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Sedans BMW 3-Series BMW 3-Series Maintenance and Repair
4441 messages, Last post on Nov 23, 2009 at 1:04 PM
You are in the BMW 3-Series Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens
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Replying to: montrealer1 (Jan 10, 2009 1:44 pm) Yes, it's a potential problem but it seems to require a certain set of conditions that don't affect most of the cars. I think a "goodwill" gesture from BMW would be quite appropriate and I hope you can wrangle one, but I can't say that BMW "owes" anything legally or morally to a customer after 130K miles. Most cars are junked at 175K miles anyway. (average age of a car on the road in America, about 10-11 years). So your car is probably at well over half its natural life at this point anyway. Not sure how much of an "investment" you have left in reality. Anyway, I'm definitely on your side about the $$$ to fix this. That's no small change. I wouldn't be happy either and I'd certainly ask for something. No harm in asking and/or firing off a few letters....squeaky wheel and all that. Good luck with it.
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Is it possible that besides the vapor barrier that may cause the wet carpet on the driver side, somebody mentioned about the coil heater that might be another source of it.every now and then im checking my coolant level, the other day i checked and found th expansion tank empty and filled it up. could it be a sign that im leaking thru the coil heater. any imputs will be much appreciated to those experts on 3 series.
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Replying to: uncleto (Jan 11, 2009 5:07 pm)
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Replying to: roadburner (Jan 11, 2009 5:36 pm) |
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Replying to: jimbres (Dec 30, 2008 8:22 am) I have a 2006 330i with 70,000 (mostly Highway) miles. I am thinking about keeping it for two or three more years for an additional 66K miles. However I am worried about costly or many less expensive repairs. I am retired and want some reliability. as I travel a lot. My car is garaged kept I am the only driver. rear seat never used. Very clean condition. Only repair was rear brake pads. Any comments or suggestions? owner6
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Well, the first part of the decision process is simple math: If you don't keep the car, what will you buy or lease, and what will the increase in your payments be? If they're the same or lower, then first choice is sell. If they're higher, how much higher? Take that difference and set it up as a maintenance fund. Let's say the difference is $100 a month, and you'll keep the car 36 months. Thus: $3600. Now: Assuming that you would buy/lease another BMW, you'd get free maintenance, and new tires and brakes. Therefore, in considering keeping your current car, you have to factor those expenses into your $3600. At 70,000 miles, you'll likely be needing both within 5,000 miles. Let's say $1500 between them. That leaves you $2100 for routine/non-routine maintenance over 3 years. Of course, I'm just making these numbers up, but I'm guessing that your break even point is one significantly major repair over 3 years. The fact that you're travelling a lot may influence the likelyhood of that occuring. Now the serious guessing starts. Looking at this board, I don't think it likely that the car will nickel and dime you - it won't break often, but if it does, it won't break cheap. It's not the window switches that fail, it's the regulator or the motor. It's not the radiator hoses, it's the radiator. What's the cost of an extended warranty from BMW? If it's not outrageously expensive, that would solve your "major illness" worries. I personally come down on the side of buying a year-old lease-return CPO BMW warrantied out to 7 years or 100K, rather than keeping your current car. You get most of the warranty, and all the major concerns are covered way out into the future. Your current car is easy enough to sell right now; at 120K miles it will take a bigger hit in depreciation. Of course, I just pulled all these numbers out of my coffee cup - your math WILL vary. So, I recommend that you take the course I always do - sit down at the kitchen table with a pencil, pad, and calculator and run the numbers. Then ball it up and go with your heart. You may do something stupid that way, but you'll do it with your eyes open and you'll have no regrets later. For what it's worth.
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| First question I have is, have you already had REVERSE fail on your transmission? If no, I receomend that you sell teh car, as the 99/2000 and I think 01 323's transmissions fail at 100k or so | |
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Replying to: lokki (Jan 15, 2009 7:37 am) To answer your question, I would buy a new 2009 335I  about $48,500 plus $2,910 tax total $51,400. If I sell mine for $20K in this depressed market that would mean I would write a check for $31,400. No payments on either car. I do have the BMW 100,000 mile extended service plan which covers brakes, rotors oil filters belts and such. The only problem I have had so far was the rear brake pads were replaced several months ago. |
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Replying to: owner6 (Jan 14, 2009 12:14 pm) Since the E36 hit the streets in the early 90s, the 3-series has been quite reliable overall. If I owned your car, I'd hang onto it. It's been substantially trouble-free so far, & there's no reason to believe that it will suddenly fall apart now. In time, you will have replace components as they age & wear out, but you're still years away from the point at which the cost of keeping your car roadworthy exceeds the cost of replacing it. |
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Hi there, I own a 2006 330i, it has almost 49000 miles. I'm thinking about buying either the extended warrant or the extended service maintenance plan, or even both. Where should I get some competitive quotes? I did get some quotes from my BMW dealer, but as always, it's pretty expensive, namely about $2800, and no monthly payment plan. Where else should I look? Thanks, David
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