thedreamshop

Is it just me, or are there certain parts on all BMWs that are designed to fail? Here is my theory... the factory only makes money on parts. There was probably a board meeting at BMW a long time ago where some young executive came up with this idea in order to get a promotion: He decided that the car manufacturers trying to make their money on the sale of the car were short sighted chumps, and that the real money is in part sales down the road. So the scheme is to make an exciting, appealing, high performance car and sell it cheap ( relatively speaking ) with full intentions on making all the profit on the parts sales. In fact I am sure some market research has been done to decide what parts to design to fail based on criteria that maintains the brand name and brand appeal. For example, if your driver's door fell off at 61K miles, just outside of warranty you would just sell the piece of junk and buy an Audi or Lexus. But if your water pump, window regulator, and alternator all failed at the same time you would likely say to yourself well I guess its about time to do some maintenance and go ahead and have the repairs done.

In order to prove me wrong I need a good explanation of why our window regulators have plastic guides ( which fail every 40-70K miles ) instead of metal guides which would last the life of the car. Or how about our water pumps, please explain why plastic impeller blades were used ( I know some have been re-designed with metal blades ) and don't tell me the plastic saves weight or lowers the cost of the part.

Lets make a list

1. window regulators
2. water pumps
3. alternators
4. radiators
5. expansion tanks
6. automatic transmissions
7. smg hydraulic pump
8. a/c compressors

What items would you add to this list? What is the expected failure rate or milage of these parts. Pictures of the failed part would be cool to see also?

Anzafin

Ha! Swirl flaps in diesel engines !!!


:thumbsdown:

porsche911targa

My first guess would be that they use plastic to reduce weight.

Krozi

But honestly.... I can't give zyou an answer

thedreamshop

That is exactly the attitude that the market research firm was counting on. Seriously, the plastic guide in the window regulators could be made out of metal and would only add about 3 grams weight to the car.

pjinca

I can answer this pretty easily. You see this in all manufacturing, not just BMW or even just cars. Makers use plastic because it's cheaper and easier to manufacture parts than with metal (no foundry needed). This is true of all products.
10 years ago my mom got her nearly 20 year old vacuum serviced - a Hoover Spirit. The guy that did the work commented on how he missed these older vacuums with the all metal internals because they needed "tune-ups" not full replacement as the newer ones did. As you can see it isn't just BMW, or even Ford or GM - it's across the board. Companies realized that if some customers COULD keep their products 20+ years they would and that is bad for the bottom line. Your cars running for 20 years and a million miles makes for a good commercial but a crappy sales year.

acorradi87

This is coincidental because I was just talking to a woman I work with about how she's lucky to have an old style 3-hole punch that has all metal parts, as opposed to the very new 3 hole punch I used yesterday that is made of all plastic (except for the punching cylinders) that feels cheap as hell and you know will break within the next couple years.

Totally different items, I know, but they are very related. Almost everything produced today is designed to fail because if companies made things that lasted forever they would all be out of business, correct? As a business minded person I understand this approach but my consumer side is a tad pissed off.

To see the positive side however, the prices for our cars are so much less here, comparatively, than in other nations. I read an article yesterday that the X5 M in Australia will base at $173,000 Australian, and converted to American dollars it's still a whopping $150,000. Even in Germany a 550 M that is built comparably to mine comes in at roughly 70,000 Euro which converted is about $100,000. This is another reason it's rare to see top of the line models in foreign countries in conjunction with higher fuel prices (although I can only personally speak for Italy and Germany because I've actually been there).

Bottom line, yes things are most likely designed to not last but not only for our cars but other electronics and appliances in general. But to see a small positive, try to focus on the price discrepancy. =)

acorradi87

Funny you say that. My grandmother's Kirby vacuum is from 1962 and works better than the one I bought 2 weeks ago.

sy1616

I tend to agree with you on all points. Add suspension bushings to the list too!

I think the answer lies in how a part is made, not the weight. A plastic impeller can be made much easier than a metal one for instance. Unit cost, even at 10 cents per car in huge.

porsche911targa

I see that we're comparing vacuum cleaners to cars. Personally, even if BMW made a car that lasted 100 years with no maintenance, I would still buy a newer model every 4-5 years just to have the latest toys. I think this is the planned obsolescence the OP was talking about more than the plastic parts. Many people end up going to independents after the warranty expires, so there's no money in it for them. Hit the customers with newer and *better* cars than what they already have and they will gladly give up their perfectly good car for the newer one. I see this on this very forum. Many of our members have moved from pre-LCI models to LCI models just to get the "improvements" even though their pre-LCI cars were still in great shape. This is true with almost every new product from computers to phones and beyond.

Cars in general last a lot longer than cars made in the past. I remember when my carburated cars needed to go to the shop almost every month for one thing or another, usually for major mechanical repairs. We're so spoiled now that if we make two trips a year to the dealer for a wind noise or a window regulator we think our cars are junk.