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BMWs have a reputation for being tremendous performance vehicles. However they also have a reputation for being incredibly unreliable.
Is this reputation deserved? No not really. These vehicles are incredibly reliable for the first several years and 50-70k of mileage.
Things substantially change after this point. Due to the heavy usage of plastic components and increasingly complex sensors these vehicles now have substantially more problems in their later lives than previous models did.
This is why I highly recommend that anyone interested in a new BMW should strongly consider leasing it instead of buying the vehicle. You will save lots of money because BMWs depreciate so quickly after leaving the lot.
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Hey E36 Fanatic, Steven here. Today I'm going to talk about BMW reliability and especially
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going into 2020, the modern age of BMWs, kind of what's changed over time and then I'm going to
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mention the recommendation that I have going forward with modern BMWs and kind of looking
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at whether to buy them or lease them and what to do with them. So BMW historically, if you've seen
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any of my videos on this channel, most of what I work on is E36 BMWs and E46 BMWs. Now, those are
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older model BMWs, 3 Series at this point. They ran from about 92 to, I think, E46 stopped in 2006
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So, they've got some serious age on them at this point, but it was also a time where BMWs were a
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whole lot easier to work on and repair than the BMWs you're looking at now with the G20s and the
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F30s. The BMWs at that time going into the E36s and E46s yeah they had a lot of plastic components
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but there was a lot less electronics to them and they were a lot easier to maintain and that's why
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you still see a lot of E36s on the road today even though like this vehicle right here is about 25
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years old now. It's got 160,000 miles on it, still runs great. I mean, yeah, these vehicles need
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repair from time to time, but as long as you maintain them right, they run for a very, very
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lengthy period of time. Now you fast forward to modern BMWs and the increasing use of plastic
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components in the engine bay and more and more electronics where BMW is focusing more on the the luxury part instead of the ultimate driving machine aspect of the vehicles And you looking at a very very different world
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BMWs nowadays are frequently ranked as one of the least reliable vehicles
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You buy one new off of the car a lot, a couple years later the price has been slashed like crazy because they devalue extremely quick
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And there's two major reasons for this. first the BMW isn't unique in this aspect all other car manufacturers do this a lot more than
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they used to but plastic parts BMW tends to take it a little more to the extreme
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putting really weak plastic components under the intake manifolds they've been putting coolant
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lines under the intake manifold since the E36s and the E30s but the difference is they use plastic
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hoses now in the newer model vehicles and they of course crack from the heat over time and then
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you got to pull off the intake manifold. It's very expensive to maintain these newer vehicles
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And the second big thing is Mercedes, BMW and all the other luxury vehicle companies seem to have
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this competition going on to see how many electronic sensors you can pack into the engine
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bay and pack into the passenger area and that's great and all for the driver and for the passengers
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for a couple of years while they're working. Once these sensors start breaking down or having issues
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you rack up big bills very very quickly. That's why you'll see a BMW 3 Series go off the lot
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go off the dealership lot for only six years later to be under to be worth under Why is that It because once these cars hit a certain mileage marker or a certain amount of years things just start going wrong and you end up blowing
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so much money at the mechanic that it's not even worth to keep the vehicle anymore
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So like I've said, BMW over the years, it's the vehicles, you know, they're amazing vehicles
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to drive as long as they're in good working order. And they're also a very, very safe vehicle. And so
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they're great vehicles to own for the first couple years right off of the lot, the first, you know
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60,000, 70,000 miles right off the lot. They're great cars to own. But after that, they absolutely
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suck. So that's why I strongly recommend to anybody who's interested in buying a newer BMW
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or new BMW off the lot, I strongly recommend to just lease the freaking thing. That's what most
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people do nowadays and a lot of other countries, and that's more and more people are doing that
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in the United States. Instead of buying, you know, a new BMW for $60,000, $70,000, you just lease it
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Now, it's not worth it to lease a lot of other vehicles. You know, you're leasing a Toyota Camry
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or something or a Honda. There's no point in doing that. You're going to lose money
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you're going to lose money because they depreciate much slower than a BMW
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The BMW, on the other hand, because they depreciate so quickly, you're going to end up saving so much money from just leasing the thing
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And if it ends up being a trash heap that breaks down a lot earlier than it should
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well, it's not your problem because you're only freaking leasing it. So that's why I strongly recommend if you're interested in a newer model BMW
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just lease it You don have to deal you get all the fun and enjoyability out of driving a BMW but you don deal with any of the headaches of having to own a BMW another thing is I hear some
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people get really excited sometimes about buying a BMW with a ton of mileage on it like not I mean
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a hundred thousand isn't a ton of miles for most vehicles but for a newer model BMW you know to me
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anything past the e46 series that's a lot of mileage on a bmw because stuff starts going wrong
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like crazy so people will buy you know a bmw with 120 130 000 miles on it and think they got a great
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deal because they only paid like 5k for it well you didn't get a great deal you know i understand
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that the car came off the lot being worth 60 000 it's been a couple of years and it's only worth
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5,000 but the market the market understands that these cars have lots of problems so they factor
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that into that factors into the price of the vehicle so yeah you might only be paying five
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thousand dollars for 2012 bmw but on the other hand it's got high miles on it you're going to be
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racking up mechanics bills that that are going to quickly go over the price you paid for the
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freaking thing in the first place. Now there's an exception to that rule. You know, E36s, E46s
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vehicles like those, I think are amazing cars. I buy them all the time with, or I used to buy them
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with over a hundred thousand miles on it, but I also knew how to work on them and they're not very
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they're not very difficult to work on. But on the other hand, you know, these cars are getting old
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at this point. They're becoming more of an enthusiast vehicle, not really a daily driver
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so much anymore. So I hope y'all enjoyed this video. If you did, please like, comment, and subscribe
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Y'all have a good one
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