1) Flattery will get you nowhere.

2) What percentage of your car do you think is actually "manufactured" in the traditional sense by BMW? They are nothing more than glorified assemblers of outsourced parts - of which they are responsible.

3) Still waiting on the "disgruntled owner page" you refer to.

 

...while anyone who owns/has owned both brands (as I do/have) can attest to the less-than-Lexus-like quality of both of these brands, the point is that we were discussing the E46 M3's blown engine issue. And if you'll go back and tell me exactly where I wrote a single solitary paragraph or citation in my series of posts with your friend that was inaccurate, I'll be happy to recant what I wrote, but I sourced my post with testimonies of BMW owners, and I stand by what I wrote.

This guy might be your friend, but the fact remains that he is a newb who came in here insulting and attacking people for making assertions that were factually accurate: there WERE blown engines and BMW DID refuse to pay for them and blamed the owners. He attempted, repeatedly, to minimize this issue, and imo a hole blown in the side of an engine is a MAJOR issue, and blaming the customers makes it even MORE major.

Raising red herring arguments or changing the subject to minimize this doesn't change the facts, and the facts are summarized very nicely on the previous page with letters by BMW owners and photos they took of their engines with rather large holes punched into them.

As to the IC pump issues, you didn't say IC pump issues, you said "heat issues". This is ambiguous; I assumed you meant engine heat issues, not intake charge issues...in any case, while this is a definite problem, it is not comparable as 1) the engine hasn't blown, and 2) MB is fixing it and not blaming customers.

And my local Benz dealership(s) are both pretty good in service and customer service, though they still have a ways to go to hit Lexus' level.

But I doubt anyone here is under the illusion that Benzes are Lexus-like in their quality.

 

That is true, MB has indeed fixed the heat soak problems and its a shame what BMW did to its customers with blown engines.

But I think that an engine completely shutting off for no reason at all is unexcusable...especially if it happened twice. This was a life-threatening situation and Mercedes wouldn't take the car back. All my father asked for was that they replace his Mercedes for another SL55 or an SL600/65 and he would pay the difference in price, but MB refused and he had to take legal action. On top of the engine having a mind of its own, the car also had bad heat soak problems, the ABC suspension was leaking, the roof was rattling like a tin can, the convertible top would sometimes not go down all the way and would sometimes start to slightly raise while driving, when he would cut the wheel to park the car it would make a loud banging noise which Mercedes wasn't able to figure it out, while driving on a straight or twisty road the car would sway side to side (very dangerous), and there were many many more problems that I just can't remember.

My father has owned over 30 Mercedes, about 10 BMW's, Ferrari, Jags, Lexus, Lambo, Bentley, and many many more. He rated his Ferrari 308 as the most problematic car he's ever owned (car shut down 5 times in 3 weeks due to engine overheating). His SL55 definitely took second place. He also owned a CL (model before the w215) which he had to lemon because of a ridiculous rattle and a steering issue.

He agrees that so far, from what he's seen, BMW's generally are less problematic than Mercedes.

Improviz, as you may have seen, I am a huge Mercedes fan. I love Mercedes and chose my CLK over a Bimmer. But I am not biased in any way and am just stating what I've seen from my experience and my family's experience. That's all. Your w208 AMG is a great car, real top notch build quality. I doubt you ever see a problem with your car.

As far as blown Benz engines go, the only blown engine I've ever heard of was a 55 Kompressor that got blown up from abuse with Nitrous Oxide (the video is on youtube somewhere). Otherwise, nope never heard of it. I do remember reading about Chevy's LS7 motors blowing and now I can see the multiple cases of M3 motors going too.

 

.....Well, the engine shutting off problem is not what people describe with an IC pump issue, which is a failure of the intercooler water pump; this in turn raises charge temps to a high level, which can damage the engine--IF the supercharger wasn't shut down due to high temps, which it is, which is why the power falls through the floor.

But what you're describing is something different, and is not something I've seen widely described in these forums. An isolated lemon case does not, imo, equate to hundreds of blown engines. ALL manufacturers have lemon issues, even Lexus, but all manufacturers do NOT have clusters of blown engines, and do NOT blame customers for them on top of that. One single lemon case hardly counters this, or compares to it in any way.

Wrt quality issues, ymmv....I know people who've owned both and swear up and down that the Benzes are less trouble-prone. Friend of mine got a 7 Series and hated it, sold it, got an S Class, which while not trouble-free has been a lot less troublesome than the 7.

But I've really spent more than enough time chasing this little red herring, and so I'll stop. The blown engine issue was very widespread, and again, for about the hundreth time now, BMW M3 owners were the ones who complained the loudest about this, so I really don't think that it is accurate, fair, or intellectually honest to try and cast my reporting of these issues in response to your friend's attempts to minimize them as some sort of "bias" on my part, any more than my correcting someone who posted inaccurate weather data would make me "biased" in favor of rain.

What I did was honestly and accurately report what BMW owners have written. If you have an issue with this, take it up with them and stop shooting the messenger.

 

Also I read a long term update on the 2006 bmw 330i in Automobile mag which had 28k miles. The engine needed to be rebuilt.

 

I'll take an engine losing power and shutting off due to an IC pump failure over a blown engine with a hole in the block.