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by gumballindie 1021 days ago
BMW in particular, and german carmakers as a whole are in for a rough decade. Declining quality and increasing competition will pose the kind of risks not even eu protectionism can shield them from.

One such risk is china. German carmakers desperately need new markets and china is one of them. But germany and the eu cant bully china and they will want access to european markets in return. And what i am reading and hearing is that chinese ev carmakers are rather competitive.
3 comments
singleshot_ 1021 days ago
I am adjacent to a Mini (bmw manufactured) owner who reported a leaky sunroof to the dealer. Dealer examined the roof and concluded that “the frame has melted and warped” and accordingly the sunroof will always leak. Cost to repair: five thousand dollars.

There’s “declining quality,” and then there’s “the roof melts.” I wouldn’t consider buying a bmw for a long, long time.

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gumballindie 1021 days ago
My former BMW dashboard, the area below the satnav, has something that appears to have melted. It’s not the hard plastic that did it but something that appears to be a coating of some sort. It had a sunroof, and probably that caused it. The rear stopping lights circuits fried somehow, replaced them myself. Apparently water gets in?

My porsche 981 had the roof peel off, and the door panels gradually ungluing. More worrying they made a recall on my model, whereby the rear axel can crack in certain circumstances, years after issuing the same recall for US customers.

BMW owners of certain models have told me about timing chains snapping, or differentials breaking.

Not buying any of these brands again, ever. Chose an american brand instead, part due to quality, part due to politics. Couldnt be happier. At least i dont need to pay thousands just be able to play music or stream my maps. Even if it breaks down i’s still have saved money so i can fix it.

This i think is relevant to this forum because it underlines a fundamental issue with a country who’s economy is largely reliant on manufacturing quality goods. That quality seems to decline rather fast, and it will have serious impact over european affairs in my view. First warning sign was cheating on emissions. Second warning was desperate attempts at charging owners monthly fees. Now it’s clear there’s something rotten in germany.

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vleaflet 1021 days ago
Was your BMW manufactured in the US? Scott Kilmer gave this advice for American car buyers; make sure the BMW or Mercedes-Benz you're looking for was built in Germany! US versions apparently have terrible quality, not even close to EU standards.
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inferiorhuman 1007 days ago
Scotty Kilmer is a fucking moron, and his advice is worth what you paid for it. He's great at vomiting out old wives tales though.
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gumballindie 1020 days ago
Made in Germany. They sometimes last until warranty +1 day then they just fall apart.
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wink 1021 days ago
Oh no, they're absolutely not. The lobbyists stand ready and the government will continue shoveling money in the general direction of the holy cow. I'd find it funny if it wasn't so sad.
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lambdasquirrel 1021 days ago
After the revelations about carmaker privacy concerns[0], it seems that having options from privacy-conscious Germany is necessary for the market. BMW was one of the better ones (admittedly in a sea of quite-bad), according to Mozilla's read of the legalese.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37404413

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nebula8804 1021 days ago
Seems like Mazda wasn't even in the list. When the Mozilla site dropped I immeaditly searched for Mazda and either Mozilla didn't test them or Mazda don't collect any meaningful info. They are old school in many ways. This mentality sucks sometimes:

-their attempts at lowering fleet emissions is to just drop trucks and make all their cars use a series of efficient engines but not actually adopt EVs seriously until way down the line. This meets the goal(others get to the same number by selling gas guzzlers + compliance EVs) but is really against the grain.

Other times this old school mentality is good.

-insisting on not using touch screens so drivers dont get frustrated and can focus on the road

-sticking with traditional transmission instead of those god awful CVTs

-probably not adopting the infrastructure to make mass surveillance in their cars possible (or so I guess).

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