I’m looking at purchasing an X3 or X5. However, I have heard that the BMW maintenance costs are quite high and after warranty the maintenance issues occur extensively. I’d appreciate hearing from BMW owners if this has been your experience. Is it fact or fiction?
I have always done most my own work to my cars. Started on little things like brakes, servicing etc… not put my BMW in a garage for years. When I did put my car in for a service I use my local independent.
My uncle has a bmw and he puts into the local main dealer he gets ripped off left right and centre. He even buys tyres from them and it’s astronomical the prices they charge.
I always shop around for everything, parts & tyres. Try and get the best price for everything and fit/repair things myself where possible.
Depends.
There’s 2 situations that you need to fall in: you either need to be very well off that dealership/independent shop prices don’t hurt the wallet OR able to turn a wrench.
The issue is majority don’t fall in either bucket so the neglect of the bmw stacks on and eventually a $500 repair cascades to $5000 repair due to neglecting the previous stuff.
As a current x3 owner (this was kind of a project car for me to learn how to do car repairs as a beginner); I’m doing several years of neglected items atm. If these were done at a dealership/independent I can tell this would’ve been like $7k-12k worth of work. But since I’m doing it on my own it’s been massively cheaper.
Good points. Thank you for your insight. I’m not the most handy with the wrench so I guess it’ll be time to pull from the 401K :)
Like everything else in life, if you can’t do it yourself, you pay someone else to do it. Dealership prices are the highest; expect labor rates above $150 per hour. Parts prices will be the same at dealer and independent shop. Indy shop labor rates will generally be less than dealer.
Substantial savings can be realized doing the work yourself. This does require time, tools, space & inclination.
Thanks for setting my expectations.
As a BMW F10 (previous gen 5-series) it’s true that BMW maintenance cost are higher than other Japanese or American luxury brands. I think I averaged about $2000-3000 a year on maintenance for wear and tear items (battery, brakes, shocks & struts) once the warranty ran out on my BMW. One of the biggest problems is that parts and labor is fairly expensive and it’s often difficult to find qualified independent (non-BMW) shops that are willing to work on BMWs. When I previously owned a Lexus, most of the parts were shared with Toyota, so I could take it to any Toyota or Japanese auto shop and the mechanics there were willing to work on it and the maintenance cost per year was about half of what it cost to own my BMW.
Thanks for sharing your experience. You bring up a good point about Toyotas and Lexus. Seems as though the higher maintenance costs are true but people are still buying BMWs do that must say something about their contentment with the vehicles.
X3 is for girls.
lol… ok so I have to ask… what are the cars for men in your opinion?