Changing a rad.

It's the BMW tax ....

And an older car is always more difficulty to work on (more things break unexpectedly) so there will be a surcharge for an older vehicle.

No it's not.

No they don't

There's a DISCOUNT at BMW for older vehicles as Dave said. Did you even read his post?

Agreed there is often more room on older cars

They do in my experience; older plastic gets brittle, bolts are more likely to be rusted (and perhaps have rounded heads).

Given this is the first time the rad's been out, how do you work that out?

If I ever come across 'rounded heads' I replace the bolts.

BMW may indeed offer a discount for older cars; but even with less sophisticated technology I would expect an older car to be more difficult to work on, for the reasons that I and others have alluded to.

Yes I did read the OP - my (tongue-in-cheek) suggestion was that BMW artificially inflated their prices to the level that their customers migh expect to pay, so that even with a discount they made enough money to cover their costs.

You have to factor in the carpeted showrooms and air-conditioned workshops!

critcher said........... my repairs came to nearly £800.00 brake cables £275.00 welding £90.00 check for airbag light £40.00 air bag ecu...£140.000 to fit, £160.00 for spare MOT £54.00 after a bit of an argument bill dropped to £186.00 without airbag ecu fitting The impression I had was that the workshops had a target value for each repair of £500.00 which covered costs and overheads.

Define "difficult". Sure, there may be the odd seized/rounded fastener, but the chances are that everything will be a lot more accessible. You never used to hear of all these huge access/dismantling issues doing such basic shit as replacing bulbs.

Err, no. I referred to my independant BMW specialist. Not a main dealer.

Basically, the more things that are added to the basics of a car, the more complex they become to work on, as more has to be dismantled to access the basics. (enough basics?)

The E39 - at least in 6 cylinder form - is reasonably easy to work on, for the things I've had to do so far. Most involved was changing the rocker cover gasket. Which was many times more complicated to do than changing one on my SD1.

Because I wasn't talking about your specific case, I was just saying that in my experience older cars are more likely to have the three issues which I mentioned.