The myth of 'Made in Germany'

[flybobbie]

Problem sometimes is design and material specification.

For about the 5th time had the plastic trim off under the wipers.
Of about 8 fixing points it's down to 3. The plastic so thin and brittle it's weaker than the mounting pins so plastic gives first. More material around fixing it would wouldn't break. Tail lights poor design and wrong materials so leak, why design so water drains over them..
Had some interior trim out, piece broke for the sake of a little more plastic..

[True-Blue]

Couldn’t believe what weak design the Zenon auto-levelling control rod was that sits on the lower front suspension arm.

Not surprised this is a common MOT fail, If I ever drove mine in the dark I’d have realised there was an issue before the bloody mot

[RobbiZ4]

[...]
The list of E89 problems (and others) is a list of components not made by BWW but mostly by Bosch et al.

I agree.
Another example: the E89 tail lights were produced in Tolmezzo, Italy. It's a nice village in the northeast mountains:
https://www-zroadster-com.translate.goo ... st-3279274

[...]
The German business model provides a 4 year warranty...

That is not correct for German buyers:
A seller(!) must assume a guarantee for a maximum of 2 years. However, the buyer must already prove after 6 months that the fault / error arose at the time of purchase.

In business relations this may differ, as AFAIK BMW will charge the supplier for each part, that had to be replaced on warranty.

Said this, it's a calculation model of the suppliers:
Sell a bunch of 100.00 weak built parts and accept a re-charge quote of let's say 5% in the following 5 years. That is much cheaper for the supplier instead of delivering a better quality.

Jmy2ct
Rob

[flybobbie]

Reason why quality control went out of the window.
Bang out products, offer reasonable 2 year warranty, or say 3 for cars and wait to see if the there are any complaints and cheaper to fix as they go along.
I remember one of our club members worked for JLR.
Evokes were having gearbox problems. He said they are dealing on a 1 to 1 complaint basis, but JLR knew the ZF boxes all had a fault. Would cost millions to replace, but most boxes probably ok.

[mcbutler]

Well at least we wont need to include BMW in this list for much longer. BMW have already outsourced production of many models to the 'Great wall Motor Company' in China.
Mostly SUV I think but the rest will follow as the world manufacturing power base continues to shift eastwards..

Lets just jhope they don't use Evri to deliver them heh heh

[zxy]

[...]
The list of E89 problems (and others) is a list of components not made by BWW but mostly by Bosch et al.

I agree.




In business relations this may differ, as AFAIK BMW will charge the supplier for each part, that had to be replaced on warranty.
Said this, it's a calculation model of the suppliers:
Sell a bunch of 100.00 weak built parts and accept a re-charge quote of let's say 5% in the following 5 years. That is much cheaper for the supplier instead of delivering a better quality.

Jmy2ct
Rob

That is interesting. So to that extent the Bmw supplier pays Bmw for failed parts. which means BMW has less incentive to purchase the most reliable parts. I bet that includes labor as well.
My experience here in the USA has been that components are submitted for Life testing in real time which may be cycle tested for weeks or more to simulate the warranty period. Then shipments are spot checked continuously and entire shipments can be rejected and be replaced by the vendor.
Another incentive for vendor quality here is the use of class action law suits which are not unusual. BWW and VW are both well aware of them. VW was caught cheating on emission claims and BWM lost lawsuits involving wheel cracking even though they warned buyers of certain wheels that they might be prone to failure. They also had to remedy HPFP issues because of the safety hazard involved in a having a vehicle fail in highway traffic and had to reimburse and/or increase warranty to 80,000 miles on the fuel pumps.
I believe the fuel pump problem was caused by an elastomer O ring failure which should have been specified in a higher grade for a few cents more.
I am curious about the situation with the Toyota Supra made with the BMW engines. I am guessing that Toyota engineers made some changes in some specifications.

[MikeyH]

When I first got my e85 I was disappointed that it wasn't manufactured in Germany. After reading this, not any more.

[zxy]

The z3 and E85 were assembled in South Carolina in a dedicated facility, mostly by robots. I believe most everything including the engines arrive at the assembly area completed. The plant is now an enormous nearly 1/2 mile long plant making SUVs for the world. I think they assembled 444,000 vehicles here last year. If you take delivery here you get to experience the Performance Center using their M cars... https://bmwperformancecenter.com/delivery/ It is one of my favorite things about BMWs