[imcarthur]

Funny, everybody here trashes Audi & coos over BMW. My experience is the opposite. I know that’s not the subject of this thread but . . .

The rear seat areas (under the bench) on my 323i were filled with water. 4” of water! Plugged sunroof drains. Speaking of sunroofs, mine broke & never could be fixed without dismantling the whole interior. A local BMW specialist got it to work but with nice crunchy sounds. The spare tire well? Another water collection area. It had 6” of water in it. Reason? Rear taillight seals that dry out. Who would ever check a rear taillight seal? My steel spare was so rusted I scrapped it when I sold the car. Airbag sensors? They go at a rate of one per year. One year it’s the passenger seat mat – which requires complete dismantling of the seat. Next year it was seatbelt heads at some ridiculous price. The next year it was the retract mechanism on a seatbelt. I started to think the airbag light was just normally on. The code reader gave nonsensical readings so it was no help to a simple DIYer. Then there’s the sub-frame issue. The peeling rubberized paint in the interior. Etc etc . . .

So don’t just point a finger at Audi. BMW’s ain’t vehicular gold either as many would like you to believe. I would think long & hard with a lot of research before I would buy another one. And we all have heard about the Porsche engine problems so the high end isn't immune either.

Ian