Quote:
Originally Posted by Lamby
OrangeFurious, Totally agree with the black plastic everywhere on the new ones. I looked into it and thanks to some articles from Chris Bangle, seems that BMW struggled to get anywhere near VW's emissions/mpg lies and took a step to 'lighten' there cars. This mean't looking at the cabin and seeing where they could lose weight and try to keep the quality.
Anyway, I am way, way off topic... Lets hope 1iwilly gets his X5 on the road and not have any more serious issues.
|
So what you are witnessing is the convergence of the premium german car transforming into the world of other commodity vehicles such as our domestic Ford GM and Chrysler vehicles. The build quality of the 98-2004 BMWs (E38,E39,E46,E53etc.) are superior to these 2015-2016 vehicles. Take a 3 series for instance and look at the suspension components underneath the car. They are stamped steel (high strength) as compared to the lovely aluminum suspension components used on a E46 or a BMW of that era. Keep in mind BMW is a commodity car outside of the US like our domestic commodity vehicles so I call this story convergence. The main stream vehicles are getting better in terms of craftsmanship and the once premium german vehicles are moving down market with respect to craftsmanship. It's there way of improving the profit margins. Its not an illusion its really happening and more to come.