halfmonkey
Active Member
I owned a 2008 e90 335, purchased new, and let me tell you, that car gave me more problems than all of the cars I've ever owned COMBINED. I take care of my cars too. From low pressure fuel pump, high pressure fuel pump, water pump, thermostat, injectors, ignition coils, something with the a/c where they had to remove the entire dash to fix it, valve gasket, oil filter housing and gasket, something called a mechatronic sleeve on the transmission, both rear window mechanisms, carbon build up, cracked front winshield rubber gasket, rear window rubber gasket becoming loose, angel light going out, and other things that I'm sure I've forgotten.Having owned BMWs, most of the issues I have had have been with sensors and electronic gremlins. The bright side is that the labor rates at my Toyota dealer are lower than the BMW dealer.
The way I see it, Toyota/Lexus has an extremely strong reputation for reliability. The engine, transmission, and electronics are not Toyota designed from the ground up. They were designed by BMW and Toyota came in and help modify them to their specifications. Part of this change includes, per Toyota, changes to the B58 engine to make it more reliable and up to Toyota benchmarks. They only said this but have not provided anymore details in this area so we basically have to just take their word so I think it's not a bad idea to buy the warranty if you plan on keeping the car past the original warranty period. I'm holding off on purchasing my car until a few years down the road to see what real life use is doing to the car.
No matter what anybody says, BMW is no where near Toyota in terms of reliability and never will be. That is not part of their business model. With BMW's having the highest lease takers of all manufacturers, they only design their cars to last 3 year/36,000 miles for the owner to return the lease and go into another BMW lease. It's planned obsolescence. Toyota can never go this model because they have built such a strong brand around their reliability that if they ever provided something that wasn't reliable, people would show up in pitch forks.
Let's just hope the B58 and ZF transimission in the Supra doesn't take Toyota by surprise and people start storming the castle because I want the GRMN Supra.
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