I’m sorry to say that after twenty years of BMW ownership among them 325is, 635csi, M6 and now the X5, I’m calling it quits with BMW. Like many loyal bimmer fans I chose to overlook BMW’s never ending, flaws, quirks, sliding quality and mediocre service for the sake of the performance and thrill that BMW has always offered, which by the way I believe is bar none. That thrill however has been taking on a new meaning lately.

Reliability or lack of thereof has become ridiculous in vehicles of this class. I’ve experienced just about every common failure mentioned in these forums on my 2001 X5; the popping speaker grills, sunshade support, scraped door handle, hesitant acceleration, whistling noise, four window regulator failures, defective final stage resistor, premature brake, control arm and CV boot failure, disappearing pixels in the cluster and climate control, bad camshaft sensors, crank vent valve, lift gate rattle, the ever ending list of false fault codes, now a terrible noise from my torque converter, who knows what that’ll cost. All this before 70k miles. What’s worst, this unreliability you could say is built-in and even expected. From what I can tell from this and many other BMW forums these mechanical and electrical failures are all common and prevalent in most 3, 5 and X’s which are being inherited down from the previous model year offering.

As I see it BMW is knowingly perpetuating these failures year after year by its own negligence to address a resolution to improve obvious defects in engineering, its lack of acknowledgement of these most common issues, and treating the consumer as ignorant by denying any commonality of these problems exist. Right.

Rather than admit to any problems in quality BMW prefers to let its customer bear the brunt for the repair of these engineering boondoggles. My experience is not an isolated incident if you go by the many BMW forums. What’s even more ironic is how many followers do exist who remain true and loyal to the marque, going so far as to accept, forgive and justify BMW these engineering blunders as a worthwhile price to pay for the privilege of ownership alone. The exact statements I come across in these forums being…. “Oh well, that’s the price you pay for the “privilege” of owning a BMW”. Wat up wit dat?

How can anyone not only accept mediocrity but think to reward it as the price to pay for distinction? Since when is our hard earned dollars become so trivialized?

I have to believe most these owners haven’t been “privileged” quite long enough yet. More likely it’s that younger breeds first discovery of the marque who’s opinion are inclined more by the status of the marque than by the value of their sweat. As if this was an equal tradeoff somehow. I would hate to think this is this generation’s latest trend. I suppose it’s that mentality which BMW has learned to capitalize on and abuse. Is this now a case of you get what you paid for…but in reverse? I for one am tired of paying premium prices for that privilege and that of BMW’s irresponsible and deceptive treatment of its core customers.

I’ve endured more cost of ownership than any other marque I’ve had experience with and regard this latest trend by BMW as unacceptable and am willing to go seek out BMW’s competitors, and do something I would never contemplate before and that is to discourage any one asking me for advice on BMW ownership.

I will get what I pay for elsewhere...

Fed Up in Florida.

This letter will be submited publicly to our local Southwest and Central Florida Newspapers as my way to enlighten consumers to BMW's poor reliability and customer service practices.

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RudyCM