http://www.autoblog.com/2008/06/04/j-dd-po...-quality-study/

 

 

This doesn't look favorable to BMW, but it does show improvement. The industry shows 7 fewer problems per 100 cars than last year, and so does BMW (7 fewer problems).

Of more importance to us, however, is that BMW's ratings on actual quality factors (defects or malfunctions) has traditionally been among the best 5 brands in the industry. JD Power added other stuff to these initial quality ratings last year, I think. "Design failure" is included now in the overall ratings, and it's clear that new BMW owners are frustrated by the controls for HVAC, navigation, audio, turn signals, and of course, iDrive. Idiots.

I notice that in the press release the BMW plant in Germany that manufactures the 3 series is ranked among the best in the industry with few defects / malfunctions. I'm not worried about the quaility of BMWs.

MINI is another story - near bottom of the barrel. Ouch.

 

I never really trust these studies that much. I firmly believe that people who buy certain cars are much more pickyer(BMW,M then people who buy other cars(Chevy, Ford, Chrysler). Not to mention most of your luxury brands are selling cars that are high on technology opposed to Chevy who 90% of there vehicles sold are pretty basic cars in the technology department. Not really making exuses but I think its hard to compare company's across the board on a std. test like this. Porsche is at the top because they basically only produce 4 types of automobiles and they usually attract people who are buying them as second or third cars. In other words they get driven/used less then most companys cars who are used as daily drivers. Though in the supercar world they get used by far the most over the other brands and hold up well.

 

I agree. The survey probably doesn't account for mileage or how many vehicles the driver has. A guy who buys a 911 as his fourth car may drive it three times in the first 90 days. Seriously. Look at Porsche pre-owned 911s. They all seemingly have 5,000 miles or less on the odometer. They need a better way to rate the "complaints". If you screw up something on your iphone a week after taking delivery of your BMW and you go back to your service advisor to pair the car to the phone again, is that scored as an initial quality complaint? Perhaps they should look at the number of repairs required in the first 90 days that exceed $250.00. That type of threshold would give us information that might say more about build quality and less about the owner's idiosyncrasies.


DRP

 

I second these thoughts! We're not comparing apples to apples here...

 

No idea but 3 months and 4000 miles later I have not had a single problem with my 550i.