I watched this last night. Pretty good. But half-way through it, I started thinking that it was looking more like an infomercial than a documentary about the BMW company.
I've always liked BMWs and MBs. My parents always had one or both cars when we were growing up. Naturally, I've driven nothing but BMWs or MBs since through the 80's, 90's and early 2000's. But now, I've stopped at my E39 540i and E320 4matic. I'm keeping these until they die. The newer models don't attract me much now. I feel like the older models were cars built by engineers. Whereas the newer models are built by designers.
Back to the show: did you catch the part about the sound engineer spending days/weeks on the "just the right sound"? And all the other ways that the company paid attention to the smallest detail? It was nice to see that at first. Then I realized it was all about the cosmetic parts of the cars. Things that might be important to the high-end audience they were trying to attract. The aesthetics.
I wish they'd spend more money on ensuring reliability. Specially the electronics. The normal things that conk out are the windows, door lock, lights, stereo system, etc... little things that add up and build frustration. I've heard that nowadays, even the transmission is unreliable. Might not even make it to 200k miles. And the 4matic on the MBs?!
I'm a blue collar kind of guy. I liked my past BMWs and MBs for the handling, the speed, the engine, transmission, suspension, and most of all, the overall reliability. ALL of my previous german cars (5 series and E class) went over 200,000 miles, with no problems. Just regular maintenance, which I did a lot myself on the older models.
Nowadays, the word is that they're still great driving cars,.... up until the warranty expires. Then all bets are off. Still great driving cars. But you'll get to know your technician pretty well.
We're currently searching for a car for my wife. And we're not even looking at BMWs or MBs now. Instead, we're looking at the Lexus GS 350 AWD. We're willing to give up some of the famous Tuetonic handling for more reliability.
Of course, I'm always on the lookout for a low mileage E34 535is stick and '99 E38 740i Sport.
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