Comment by marssaxman
17 hours ago
> BMW has over-engineered the
They have over-engineered the everything, because that is what BMW does. That is what they have been about for the last thirty years.
17 hours ago
> BMW has over-engineered the
They have over-engineered the everything, because that is what BMW does. That is what they have been about for the last thirty years.
After reading the blog post I had the same thought. Doing an oil change on my F650GS motorcycle required removing the plastics, draining the oil from both the top and bottom of the motorcycle, removing a plate on the side of the engine after install the BMW specified oil redirection funnel, extracting the filter and reinstalling. The oil funnel had a legit BMW part number. Most of us either just made a mess or used a piece of a milk jug. Probably 15 fasteners and 2 drain plugs.
Comparable process on my Sv650: drain plug out. Drain plug in. Screw off filter. Screw on filter. Fill.
It's basically the plot of the Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Back then they should just let the oil go on the side of road. No need to capture it
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Not too bad though all things considered, there are worse examples out there, like my old KTM adventure bike. Interestinlgy, the BMW R1200/1250/1300GS is actually simpler due to the boxer engine design.
The proper BMW oil change procedure is to remove the engine and flip it upside down.
Wait until you see a picture of a clutch replacement on an R1200... this should probably have a NSFW tag attached: https://www.reddit.com/r/motorcycle/comments/1he20rk/r_1200_...
Oh, my god.
For anyone that's not familiar, replacing a clutch is usually on the same order of difficulty as an oil change. Unbolt a place, extract the clutch pack, pop in a new one, cover goes back on.
Thanks for curing me of my desire to get one of these.
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You win some, you lose some. Comparable process on my E46 and E39: Drain plug out (potentially flipping a little dust cover out of the way). Drain plug in. Stand up because everything else happens up top. Unscrew filter housing. Replace filter element. Replace filter housing. Fill.
E90 is the same but you’re supposed to loosen the filter because otherwise some vacuum holds in an extra 0.5L of oil.
I like the top mount oil filters, less mess.
Hello, fellow E39 owner. Mine is my first BMW, and for all I hear about over-engineering from them, this has been a pretty straightforward car to work on. As "complicated" as the suspension is, for example, it was pretty simple to replace everything. I suppose that reputation has been earned from their more modern cars.
I won't argue with non EV engineering, but high voltage stuff in an EV is a lot harder problem to make safe in event of a crash and subsequent repair. I come out as a BMW apologist, but Vanja (evclinic Head boss) likes to be overly dramatic. BMW (and almost all other brands) are very afraid that someone will die when repairing/driving/rescuing someone from an EV and they go to great (and expensive) lengths to make sure the battery and the vehicle is as safe as possible. The fuse here is a small part, checks and certifications that go into making the battery truly safe (in scale, all edge cases ect) are a lot more than just the fuse. And that is expensive.
Thanks for pointing that out - at first I thought this was an act designed to turn cheap repairs impossible to drive new car sales, and force people into BMWs hugely expensive service network, but after learning this is for my own good, I'm relieved and happy to learn BMW is looking out for me.
evclinic overly relies on drama for their content
I worked with Vanja before EVs were mass produced, he is very driven and smart, but also eccentric. With his previous experience with Mercedes Electric repair he figured out that, sooner or later repair/knowledge/tools will get commoditized, so push at the start and try to get a big foothold/mindshare before this happens. Very few people actually have the knowledge to judge your work early on, so you can get very far if you are intentionally promoting yourself and behaving very confident.
His Tesla Battery cell repair stuff, anyone that was near a open battery knows it's fucking dangerous thing that has VERY low chance of actually working in medium term - but it gets him a lot of respect by clueless people. But he also does good stuff, but his image and reality are VERY different things.
Exactly, these are intentional decisions for German cars. They’re gorgeous, over-engineered, cutting edge pieces of machinery and the expense of being practical or repairable. The common understanding for decades has been if you’re buying a German luxury car as a daily driver and repair costs are something you even have to consider, you’re buying the wrong car.
Old BMW is nothing like new BMW - I know a few older folks who drive 20+year old BMWs and Audis with 500k+ km they drove off the salon parking lot - not because they can't afford a new one, but they like the current ones.
These old cars were engineered to a high standard, and designed to be maintained - while maintenance isn't cheap, with proper servicing and car, they could last forever.
This is entirely different - in the past few years BMW has become infamous for using low quality plastic fasteners that become brittle and break eventually, and all around penny-pinching everywhere.
It seems they even took the logical next step and installed draconian repair and service prevention measures.
They took the stance that once the car is out of the warranty period and isn't brough to an official service center, they stand to make no profit on it, so it should end up in the scrapyard in the shortest time possible.
This proves to me they don't understand their own market - people who buy expensive (70k+ish EUR) BMWs are all financial wizards who lease their cars, tax optimize them to the gills through legally grey methods and other schemes, and then resell them at the end of the lease.
This means they're able to drive them for like 300-400 euro a month cost - but only because of resale value. If they kill resale, then people won't buy them.
The amount of people who will put down 70k+ in cash at the salon is exceedingly small.
It was not always so. The E30 I used to drive - a 1986 model 325 - was a marvelous little thing, not only a joy to drive but a pleasure to work on. Its engineers had been just as thoughtful about its maintenance as its operation.
The car was 20 years old when I had it, but still ran like a top. I'm sure I'd have been driving it for many more years had my ex not run it into the back of a tow truck.
They have not over-engineered anything in this case - they have deliberately taken user-hostile actions, going out of the way to prevent repair, and turn cheap repairs into very expensive ones.
- They welded the case: even the engine block that experiences combustion pressures and temps is just bolted together - why?
- They even outdid (pre-R2R) Apple in every aspect - proprietary components, everything put together on the same PCB, with third party replacements impossible, replacement parts locked out cryptographically, and 'anti-theft' (anti-repair) systems installed so even authorized dealers are at a risk of bricking the vehicle - and third party shops can't even repair it.
- They are German so in the EU they are above the law (or more accurately they write the law) - but it'd be nice if us Europeans had their own Louis Rossmans and actionable right to repair laws, and the EU did something beyond bullying foreign tech companies, and applied the same level of scrutiny to domestic ones as well.
This is a comical level of evil - they know that due to the proprietary components (that you can't get at an auto parts store), when these vehicles become 10-15 years old, they will be either uneconomical to repair, with repair costs exceeding the value of the vehicle, no third party parts, no possibility of third-party service - people will resort to stealing these cars to source replacement parts.
So they installed a system that bricks the vehicle should it detect tampering - which might happen if somebody tries to fix their own vehicles.
And let me reiterate, Germans are above the law in the EU - the only reason Dieselgate became a huge scandal is that the US found out about it - please, American friends, could you do another 'gate' about this - its for the good of all.
It's also how they got a lot of things very early in the game like radars. They had adaptive cruise control in 1999 (similar to Mercedes).
Yet somehow adaptive cruise is a rarity on the BMWs out there, often requiring an option package that few dealers spec. (Though I think this may be finally starting to change with the 2025 model year).
That's just because literally everything is an optional add-on on a BMW.
So many BMWs out there on the road without the indicators package because the owner cheaped out when buying it.
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Sadly, they’re close to 100% caught up to automatic transmissions in North America.
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Are they switching to monthly subscriptions?
I think it's a German thing to be honest. I've wrenched on Mercedes Benz and VW personally, and I've heard horror stories from Audi as well.
My merc exposure is both on very old (70s) and modern. So I would actually argue that over engineering shit is in their DNA, they don't know how not to do it.
My brother had an old W123 body Merc for a while. It had fucking vacuum lines running to all the doors for central locking. I had a SsangYong with an old-school Merc OM617 diesel engine in it. Great engine, and it was relatively easy to work on, but the oil filter was positioned such that you can't replace it without spilling oil all over the engine bay. Infuriating!
Hard to maintain systems, whether it's hardware or software, are underengineered if anything.
I love this take. Thanks for sharing it. Puts into words why sometimes I can spend a lot of time thinking about how to improve a system: trying to save future effort.
I have a BMW G20 3-series. So far I've counted 31 electric motors in the car for various things. I keep discovering more.
People get upset when a BMW is expensive to repair, but they're misunderstanding the sophisticated German engineering. You're not supposed to repair it. You're supposed to throw it away and buy a new one.
In Germany BMW's target market are company cars. Having the company pay for your car has tax benefits here even if you also use it outside work, so the company giving you a nice car that gets replaced by a new model every three years is a sought-after benefit. Those cars are indeed sold to the next idiot before they develop any issues
/s or /$ What's the best tag for your post?
I missed the memo when putting everything together on one impossible to repair PCB and then gluing/sealing it permanently became 'sophisticated German engineering' instead of bottom-shelf junk.
The sophisticated engineering works (or worked?) mostly fine if the piece of machinery is operated in the extremely narrow "just right" operating ranges the sophisticated engineer defined. To much dust in the air? One too many potholes? Not the premium brand oil? There goes your sophisticated machinery.
Times have changed and now the fuse replacement is not just a mater of over engineering, something someone put together thinking it's a technically perfect process. It became a revenue stream. Car designed also by accountants.