[quote=paramount]The overall driving experience of the 328i is excellent, it feels very well made.
But, I just can’t understand how on one hand BMW’s seem to be well made, and then on the other very unreliable (or at least they need lot’s of TLC/$$).[/quote]
Question: Was your 328 a CPO or just used. If the later////Do you have a history of the vehicle?
I hate to bring this up but, 328’s are often loaner cars for stealerships. As a result, they get beaten up pretty badly. I’m one of those people…And just this weekend, someone brought a 328 service vehicle to the track because his car was in the shop…
It’s for this reason, you need to know what the complete history, or buy new or CPO, especially if you buy a car that can be found in a loaner/fleet rental.. Any stealer should be able to give you a complete history of the car, when service was done, when recall was done, etc, even if you didn’t buy the car from the stealership. And if there are service records missing, that should be a red flag too, since there is absolutely no reason why a BMW would not have a complete service record from new to year 4, since all BMW’s come with free 4 years of maintenance. Start there, so you get a gauge for what sort of problems the car might have had before you got it.
And as I said before, IF your check engine light is on, more then likely it’s emissions related, and then it’s covered under emissions warranty for up to 7-8 years, depending on what part it is. If you fail emissions, more then likely BMW has to pick up the tab to fix it since you’re still under warranty.
Brakes are wear and tear items. Especially on the sports package, 4 years is about right for a moderate to aggressively driven car. The sports package has pads that have more bite. You stop shorter, but that also means you wear out both the pad and the rotors a lot quicker than say a car that doesn’t have performance related brakes (*cough* insert your favorite run-of-the-mill toaster car)…Before you bought the car, did you check to see where the wear indicator was? Was it already close to the limit of being replaced when it was driven by the first owner? It sounds like it was driven aggressively before you bought it…And if you have cooling issues this early on..It sounds like someone beat the crap out of the car before you bought it…(Sorry if it was me :()
$1500 for brakes is stealership prices. You could go to a third party shop that does it probably for 1/2 of that….Or do it yourself. Bimmers aren’t that hard to swap brakes…
The cost of the battery is unfortunate. Because people want to have all the bells and whistles of a navigation, keyless,entry,etc. And you need the bigger/deep cycle battery to handle it…
Don’t feel bad though. I run a $250 Shorai battery in my miata. It’s a motorcycle LifePo3 battery that weighs about 3 lbs versus the standard weight of 30 lbs, and it’s mounted in the passenger seat instead of the trunk…And the bonus is if I completely drain the battery, it becomes an instant brick because they can’t be recharged if they end up fully drained…. (Ask me how I know )….
