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Thread: What are the Dumbest Things BMW Has Done?

  1. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by cirrusblau View Post
    Or maybe they tried googling it, but spells it Chevy Wega.

    One thing BMW does, which is confusing and also somewhat dumb, is badging.

    M30B35 is 3.4L = badges E34 as 535
    M62B44 is 4.4L = badges E39 as 540 (could easily been a 545)

    Where's the consistency there BMW?
    And today they've gone the opposite direction with it.

    3.0 liter F30 = 340i (optional: m sport, x drive, grand coupe, etc)

  2. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Obioban View Post
    lifetime diff/trans fluid
    BMW's hardly alone in this - my 1966 Dodge Dart made the same claims. And with similar results, although you were less likely to get the engine or bodywork to survive long enough to find out that you should have been changing the other fluids.
    Matt Cramer
    1997 BMW 328i convertible, 1972 Chevy C10 pickup, 1966 Dodge Dart slant six
    BMW - where "Why doesn't everybody build cars the way they do?" meets "Why can't they build a car the same way everyone else does it?"

  3. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by Obioban View Post
    Long OCIs
    lifetime diff/trans fluid
    EPS
    Turbos
    subscription based carplay
    dip stick removal
    using optical cables in a car
    eliminating manuals
    auto rev matching in manuals
    auto start/stop
    run flat tires
    eliminating spare tires
    plastic valve covers
    clutch delay valves
    4 door "coupes"
    "coupe" SUVs
    making 82,435,234,124 different body styles instead of making a couple (well)
    eliminating wagons
    only offering the remaining wagons in 4 cylinder awd automatic
    flash limits on ecus

    Great list!

  4. #29
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    Make a front wheel drive car.

    /thread

  5. #30
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    I would say those GT series .. u know, the half car/ half SUV hatchbacks? tall ugly cars?? thankfully they were discontinued after a few years lol.

  6. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by E34DinanZeemax View Post
    I would say those GT series .. u know, the half car/ half SUV hatchbacks? tall ugly cars?? thankfully they were discontinued after a few years lol.
    So hideous.

    Let me add...

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    - Selling their soul
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  7. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by xxxxxxx View Post
    So hideous.

    Let me add...

    - Hiring Bangle
    - Selling their soul
    If by selling their soul, you mean putting an M package option on every damn chassis, yup

  8. #33
    JimLev's Avatar
    JimLev is offline Artifically Aspirated Moderator
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    Guess I missed this post when it first came out....
    1) Vapor barriers in the doors that don't stay attached to the doors allowing water to get under the carpet.
    2) Fuse box under the carpet that gets corroded when the vapor barrier leaks.
    3) Inferior gasket material that hardens over time and then leaks.
    4) Leaking power steering lines.

  9. #34
    geargrinder's Avatar
    geargrinder is offline Having No Trouble Here BMW CCA Member
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    OK before I add some, I want to argue with some.

    Quote Originally Posted by R Shaffner View Post
    Using Plastic Parts INSIDE an Engine or Transmission
    I firmly disagree with the "its plastic so it MUST suck!" take. I dont' think you're necessarily saying that R-man, but since a certain segment of enthusiast DOES make that argument...

    Plastics are a perfectly excellent engineering material that achieve a lot of goals, and "cheap" is far from the only reason, although don't forget thats in our interest too. Guys always equate "oh it was cheap so they could make money". No it was also cheap so you could afford some of the other engineering in the car. I'm not sure I want to trade all my cheap plastic parts off for super expensive metal ones that I still may have to replace sooner or later. If the plastic is engineered to last until the other bits around it are at end of service life / aka need rebuild (lets say plastic bits inside an auto trans...) then really its probably an excellent choice, they just go on the list for rebuild alongside the other stuff.

    With the V8 guides... IMO the main problems are, yes, using a U-guide instead of a sprocket (to be fair, "all the guys are doing it" aka all the other automakers do that crap too...), and, making the maintenance job incredibly painful, and, perhaps, not spec'ing the plastic to a higher grade. The S62 guides for instance are visibly different grade of plastic and seem to wear much slower. More glass fill probably but I'm just guessing. You need something to corral the chain slap in that housing, and to do it all with roller tensioners would not only be crazy expensive but noisy and potentially introduces just another whole set of things to wear out in a different way that cost even more.

    If I was to get in the Delorean and go back in time to change the V8 designs it would be: yes never lose the lower idler sprocket, but, also redesign the front of the motor so the lower timing cover removes 10x easier (no oil pan interdependence, perhaps lose the water cooled alternator which seems to offer no discernable benefit over the air-cooled versions, etc.) In that case nobody would care too much how hard it was to slap new plastic side guides in there. You know how easy it is to do a timing belt/chain job on a lot of motors? A days work that is not particularly hard or unpleasant. This would also sort out the hidden-oil-separator-whose-inlet-pipe-cracks-over-time, cuz you'd jump in there and swap it out at the same time, probably well before the tube breaks!

    Quote Originally Posted by R Shaffner View Post
    SMG -- <snip> that is between a manual and an automatic, but doesn't act like either? Really? What a marketing blunder that was! Did ANYONE in their research tell them that's what they wanted in a BMW?
    Yeah not really arguing with this one entirely. Just saying indeed is far more of a marketing blunder and not so much an engineering blunder.

    IMO the SMG actually "great for what it is". Which is really like a different kind of a box between a manual and a slushbox, but not as good as a proper dual-clutch manuauto. But you have to drive it in a special way that is not driving-an-automatic. Basically drive really it like a manual without a clutch pedal. It's really great at that.

    Unfortunately only probably 20% of SMG buyers bought it for that purpose. And of course dealers (generally evil soul sucking demons who would sell their own mothers ovarian cancer in a box if they could make a commission on it...) sold it as "the automatic version".... Therefore they got sold to people who "wanted an automatic for you know, my wife and traffic and stuff...".

    I've looked at a few SMG M3's FS by original owners and the story from the guy is almost ALWAYS some variation of "yeah, we bought the 'auto' for my wife but she hates it, although I think its great as long as you manual shift it, and that's how I drive it most of the time..."

    Quote Originally Posted by TWR16 View Post
    Quality of ECU
    "ECU quality?" What are you possibly on about? That's complete horsepoop.
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  10. #35
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    geargrinder is offline Having No Trouble Here BMW CCA Member
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    Now I want to +1 a bunch of stuff. Ian's list is good place to work from, though I'll boil it down to the ones that really bug me.

    Quote Originally Posted by Obioban View Post
    Long OCIs
    lifetime diff/trans fluid
    dip stick removal
    eliminating manuals
    run flat tires
    plastic valve covers
    clutch delay valves
    4 door "coupes" / "coupe" SUVs / making 82,435,234,124 different body styles instead of making a couple (well) / eliminating wagons
    Some of the E39 guys will have seen my post where I recently oil changed our E84 and had a brain fart leaving me not knowing exactly how much oil I had in the sump. Great. Cluster will tell me oil level right? Oh. Guess what. Engine has to be hot and drive 6 miles or some shit. Lovely. So I need to start it up and hope its not radically over or underfilled and drive around the block and let it idle in the driveway until hey Carol Merrill lets see what's behind door number 3? Great.

    Add "magnesium valve covers" to that list too. Those seem a completely bizarre engineering choice. If anybody is a materials engineer and can explain why they did those instead of alum, I'd love to hear it.

    Just to prove how full of total bullcrap BMW is about 'wagons', they'll insist all up and down and sideways that "an extra body style is tremendously expensive to produce and certify and import, and golly gee you Americans just don't buy enough so we can't possibly do it... I mean we'd love to and we really do want to do it for you, but geee wizz, we'd just lose so much money on each one we can't justify it!" Oh really? But you can have half a dozen barely-perceivably different body styles of 3-series? You can have scads of weirdo body styles just in the Mini brand? Including the freako 'baseball cap' thing!? Liars.
    Real answer: "Except for a few weirdo cranks, you Americans will just happily buy SUV's if we don't send you wagons, and we make more money on those, and all our German buddies have figured this out too so the oligopoly has agreed - no wagons to USA".

    Other +1's:
    • Early iDrive (admittedly newer cars are better BTW)
    • Stupid unintelligible model naming - this falls into 2 categories actually, one is the displacement / model thing aka "340" etc., but the other is the thing the stupid suffixy crap for the lettered-models. aka Z4 "sDrive35is". To be fair old-timers will point out they've had plenty of inconsistency over the years going way way back... E28 had some model-number/displacement disconnects... Then the 323i that's really a 2.5 to make it sound more different than a 328i, etc. however far and away the naming convention was pretty consistent and it was 'rare exceptions' until the mid-2000's...
    • Horrible mid-2000's styling (E60 etc.)
    2003 M3CicM6 TiAg
    2002 540iT Sport Vortech S/C 6MT LSD TiAg
    2008 Audi A3 2.0T DSG (the daily beater)
    2014 BMW X1 xDrive28i (wifemobile)

    Former:

    1985 MB Euro graymarket 300SL
    1995.5 Audi S6 Avant (utility/winter billetturbobattlewagen)


  11. #36
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    All good points.

    I wonder what will be added to the list from more recent cars. Did BMW forget how to make valve guides that don't leak? Are they asking too much from the engines and making them too complicated? What about the N63 horror stories?

    My son just got a 2017 X3 with the turbo 4. Drives well. Produces a whopping 120 hp/liter. Amazing! But will all that cause reliability problems down the road? (I like turbos just fine -- I've had many turbo Saabs and Volvos -- but for him I'd feel better if the car had BMW's venerable I-6 that produced similar power.)

    An old adage I'd learned years ago was, "Never buy a European car from its first model year." I'm inclined to say that even more now. Or perhaps the real risk range for these new BMWs is when the car is just off warranty, but still young enough for the problems areas to be unknown. (Not really an issue for me now. Just wondering. I'm still content with my e39.)

  12. #37
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    geargrinder is offline Having No Trouble Here BMW CCA Member
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    This really IS a crankyoldman thread thats for sure but here's another newer-model fail: The greenhouse.

    This isn't BMW specific and I know I know its all crash-safety-driven but all new cars have window sills that are closer to your shoulder than your elbow. And generally body designs that are 100% predicated on using backup cameras. Our E84 is bad but not impossible but I've sat in other newer models and the rearward visibility is horrible. There is zero point to turning around and looking out the back which all us old fartsters grew up doing. You can't see crap that way. Even for a hard core "I can do it all with mirrors" pro, the mirror magnification/location and body style make it a bit of a PITA. The issue with this is if you happen to buy a car like ours that was somewhat 'base' with no backup camera option, its a drag. Of course now all cars are required to have backup cameras so from 2018 it won't be an issue but doesn't keep me from being annoyed at how bad the 'greenhouse' has become in most cars vs all the glass we used to get to enjoy...
    2003 M3CicM6 TiAg
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    Former:

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  13. #38
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    Quote Originally Posted by geargrinder View Post
    This really IS a crankyoldman thread thats for sure but here's another newer-model fail: The greenhouse.
    Roger all that. I had to drive a friend's Buick SUV recently and I hated it. I couldn't see a thing when looking toward the rear.

    Two of the cars we had when teaching our kids to drive were a '95 Discovery and a '97 Suburban. Low shoulders and lots of glass on both. It was real easy, even for shorter drivers, to see all four corners. 6 teenage drivers and not a single fender bender.

    I'm all for tools and technology that make people more aware and better drivers. But often the new tech makes people worse drivers (cameras instead of glass). And hands-free driving? Why don't they just tell drivers to take their eyes off the road, pick up their phones and start texting? How can that possibly make for better drivers and safer roads?
    Last edited by R Shaffner; 02-23-2019 at 06:41 AM.

  14. #39
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    My vote goes to their BS lifetime tranny fluid. We have ours changed anyway, but it's been an uphill to due to BMW doing their best to convince everyone it's not necessary.

  15. #40
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  16. #41
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    Amen ... Brother!

  17. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by R Shaffner View Post
    Long Oil Change Intervals --

    I'm not sure what led to this change.
    I'm convinced this was a big, German "fuck you" to Americans.

    Canadian and European cars have a 15,000 interval too. But it's kilometers, 15,000 kilometers. It cannot be coincidence or an oversight that the 15,000 number was kept intact and programmed into the US instrument clusters. There's no way that someone didn't notice that US cars would register that 15,000 number in miles and be going 62% longer between oil changes than their metric counterparts.
    Quote Originally Posted by B4SH View Post
    If anyone knows, it's this guy who knows literally nothing about everything.
    Quote Originally Posted by fcvapor05 View Post
    Do you even OT? The mean 401k around here is probably about $6, what with all the shiny cars and $1,000 watches and donations to get other members' Volvos running.


  18. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by E34DinanZeemax View Post
    I would say those GT series .. u know, the half car/ half SUV hatchbacks? tall ugly cars?? thankfully they were discontinued after a few years lol.

    I love the 3 and 4 Series GTs (I think it's a "GC" in the case of the 4 Series, though). Either way, they're great. A few extra inches of wheelbase makes it the size of a 5 Series, plus it's a fastback? Take. My. Money.
    Quote Originally Posted by B4SH View Post
    If anyone knows, it's this guy who knows literally nothing about everything.
    Quote Originally Posted by fcvapor05 View Post
    Do you even OT? The mean 401k around here is probably about $6, what with all the shiny cars and $1,000 watches and donations to get other members' Volvos running.


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