So we picked up a 2003 M5 last fall. Was always on the bucket list and looked for a good one. Well - it's been almost a year and although the car drives well enough it is easily the most unreliable and poorly built car I've ever owned. It's almost laughable.. but it seems BMW owners version of "maintenance" is replacing every component on the car by 100K.

So since buying the car with 75K miles and putting 15K on it... Replaced the auxiliary fan (which required removal of everything up front except the headlights essentially), replaced the guibo (some rubber driveline component), fluid changes (with 10W-60, something I'd never heard of but $12 a quart).., window regulator, rear map light that randomly fell out, couple other small things.

Mechanically it seems fine. According to folks at M5board the S62 is "designed to burn oil". Ok. Well mine does. Also, due to an inherit design flaw the engines are known to suffer from extreme carbon build up and it's a $5-8k job at the dealer (link below.)

http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/e39...-pictures.html

Things that have since gone bad that haven't been addressed: The seats both started doing this awful contortion thing where if you recline them one side tilts to the other. I read a DIY and plan on tackling it but stupid and annoying. The auto dimming rearview mirror's chemical has exploded or something and now it looks like a lava lamp blew up inside the glass. $600 replacement or $100 fix if I send it to some guy online.. The auto fold side mirrors - cool feature but I wont use it since the plastic gears inside are worn and it makes an awful clicking noise when used. The pixels in the dash cluster - when its humid its all good, when its not - barely readable. The one thing that definitely works is the check engine light. It greets me regularly. The radio randomly turns on and off. One of the highbeams doesn't work - and not because of something simple like a bulb.. it's got a "headlight control unit" that is faulty - $500 for the computer. I'm sure theres more.

So it's going in the shop again this week, for the 4th? time. 90K service, another CEL, the suspension just started squeaking.. I'm sure this will be a cheap trip.

I'm not sure if I want to keep it as a forever car and just continue to fix it or move on. It drives well enough and I love the way they look - but I don't know if I'm enough of a fanboy or rich enough to properly maintain something soooo poorly executed for what it offers.

 

sounds like a PITA.

 

This has always been my biggest problem with luxury brands (and specifically all non-Porsche German cars). They cost more to buy, yet break more often and cost more to fix than average American/Japanese cars. I see a BMW or MB and my first thought is not "nice car" but "I would hate to own that out of warranty". I'm sure the original owners who lease or trade in at sub-50k miles are fine with them though!

 

Man, that sucks... I've always loved M3's, but my experience with beemers has never been great,and I could never afford all the replacement parts to keep one going.

I remember right after I bought my 2004 'S' last year, a coworker bought a 2004 BMW Z4... Same year, both convertibles, similar color, similar market, similar price range, so I took note! He was talking about how great it was, showing me how it was "better" than my S, etc etc etc... It had like 50k miles on it, and he bought it from Carmax as one of their certified used cars, so it had a warranty with it for like the first 6 months.

Well needelss to say, Carmax didn't end up making any money off of him... Within the first two months of ownership, the car needed something like $5,000 worth of repairs done, that Carmax paid for. The first thing that happened was the steering rack went bad. Its apparently a commonn failure in the Z4's, where the steering is sloppy and loose in the middle, and then it would tighten up on him and bind as you turned the wheel farther from center.

Soon after he got the car back from having the rack replaced, the the auto-leveling headlights stopped working, the specialty BMW turn signal control module broke, and several random switches inside the cabin had to be replaced. So after he gets it back from all of these repairs, he's singing the praises of his "fantastic, better than anything else on the road BMW" and the next day the integrated navigation stopped working. It would tell him he was in Texas or something, when he was really 1000 miles away in NC.

Meanwhile, in 25,000 miles, (Now 106,000 miles total on the car) and a year and a half of S2000 ownership, the grand total I have spent on parts replacement amounts to a MASSIVE $2.50. The little plastic radiator coolant overflow bottle cap broke off in my hand once, and I had to replace it. That's it! Everything else on my car works great!

The guy with the Z4 was eventually let go from my company, and I don't know if he had anymore problems, but I was secretly lol'ing at his Z4 the whole time. It just proved to me that BMW's really haven't gotten any better. If I were him, I would have been taking that thing back to Carmax, and demanding a refund!

 

I had a 99 E39 M5 2 years ago, bought it with 102k on the clock. Did 24k miles in 18months, was pretty reliable, only the fuel pump going stopped it working.

Thats said I spent about £4k maintaining it in that time, suspension arms, bushes, 3 oil changes, brakes all round, 2 sets of tyres. I'm glad I have owned one but I'm not missing it now its gone.

Would I own another BMW? Not anytime soon

 

Where is the part that is supposed to be shocking?

 

This is exactly why I pretty much hate all German cars. Never owned one, never will. But after working as a technician at Lexus for 5 years, I have come across a fair amount of German trade in vehicles. They are just poorly built and overly complicated..

 

Too many computers in those things. Headlight control unit? What a crock.

 

 

It's sad because Germany is known for it's enginers.

Nothing you stated surprises me and why I stick to Honda/Toyota. I made the error of buying a Subaru and my experience is nearly that of a domestic - not german car bad but not reliable like you'd expect from a Honda.

111K on my S2000 and I've only consumed the regular things.