aren't exactly drawing prestige to the BMW brand name. In fact a couple of you idiots have me leaning toward not wanting to be associated with it.