The Good
There's so much good to say about the E36 series BMW, but I'll try to keep it to a few important points:
Engine and Transmission
The 328's real triumph, they work together simply and wonderfully, like a pair of accomplished dancers, smoothly shifting the car even when seemingly incredible demands are made by its driver. This is German engineering at its best.
Fit and Finish
I read a review in which the C5 Corvette was tested head-to-head against a BMW M3. In spite of the fact that the Corvette had a slight edge in the performance tests, the reviewers still chose the BMW over the Corvette. Why? The BMW's fit and finish was considered light years ahead of the Corvette. If you want a car, buy a Chevy. If you want a finely crafted machine, buy a BMW.
Suspension
I just don't know how BMW does it, but this is the finest stock suspension I've ever driven. It absorbs bumps well and keeps the tires in contact with the road under conditions that would send lesser cars' wheels hopping and skidding. I realized how spoiled I was with regard to suspension quality when I purchased a VW GTI VR6 and bottomed the front-end on more than one occasion during what I would call "normal" driving.
I learned more about suspensions that I'd ordinarily care to while looking for suitable aftermarket suspension parts for the GTI, and I learned one simple thing: BMW does it the right way -- straight from the factory.
Anti-Spin-Control (ASC)
BMW's early traction control system, which reacts to excessive differential wheel spin by reducing throttle, really helps keep this car's rear in check. It also has the side-effect of saving the rear tires, since this car definitely has enough torque to spin the wheels around every corner if you're a bit too heavy on the pedal. While this system is not as advanced as the currently-shipping Dynamic Stability Control (DSC), which marries a yaw-rate sensor with four-wheel independent control of the ABS braking system, ASC gets the job done.
Brakes
While I know for a fact that the next generation E46 brakes stop a bit better than the E36 (or at least they seem to "grab" a bit more aggressively), the E36 BMW brakes are light years ahead of any domestic vehicle and it's not hard to understand why -- they're designed for munching miles on the autobahn at 100MPH+, while domestic vehicles are clearly designed for our misguided 55MPH speed limits.
The brakes have worked consistently throughout their useful life, are easily modulated and have never warped. Of course, your mileage may vary, particularly if you do more city or performance driving than I do.
Stereo
My car came with the "premium" sound option. In this system, the head-unit and CD changer are made by Alpine for BMW, while the speakers and amplifier are made by Harmon Kardon.
In the seventh year of ownership one of the midrange drivers failed due to dry rot and I decided to replace all of the OEM speakers with aftermarket units. This upgrade improved the frequency response but did little for dynamic range of the system since the latter is most limited by the OEM amplifier. It's no audiophile system, I can assure you, but it's quite adequate for my needs.
The Bad
I can sum up the bad aspects of the BMW in one word: Maintenance. If you've read my maintenance pages, you'll already know what I'm going to say here. By far the number one problem with BMWs, aside from their initial cost, is the cost of maintenance.
My car was nearly 100% reliable through the first four years of ownership and required only scheduled maintenance, but since that time I've spent what I consider to be an above-average amount fixing various things. 2003's maintenance tab came to almost $4000. In early 2005, the car required a new transmission that cost the same amount. That's a lot of money, no matter how you slice it.
To give you an idea of how much / how often the BMW requires maintenance, here are some real-world numbers based primarily on my experience, but also that of other E36 owners who've contacted me over the years.
Tires
The car eats tires every 30K miles, assuming you drive spritely, but not like Mr Andretti. You do not rotate tires on a BMW, as the wear patterns are different (front tires wear on the outside edges while the rears wear at the center, and the rears always wear faster than the fronts). Swapping tires can negatively affect handling, to the point that BMW advises against rotation unless you do it at intervals of 3000 miles or less. Since that would get very expensive (if you pay someone to do it), or just time consuming (if you do it yourself), it's just cheaper and easier to put four new tires on the car when the rears are spent -- even if the fronts appear to have some life left in them. This costs money, yes, but your greatest enemy in any modern rear-wheel-drive sports car is worn tires. Don't scrimp on tires, or you'll wind up in the weeds.
Brakes
Front brakes are usually spent in 30-40K while the rears usually need attention at twice that interval. Brake fluid should be replaced when you do all four wheels OR every two years maximum per BMW's recommendations. Note that a brake job on a BMW involves replacing rotors along with the pads because they're designed to wear equally, and by the time the pads are spent, the rotors are at or near minimum specs. Also, cutting BMW rotors is a fool's errand. Don't do it. BMW rotors are cheap, so there is no excuse NOT to replace them outright.
Suspension
The car is equipped with struts in the front and shocks in the rear. Struts are typically good for about 72K, but I had to replace mine 55K because I blew one of them out and BMW recommends replacing them in pairs if they have over 20K miles on them. I replaced shocks at a bit over 90K but in retrospect handling had decreased to the point that I should have replaced them at 72K. The E36 model in particular has known issues with the rear shock mounts, so expect to do them at the same time you do shocks.
It is essential that these critical suspension components be replaced on a regular interval, or handling will slowly degrade to the point that you put the vehicle at risk.
Transmission
Getrag (a French division of GM) makes the E36 BMW automatic transmission. People say they're good for 150K miles or more and I have to believe that -- provided the fluid is replaced on a regular basis. BMW tries to sell the idea of "lifetime" fluid, but they're on crack (well, unless "lifetime" is defined as less than 100K miles). In my opinion, the fluid needs to be flushed at the first Inspection I and II (18K and 36K total miles, respectively) and then at every Inspection II (36K miles additional) thereafter.
I have no data to back up this assertion except my knowledge of oil -- it simply doesn't last forever. The problem for prospective owners of high mileage cars is that it's very likely that the fluid has never been replaced, so you take some risk in replacing it later on. The theory is that the solvent action of new fluid can free deposits that can clog the various valves and such, which can cause more problems than it solves.
Spark Plugs
Spark plugs should be done first at 72K, then at 36K intervals thereafter until the valve cover gaskets have been changed because it's essential to pull the coils to inspect the spark plug wells for oil that may form as a result of valve cover gasket leaks, and it makes little sense to pull everything apart and NOT replace the plugs.
Cooling System
The E36's cooling system works very well and is surprisingly light for its size, due to its extensive use of aluminum and composite materials. However, that's where the praise ends. Expect to do a complete cooling system overhaul on these cars at 75K-100K miles as preventative maintenance. While experienced technicians will correctly note that some components of the system are more reliable than others (I got over 100K miles on most of them), you put the engine at risk of an overheat when one of them fails. And since the labor involved to replace some of these components is shared it just makes sense to do everything at once.
Of all the cooling system components the thermostat typically fails first, and more frequently. I only got 60K miles out of my original unit. It's replacement was still going strong at about 60K miles later when I replaced it as part of a total cooling system overhaul. A classic sign of a slowly dying thermostat is a temperature needle that fails to reach the 12 o'clock position after the car has been running (on the road...not idling) for about 10 minutes. This is a relatively benign failure mode, hence the reason you can stretch the replacement inteval a bit.
The water pump is infamously unreliable beyond 80-120K miles. It's hard to be more specific regarding a service interval because there have been three revisions of the water pump throughout the life of the E36 and they each fail for different reasons. You don't want to be in the car when it goes because you will be left on the side of the road. All I can say is that I've never seen the temperature gauge on this car go beyond the vertical (12 o'clock position), so if you ever do see that you are advised to IMMEDIATELY pull off the road, turn off the engine, and call a flatbed. If you don't, you'll do damage to the engine that will make any cooling system overhaul look downright cheap.
You can extend the life of all cooling system components by flushing coolant every two years as BMW recommends. The radiator core is aluminum and doesn't take well to the acids that build up in the coolant over time. For what it's worth, my radiator was determined to be close to failure at about 125K miles following routine coolant flushes. The fact that most people don't do coolant flushes probably explains why many radiators fail with less mileage.
Engine Oil Changes
Engine oil changes should be done every 4500 miles, which is half the interval recommended by the service indicator lights. I use BMW 5W-30 synthetic primarily because it dramatically improves starting performance in the winter months. I don't bother switching to Dino oil in the summer months because...well, frankly, it's one less thing to worry about, it can't hurt anything, and hell -- oil is cheap. The engine isn't.
Cost Analysis
I conveniently define the total cost of ownership to include all expenses necessary to purchase and maintain the vehicle in "like new" condition. I specifically exclude insurance, loan servicing, fuel and body work to repair damage from crashes or other "random acts" so that the numbers may be more easily compared to other contexts.
Using this criteria, I've found my total cost of ownership for the 1998 E36 BMW to be $65000 over 9 years, or about $7200 / year. Not cheap by any standard, but not out of line with other vehicles in its class either.
Looking at the maintenance cost graph, take note that the low maintenance cost in 2001 was due to the fact that I drove a second car and thus put very few miles on the BMW. That pretty well demonstrates my observation that if you don't beat the hell out of the car, it won't necessarily hammer you in maintenance costs.
2002's tab was higher because the car came out of retirement to serve as my daily driver again and I decided to do a bit of preventative maintenance in addition to brakes, tires, etc. I had considered trading the car in 2002 before I did this work, but my finances dictated I stay the course. Years 2003 and 2004, in spite of a couple surprises, were pretty representative of what it costs to run a BMW as a daily driver to the tune of 20K+ miles a year. The average seems to be around $2500-3000/yr. Keep in mind that this with full maintenance including costly inspections performed by the dealer at $90/hr. If you use an indy mechanic or don't do inspections, you could probably realize better numbers.
In 2005, I replaced some big-ticket items including what I hope to be "once in a lifetime" items like the transmission ($3700) and A/C condenser ($800). On the more routine side of things, I had to do tires as well ($800). If I hadn't needed to replace the transmission, I could point out that maintenance costs were actually down slightly this year, following the trend started in 2002.
Unfortunately, 2005 was not the statistical abberation I hoped it would be. You don't need to have a doctorate in math or finance to figure out that 2006's maintenance tab of $7200 is a lot of money to spend on a car worth about the same amount on the open market but it's not exactly fair to take that number at face value. This year was harder than usual to quantify for several reasons:
- I invested about $1600 in tools to allow me to do my own maintenance. Tools are paid for up front, but pay for themselves in years to come in reduced labor charges and are applicable to both vehicles. It would be more appropriate to amortize the cost of the tools over the next 3-4 years and somehow split the cost between my vehicles, but I'm only interested in the here and now of what things cost me.
- I conservatively saved about $2000 in labor doing my own work (which is why I can justify including the cost of tools in this year's expenses). If I bothered to include stuff like detailing and the parts discounts I get by buying from alternative sources, the savings are MUCH higher, but I figured I'd be as realistic as possible.
- I spent another $1000 or so on items that were strictly cosmetic.
If I massage the data accordingly, the true maintenance cost for the E36 in 2006 came to no more than $6000, which is about what I spent last year
Maintenance costs for 2007 have been running at around half that of the two previous years and have thus returned to their historical averages. The year isn't over yet and anything can happen, of course, but my hope is to get off easy this year.
Summary
If, after reading all of this, you're still wondering whether you should take the plunge and buy BMW, let's just say you have to be able to justify it on several levels, not all of which are logical and rational (in that way, it's a lot like getting married and having a family). :-)
If I had to do this all over again, there are a few things I'd do differently:
- Keep a second car around so I can more effectively regulate the mileage I put on the BMW in order to extend its warranty to the calendar limit. It's true that most maintenance costs are directly related to mileage so this might not buy me much, but its nice to have the umbrella warranty for as long as possible.
- Ignore BMW propaganda and change the transmission fluid and filter regularly.
- Do more routine maintenance myself, including filters, spark plugs, and brakes.
- Replace inspections beyond the free scheduled maintenance period with targeted preventative maintenance. Inspections are costly and don't actually include the cost of anything that needs to be replaced. Provided you know your vehicle and use a knowledgeable mechanic that can keep on top of things, my experience is that the Inspection money is better spent on "real" maintenance (see #2).
It's important to note that maintenance costs have risen about 30% since 1998, and that there have been years in which I've clocked over 20000 miles on the odometer. If there is any silver lining to the high cost of maintenance, it's that most of it is directly related to mileage, so if you put only half as many miles a year on the car, it's safe to say your maintenance costs will be less than I have documented (unless of course you've bought a pre-owned car that has not received regular, proper maintenance, but that's another story).
When I look back at my decision to buy a BMW those many years ago, I had no idea what I was getting myself into -- both from the perspective of maintenance costs and how owning a BMW would fundamentally alter my expectations for what a car can and should be. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that in spite of the high costs of ownership, I have no immediate plans to sell the car.
Advice to Buyers
The key to ownership of a BMW is good, documented maintenance. If you buy any BMW new, make sure you maintain it so you can get maximum return in the aftermarket. If you buy it used, demand the seller produce documentation to prove it has been maintained in accordance with BMW's recommendations. The two most obvious paper trails are maintenance facility invoices or appropriate stamps in the car's maintenance logbook. If the seller can't produce one or the other, RUN AWAY. If you purchase a car that hasn't been maintained, your wallet will hurt...maybe not immediately, but eventually.
