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Comment by PeterStuer | Hacker News Reader

My last 4 cars were BMW. I love the way they drive, but ...

I think they are optimized for the EU leasing market. 4 years, 120.000km. If you buy one for long ownership and want more out of them (they can most certainly do 400=500k km reliably), you have to take care of them from day 1. You change the maitainance schedule (which by default is set to lowering fleet lease costs and who cares beyond that), learn about and do preventive maintainance (such as replacing the entire cooling around 120k km), stricktly use BMW oil (for the additives) unless you are realy knowledgeable about it, and invest in a decent fault scanner (to lnow what is going on and not just run up expensive maintainance bills at the BMW shop).

If you think that's all too much hassle, just lease them short term or buy something else.

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I was looking for this reply as well; definitely my perception that a lot of mid- to high-end cars are engineered to drive and feel great for 4-5 years, and after that it's kind of a crapshoot. You can see it as well with the various subscriptions, for app connectivity, M2M infotainment data, etc— all of it is oriented around that same time horizon.

Thats why they've been increasing the service interval to silly numbers. 3 years ago, 10k miles, now... 18k miles for the same model of car for the first service! Absolutely insane.

Yep, and remember, "lifetime" in BMW speak is 120k.km/4y, not "forever".

I never considered buying a BMW before they put out an EV (the i4, not the i3). One of the reasons is maintenance, the EV still needs some, but much less than an ICE.

I'm about to change the transmission fluid in my i3.

It's at 100k miles and there's no user-facing documentation for the procedure, as the oil lasts "for the lifetime of the vehicle".

Turns out, this particular procedure is simple.

(Other common wear items, like the suspension damper boots, or the engine mount, or the AC compressor, or a set of tires every 12000 miles ... it adds up.

The i3 was a cheap acquisition. Doesn't drive like a BMW, but apparently it wears like one.)

I heard that the i3 has some horror stories if you got the hybrid (basically a diesel engine that can produce electricity to charge your battery) or your battery had issues out of warranty. Not really sure though, everyone I've met who owns one really likes it still in 2025.

I had the i3 with the upgraded headlights. Left blinker stopped working one day. Well, turns out before the upgraded headlights that would have been a quick easy bulb change. After it require replacing the entire headlight unit, a $800 part plus labor.

I decided to wait and see if I could find some other way, and in the meantime the car got hit while I was driving in a round-about. Moved the car several meters, but hardly any visible marks. The repair company wanted to fix the paint and get a new rim for the rear tire, but when I told them the car had been thrown a few meters they had a closer look and found a crack in the carbon fiber frame. And with that the car was totalled.

On the bright side, glad I hadn't just forked out the $1200 or so for a new headlight unit...

Some i3 models, like mine, lack the internal-combustion engine and its fuel tank, and i3 enthusiasts call it the "BEV", for Battery Electric Vehicle. The one with the gasoline engine is the "REx", for Range Extender.

The REx models use an engine design based on one of BMW's motorcycle engines; as such, I'm pretty sure that it's not a diesel. The gas tank is only about two gallons; to qualify for EV tax credits in some markets, the battery capacity needed to exceed the energy available from fossil fuel.

That battery capacity for initial models is woeful by today's standards. The design started with 17 kWh, upgraded batteries in later model years doubled that figure. Mine is a degraded original with about 12 kWh available. Freezing temperatures can cut that by half.

I drive it like grandma and get more than 4 miles per kWh. But it was less $$ than a golf cart. (I learned about EV tire expenses after purchase.)

I found the hard way that nowadays manufacturer's authorised (branded) service centres optimise for making you get rid of the car. For instance, I had something wrong with the car, they kept gaslighting me that the car is absolutely within specs and drive exactly how it should. Next appointment they admitted that maybe something indeed is wrong, but probably not. After complaint they said the car is faulty but it will be very very expensive to repair and maybe I should consider buying a new one. They they offered me part exchange for one of their approved used models framing it as a gesture of good will and that it will be cheaper than the repair. Unbelievable.

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