[WARP TEN]

Originally Posted by A26B

I owned 1 BMW, 750i Sport. Cool in some respects & lacking in others. Last one I will ever own.
Both front window motors went out at the same time, $900 to fix. Alternator too small & wont charge adequately unless driven every day for at least 30-45 minutes. All to add a tenth or two to overall fuel economy. Not all German engineering is practical.
Couldn't even monitor individual tire pressures or oil change usage. For a Sport model, a basic tool.


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Actually Jerry, the real reason the battery doesn't charge adequately is even more interesting. In order to achieve the noted tiny improvement in gas mileage, they set up the cars so that the alternator only charges the battery when the car is coasting or braking. In Europe, no problem--lots of hills. In the US, especially in states like Oklahoma, it doesn't work so well--long flat trips. BMW was regularly replacing batteries once a year under warranty on a number of 5 and 7 series cars especially with the twin turbo V8s, and maybe some others. Might have started with 2011 F10 series, or a couple of years into that series. Once you are out of warranty you are on your own. And they couldn't fix the problem directly because then they would have had to re-certify all the models affected with the EPA, a prohibitive undertaking. I have an old 2010 535xi (with only 40,000 miles) which is not one of the years affected, so I am happy with it. But when the Z06 is off the lift and the BMW up for a week or more I the summer, I put the BMW on a float charger. --Bob