used car problem

JustinR1979

It's the owners.
All the people in the world that poorly maintain their cars got together and agreed to buy Astras.


Old Meganes have to go through wheelarch or something, workmate had no dipped beam for months because it's such a pain to do!

OddballJamie

darkmatter101 wrote: »

I'm not sure then, maybe that method of changing light bulbs is common among car manufacturers. Either way the BMW are known to be difficult to work on, hence the higher labor costs.

The higher labour costs are due to the owners willingness to pay, that and most 3 Series are company cars.

darkmatter101 wrote: »

As for Astra's I have heard so many bad things about them in terms of reliability. I knwo the 1.6 and 1.8 litre petrol Astras give poor mpg and I've heard of numerous repairs that needs to be done on them. Not sure whether its the car or the type of people who own them and probably don't maintain them

Strange that as the Astra H came out top out of ex-fleet cars
http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/buying-and-selling/2010-03/2009-reliability-index/

I have mine serviced approximately every 6k miles and it hasn't had a single fault in four years. Even if it did, it has a 100,000 mile no time limit warranty.

BTW how's the Lexus running?

OddballJamie

JustinR1979 wrote: »

It's the owners.
All the people in the world that poorly maintain their cars got together and agreed to buy Astras.

I must be a rare breed then, mine still looks and drives like new.

JustinR1979 wrote: »

Old Meganes have to go through wheelarch or something, workmate had no dipped beam for months because it's such a pain to do!

It's bumper off job for the old Meganes, had this discussion with an AA bloke, he said Renault charge two hours labour to change a bulb.

darkmatter101

OddballJamie wrote: »

The higher labour costs are due to the owners willingness to pay, that and most 3 Series are company cars.

Wouldn't entirely agree on this. Ever seen a simple oil change on a e90/e92? Takes much longer than doing it on a Honda Civic.

The M cars takes even longer, hence why it costs more in labor.

BeenThroughItAll

darkmatter101 wrote: »

Wouldn't entirely agree on this. Ever seen a simple oil change on a e90/e92? Takes much longer than doing it on a Honda Civic.

The M cars takes even longer, hence why it costs more in labor.

Oh really? Care to explain why?

JustinR1979

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

Oh really? Care to explain why?

My M3 (did you know I had one??) took 7 litres, bit of a pain when your bowl doesn't hold this much, and you've only got 5 litres to pour back in! Takes
a few seconds more to drain that extra oil out.

BeenThroughItAll

JustinR1979 wrote: »

My M3 (did you know I had one??) took 7 litres, bit of a pain when your bowl doesn't hold this much, and you've only got 5 litres to pour back in! Takes
a few seconds more to drain that extra oil out.

Mmm, that's it then. My M5 took, IIRC, about 6L if I cleaned out the oil cooler with the sucker. Must have taken me all of about 40 seconds longer than on my old Skoda.

JustinR1979

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

Mmm, that's it then. My M5 took, IIRC, about 6L if I cleaned out the oil cooler with the sucker. Must have taken me all of about 40 seconds longer than on my old Skoda.

I know it didn't take as much as the 3.0 M3, don't know why it took so much, maybe an M3 expert will be along shortly...
Hope you used 10w60, not 0w30?

BeenThroughItAll

JustinR1979 wrote: »

I know it didn't take as much as the 3.0 M3, don't know why it took so much, maybe an M3 expert will be along shortly...
Hope you used 10w60, not 0w30?

I used whatever came in the BMW-branded drum I bought it in. Was considerably more profligate with my cash in those days, but I remember it being an odd oil grade. Was it really 10w60?

darkmatter101

darkmatter101 wrote: »

Wouldn't entirely agree on this. Ever seen a simple oil change on a e90/e92? Takes much longer than doing it on a Honda Civic.

The M cars takes even longer, hence why it costs more in labor.

I was also talking about the air filter and pollen filter, should have mentioned, it takes a bit longer to change in the BMW.

Mainly yes, you need more oil and better grade fully synthetic oil. Also the cost of parts for simple things like air filter, oil filters are double the price compared to other 'lesser' car models.

What I'm trying to say that is that it isn't purely as simple as saying "customers are willing to pay more because its a BMW."