CJITTY

Shouldn't this be in Car Chat? You would probably get a ton of Lexus owners, former BMW owners that will give you an earful of why they left BMW. Most likely because they got tired of going to their service advisor kid's soccer games..since they are so close and all lmao

GXAlan

If anything the LS has more maintenance requirements with the pre-2013 needing 5k oil change intervals! But you can't argue that the N55 is as reliable as the 1UR-FSE.

You're right that modern BMWs are much better than old BMWs. Take a Subaru Forester. Not CANBUS, Bulletproof Fuji Heavy Industries build. FHI even builds the Apache Longbow in Japan!

http://autos.jdpower.com/research/Su...Group=Forester
http://autos.jdpower.com/research/BM...Group=3-Series
The 3-series is just as reliable as the Subaru.

Take a Lexus IS. It's a Lexus, right? The 5 series is as reliable:
http://autos.jdpower.com/research/Le...?modelGroup=IS
http://autos.jdpower.com/research/BM...Group=5-Series
(Though the 4GR-FSE isn't as reliable as the 2GR-FSE).

So I know they don't all break like mine...

... but then you have the LS.
http://autos.jdpower.com/research/Le...?modelGroup=LS

Lexus does unique things for the LS that they don't do on the other cars. The engine assembly is done in clean rooms. Every engine is bench tested with a stethoscope and every engine block is CT scanned to ensure there is no cavity bubbles. Every car is road tested at high speed.

Just in the last two weeks...
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=780666
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...=591022&page=5 (see last post)

The fundamental problem with the BMW is not the little problems. Is that when it does break, it's a big deal:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/...ty-survey.html

And it's hard to argue against hard data:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/au...tudy.html?_r=0

http://www.autonews.com/assets/PDF/CA915411028.PDF

Devh

I had a 5 series and it was the worst car I ever owned in terms of reliability. Ten years prior to this a good friend owned a 5 series and it had all sorts of problems but I thought his situation was isolated otherwise I would have thought twice.
Even though my 5 series was under warranty it had to go in for all sorts of little thing like wheel bearings and the idle tensioner pulley breaking multiple times. The day it came home there was a transmission fluid leak that was typical because there was a recall on the seals for all of the models that use that transmission.
I have performed all of the general services and noticed on inspection the car weeping fluids around the oil pan and transmission. I incidentally had the pleasure of meeting a person who was a BMW mechanic and he let me know that this was typical of all BMWs to leak because of EU regulations regarding the way seals are to be manufactured environmentally but it comes at a cost to the unlucky owner after the warranty runs out.

I had several costly repairs after that which I performed to save on labor but the parts were expensive as hell if you are trying to save money. When it came time to sell the car nobody was interested despite it's low selling price but eventually after 2 months it sold to the only person who came to look at it.
I'm not the only person I have met that has these or worse problems with modern European cars.
In general European cars are one big unreliable energy star appliance that try to push efficiency to the edge at the cost of reliability.
Since owning the Lexus I found it to be low tech on everything mechanical compared to the BMW but that's a good thing.

williakz

And I said above:

If you're still intent on looking into the 5 Series, you want the 2013 535i [RWD] M-Sport which is really the sweet spot of the series, IMO.

williakz

So 2013 LS460's are no longer on 5k oil change intervals? What is your authority for this? Do you have any document that states it in black and white? If so, please post the document or a link to where it may be found. Thanks in advance.

williakz

Thank you very much for taking the time to post the links supporting your argument. It is indeed untenable to argue that Lexus and BMW offer the SAME quality in all the vehicles they produce. Lexus is clearly superior in terms of reliability. Oh, anyone want to take a stab at why LS460 quality has gone down markedly (20%) from model year 2013 to model year 2014? Someone forget to change out the clean-room filters, perhaps?

That said, I maintain that late-model BMW 535i RWD cars (M-Sport specifically) are of uniformly excellent design, build, and functionality. While the occasional lemon plagues all manufacturers, I have seen nothing that indicates a systemic fault in this particular vehicle. NOTE: I do not make ANY claims regarding BMW reliability (or Lexus for that matter) for model years prior to those of my experience (2013-2014).

Nospinzone

I was unaware of such a drop off, that is substantial. What is your source for this statistic?

williakz

GXAlan posted above:

"So I know they don't all break like mine...but then you have the LS.
http://autos.jdpower.com/research/Le...?modelGroup=LS"

The larger point I was making is that we all know there is NO DIFFERENCE between 2013 and 2014 LS460 models. So, how then are we to interpret a decline in reported quality from 5 stars to 4 stars (-20%)? I put it down to the phenomenon of reporting as valid the opinions of "Leno's Jaywalkers." In other words, don't believe everything you "read in the newspaper."

Devh

I for one follow trends based on user experiences not JD power or consumer reports unless they have consistently shown a good trend for a number of years. Reputations are not built on a new model year. If I plan to ditch a car before the warranty runs out it really doesn't matter how good or bad the reliability is as long as I enjoy the car for whatever subjective indulgence you are after.
Lexus has demonstrated to me that their cars are as reliable as their products made by their parent company which has a strong reputation. If you are spending three or four times the amount for a normal passenger car it should be built right with solid reliable engineering considerations first then the gadgets second.

williakz

And just where do you come by these "user experiences" in a form that is both statistically significant and indicative of the "trends" you seem uniquely able to intuit?

GXAlan

my mistake. 2014 and newer are officially 10k

Devh

In the past pre internet days you did not need a magazine to let you know which cars were worth their reliability. Reputations were earned for just for about everything by word of mouth over time. Neighbors, co-workers, friends and family. If you have a great product word of mouth is quiet infectious and the same is true when you don't. Consumer reports was a publication that I did follow at one time but I found that they will rate a relatively new product high and then trash it the year after. One good example is the Mitsubishi Montero revision.
I have seen other publications give some cars better then average reliability ratings like the Porsche Boxster but it was later theorized that the owners surveys were biased because of brand loyalties aka fanboys of the product.

I'm not saying you don't follow publications as they are a useful tool but I think it's better to follow long term trends of a company and personal experiences from other owners (something I wish I followed). Yes you can get a lemon of any brand but there are some makes that earned their bad reputation and it will take them at least one or two model cycles to earn it back.

GXAlan

I think you and I will have to agree to disagree. The N55 engine is one of BMW's best selling (so it works well most of the time). Unfortunately, when something goes wrong it's a major wrong. I think it's telling to see that BMW is still figuring out what they want to do with their fuel injection. N54 was piezoelectric. N55 is solenoid. B48 (and likely N58) goes back to piezoelectric injectors. Lexus had been super slow with direct injection but they have been fairly consistent with their dual injector approach. (It's not clear what the NX features.)

As an former owner of a 2014 535i (which means it beat out the GS and LS in my initial comparison), I would caution prospective owners about BMW reliability and strongly believe that the BMW should be leased rather than purchased since it is unlikely to last 7+ years, based upon certain design choices. Things may change in 2016.

On the Lexus side, I would caution prospective owners about the Lexus infotainment system which is the most outdated among its luxury peers. However, mechanically, the engine and drivetrain are going to be bulletproof and the only major malfunction expected is the air suspension. I would also say that rattles and wind noise are going to pop up.

To answer your question about JDPower, "quality" is customer satisfaction while "dependability" refers to repairs. Just as the original iPhone wouldn't satisfy the modern consumer in 2014, I would expect the LS "quality score" to drop over time as the 2014 LS is still similar to the 2007 LS and the rest of the world has continued to progress. So, if lots of wind noise is ok to the average consumer in 2007 but it's no longer acceptable in 2014, the scores will drop. As an example of progress, modern cars like the Hyundai Genesis are quieter than the 5 series and the Kia K900 is quieter than an LS (at idle). If a customer complains about something like wind noise, poor text to speech quality, inconsistent MP3 support, behind-the-times Enform, or the inability to change destination of the GPS while in motion, more in 2014 compared to 2013 then the "quality" score will drop. If an owner is disappointed that the F Sport models only come in aluminum trim and makes that comment as a criticism on JDPower survey, the "quality" score goes down.

Dependability is based upon repairs in the last 12 months of the previous generation car.

My two cents.

Please bookmark this thread. Let's make plans to check in 2015 if your impression of your 535i is the same, and if my impression of the bulletproof LS is the same, defined strictly as being able to drive the car. You think I'm unnecessarily harsh on BMW because I had an early failure. I think you're unnecessarily kind to BMW because you just haven't encountered your first "drivetrain malfunction" warning yet.

Devh

I think your post is spot on. BMWs design choices are for a lack of a better word ridiculous over engineering that is proven to fail. The BMW along with many of the German makes are near conceptual cars.
The Lexus can produce the same result but with proven technology that has lasted the test of time. Lexus touts they are the first at some of their technical marvels but the reality is, it's just a low tech car at it's heart.
I test drove the newer 4 cylinder 5 series and it was a pathetic compared to my old inline 6 even though it had more power with that turbo. The inline 6 is probably the smoothest engine configuration next to the 12 and there is no way I'm going to spend near 50k on a four banger.

shrikelex

Everybody wants to switch up every once in a while, over at the BMW forum, most members love their beemers like we love our Lexus 460 spaceships. Having owned four 320i RIP, 735i, 1 and 2, RIP, and 745i-sold, I will say they served proudly and I salute them, whatever junkyard they may be in now. I find the older beemers tastefully modded very cool, new one's are nice too of course, but the only way I'd go on a 3, 5 or 7 series would be a lease for like 12-16 months, I still remember a BMW salesguy once told me, "Drive it for two years, never change the oil and bring it back with the tires bald and the engine smoking, walk away and you'll be a happy camper"