Buying an early <E46>

[John Firestone <john.firestone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ron Browne writes:
>
>   On a seperate note, do you REALLY want to get the first, early production
> run of a new re-design?  You do realize that there WILL be bugs/possible
> defects that will be ironed out in the 2nd year, heck, even in a few months.
> True, your warranty will cover you for most things, but you still have to
> deal with the hassle, and you will have to deal with things that dont crop
> up until AFTER your warranty runs out.  Just ask early E36 owners who have
> had to deal with a myriad of "issues" that were smoothed out later on in the
> production life of the E36...This aint a knock against you or BMW...just a
> fact about any new model car...
> 

The introduction of the E36 in Fall 1990 was an engineering fiasco.
For the first eight months, for example, the car could not follow a
straight line without constant corrections from the driver.  Even
though BMW reacted quickly to solve such problems, the people I
know who bought cars built within the first year were very happy to be
rid of them.

I think BMW learned a few things from that experience that they
applied to the E39 5er.  Its initial teething problems were not nearly
as bad. Still, people have strong memories of the early E36's and have
been closely watching how the E46 develops.  It has now been out three
months and the only problems I have heard or read about are trunks
that are slightly reluctant to close ("they all do that") and some
sort of clutch problem.

At the moment, there is a shortage of information and parts. The local
dealer still has no E46 service information and some spares are either
not listed in the ETK or unavailable or both.  Some poor customer in
the Far East, for example, has had to wait weeks while his car sits in
Bremerhaven, waiting for the factory to send another driver's seat.

I still don't know if I would buy a car built in the first couple
years, but so far, things seem to be going *a lot* better than last
time.

- -John
'96 318is
john.firestone@domain.elided

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