Originally Posted by porsche911targa' post='1021191' date='Sep 30 2009, 10:46 AM

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.

Originally Posted by acorradi87' post='1021154' date='Sep 30 2009, 10:20 AM

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

Originally Posted by 968turboS' post='1021233' date='Sep 30 2009, 11:18 AM

Just to add to all this, why does BMW or German manufacturers in general use parts that fail a lot faster than their Japanese counterparts. I don't want to buy a Japanese car or plan to but you have to commend them for their reliability.
Parts like window regulators, alternators, waterpumps are all non issue items on Japanese cars. It's a shame that they can't do a better job on these constantly failing parts.
Raj

Originally Posted by flyingpuck' post='1021254' date='Sep 30 2009, 11:30 AM

Added to the list would have to be large plastic body panels (my X5 has huge plastic panels up front that even form the fenders) it all makes for less expensive production and reduced weight, but at what cost?

Originally Posted by thedreamshop' post='1021122' date='Sep 30 2009, 12:00 PM

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. [*]
2. [*]
3. [*]
4. [*]
5. [*]
6. [*]
7. [*]
8. [*]

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?

Originally Posted by 968turboS' post='1021233' date='Sep 30 2009, 02:18 PM

Just to add to all this, why does BMW or German manufacturers in general use parts that fail a lot faster than their Japanese counterparts. I don't want to buy a Japanese car or plan to but you have to commend them for their reliability.
Parts like window regulators, alternators, waterpumps are all non issue items on Japanese cars. It's a shame that they can't do a better job on these constantly failing parts.
Raj