I agree....they are great to drive.

Just get rid of them before 60k.

Funny part is that I had a 94 SI prelude with 150k on the odo. All of my BMW friends kept telling me to sell it as they knew "bad things were going to happen to it". It just kept running.......

One of the best cars I have owned.
-Lee

 

If you buy a BMW always get a warranty. My buddy is a seasoned BMW tech.
S2k mileages can vary drastically depending on driving habits and driver.
My D/D gets 8-10mpg (non-honda).
I would stick with the honda, less problems=more fun=Happy Holidays!

-Cesar

 

I have a friend with an

 

i got ~30mpg when i drove my car back from texas. i've never gotten that since, though...probably highest is 25 or 26 with almost all highway and some city. however, i haven't taken any long out-of-state trips either, so that's probably why. normal driving (mostly city + some highway) i usually get 22 or 23.

 

really? must be the way your friends drive then. my friend has 60k+ on his 325I and it still hasnt run into any issues. my other friend just hit the low 20k and his car hasnt had issues yet either. the transmission for the 325i is manual and the 330ci is SMG fyi.

 

In the case of my friend, I'm certain his driving style had nothing to do with the failures he's encountered. The AC fan and turn signal all happened within a year of buying the car. The AC fan was also a recall item. The alternator and CAS are not really items that fail due to how you drive the car. Clutch and gearbox failures certainly could be (but not always) related to driver habits.
I should also say that as a shade tree mechanic, non of his failures would scare me away from having a used BMW 530. I'm not looking for one, I suspect they are in the lower half of all cars for reliability (nice that cars are generally good these days) but they aren't as good as Hondas in general. That said, I don't want one because I don't want to pay used BMW prices for the car. It's also not a hatchback. If possible I want my non-sports car to be a hatchback.

 

why not?? the alternator is driven by a belt via crankshaft. the harder you accelerate/decelerate the more torque is transfered to the alternator and AC compressor which causes excessive stress and potential damage to those parts. also, if you keep your motor in the upper rpm regularly, your alternator and AC compressor is spinning at a higher revolution as well compared with less aggressive drving style where the rpm stays around 2000-3000 rpm most of the time. spinning at higher revolutions will definitely wear out those components faster.

 

Hell a 335i with 300hp gets an EPA 30on the highway. i wouldnt put it past the 330i to pull some interesting numbers.

 

Getting 29-30 mpg on long freeway trips is very probable - with top up and steady cruise at 70 mph, but only if you learned to put it in 6th gear instead of 1st. I've done it many times on 300-mile trips.

 

I work with someone who told me he gets 31-32 on trips in his MY06 S2000.