[Ennoch]

Buy the BMW, not the Range Rover, it'll be more reliable..

...said my head

So post-paintwork debacle after hitting the deer last year I finally got both that sorted and the knocking front end which the dealer thought was the OSF adaptive damper solenoid. So that was two front dampers replaced under warranty at 38k miles

Within 200 miles the knocking was back, and within two weeks someone had keyed the car. Yay. Back to square one. The car went back into the bodyshop last week to get fixed, and then into the dealership this week for investigation of what was causing the clunk, because it clearly wasn't the dampers! Turns out they now reckon it needs a new rack which I'm totally okay with, but the downside is that it's a 7-10 working day timescale. On the upside, when I nipped out last night to swap the Micra from the bodyshop for a bigger car from the dealership (I'm away this weekend with climbing stuff etc) I got a look at the repair and it is absolutely indistinguishable from the rest of the paint. It helped it was the same painter who knew how he'd laid down the previous job.

The Micra was actually quite a nice car, and pretty honest about what it was. Utterly gutless for overtakes though. The X1 in comparison seems to be all glitz and not much substance. It looks nice and has more poke (S-Drive 2.0 petrol) but the seats are horrid, the leather feels like its made from rhinoceros hide and the ergonomics pretty poor. The cup holders are in the typical daft position that isn't within arms reach, and they also don't seem to hold my mugs properly either. the G21 I had from them before Christmas was the same. All daft stuff (aside from the church pew hardness seats) but for a £40k+ car I just don't see why so many people look at these and lust after them. My 190k mile Honda CRV is genuinely more ergonomic and has more supportive and comfortable seats.

Back to the rack; I know the later cars all had revised racks/mountings etc which gave improved steering feel. Has anyone had a replacement BMW rack and noticed an improvement in feel, or is that too much to hope for?

[AndyCKent]

We are currently coming to the end of our years 'free' warranty for buying an AUC car and debating whether to pay to extend it.

F30 330D with 23k on the clock.

Seems to be £710 for the whole shabang with £100 excess.

Was tempted with the driveline one which is £200 cheaper which I thought includes virtually everything 'expensive' but reading the handbook, the 'Steering' system is only covered with the full £710 per year one!

Hmmmm

[Ennoch]

Mine was bought outside the MD network as a 2015 car 11 months ago and turned down the dealers 'platinum' one in favour of the proper BMW offering and I certainly can't fault them. The dealer needed pre-authorisation for the rack as it's something like a £2.5k part but that was approved in half an hour and they got it ordered straight away so I really can't fault them for the service, and I get a decent courtesy car for as long as it takes them to sort. If I hadn't been heading away this weekend I'd have been happy with the Micra for another week but they made no fuss and got it sorted really well.

The only downside with the BMW warranty is that they're more stringent on the no mods clause, but I'm not too fussed with that, especially if it's saved me £4-5k in bills in 12 months! The £710 with £100 excess includes BMW breakdown assist too which to me is quite handy as they sort a courtesy car. Whether they try to charge me another £100 excess for the rack is yet to be discovered...

[AndyCKent]

Originally Posted by Ennoch

Mine was bought outside the MD network as a 2015 car 11 months ago and turned down the dealers 'platinum' one in favour of the proper BMW offering and I certainly can't fault them. The dealer needed pre-authorisation for the rack as it's something like a £2.5k part but that was approved in half an hour and they got it ordered straight away so I really can't fault them for the service, and I get a decent courtesy car for as long as it takes them to sort. If I hadn't been heading away this weekend I'd have been happy with the Micra for another week but they made no fuss and got it sorted really well.

The only downside with the BMW warranty is that they're more stringent on the no mods clause, but I'm not too fussed with that, especially if it's saved me £4-5k in bills in 12 months! The £710 with £100 excess includes BMW breakdown assist too which to me is quite handy as they sort a courtesy car. Whether they try to charge me another £100 excess for the rack is yet to be discovered...

Ours is AUC so I am not sure if I can extend that or whether I just take our a new insured one, might give them a call.

[Ennoch]

Originally Posted by AndyCKent

Ours is AUC so I am not sure if I can extend that or whether I just take our a new insured one, might give them a call.

I think the AUC extension is the same as the one I've got. Certainly that's how LR do theirs; they cover the AUC as a manufacturer backed thing and then the following years are under their own warranty, usually underwritten by Allianz etc.

[Malone]

Originally Posted by AndyCKent

We are currently coming to the end of our years 'free' warranty for buying an AUC car and debating whether to pay to extend it.

F30 330D with 23k on the clock.

Seems to be £710 for the whole shabang with £100 excess.

Was tempted with the driveline one which is £200 cheaper which I thought includes virtually everything 'expensive' but reading the handbook, the 'Steering' system is only covered with the full £710 per year one!

Hmmmm

Up the excess to £250 and the comprehensive should come in around £400ish including breakdown cover

[AndyCKent]

Originally Posted by Malone

Up the excess to £250 and the comprehensive should come in around £400ish including breakdown cover

Shows £710 with £100 excess and £562 with £250 excess.

[HighlandPete]

Originally Posted by AndyCKent

Shows £710 with £100 excess and £562 with £250 excess.

At the above figures...

£100 excess:
1 Claim = £810
2 Claims = £910

£250 excess:
1 Claim = £812
2 Claims = £1,062

It's a no brainer. Unless you don't have to claim, but with a BMW...

[AndyCKent]

Originally Posted by HighlandPete

At the above figures...

£100 excess:
1 Claim = £810
2 Claims = £910

£250 excess:
1 Claim = £812
2 Claims = £1,062

It's a no brainer. Unless you don't have to claim, but with a BMW...

Indeed, £710 is hardly pocket change but a single claim is likely to be at least that, if not more. Although £710 could almost replace all four tyres

[KRS_SN]

I had this in my 335d had to sell it despite replacing everything bar the rack the knocking kept coming back. Reliability wise none of mine broke down touch wood but the f3 series build quality/refinement was a let down. Hope yours goes away for good. Some people don't it comes back after a while due to the design of the rack.

[JASB68]

Originally Posted by AndyCKent

We are currently coming to the end of our years 'free' warranty for buying an AUC car and debating whether to pay to extend it.

Have you received a letter inviting you to renew?

Couple of weeks before my AUC warranty ended (June 25) I received a letter inviting me to login for a personal quote. To my surprise they offered me pricing under 60k miles mine is 67k

[Malone]

Originally Posted by AndyCKent

Shows £710 with £100 excess and £562 with £250 excess.

Their pricing seems so random. Our 340i touring, 4 years old and with 30k on the clock was £422 for complete cover with breakdown, as a one off payment. I figure at that price, even over 10 years I would have spent just over £4k. One claim against the gearbox (hopefully won’t have to) would probably clear that!!

[Watsey]

You bought a BMW for reliability ?

Ha
Haha
Hahahahahaha

Please, stop !

My F31 has been the least reliable car I've ever owned/run, including 5 previous 3-ers, and a money pit to go with it.

It'll almost certainly be my last.

[AndyCKent]

Originally Posted by JASB68

Have you received a letter inviting you to renew?

Couple of weeks before my AUC warranty ended (June 25) I received a letter inviting me to login for a personal quote. To my surprise they offered me pricing under 60k miles mine is 67k

I had but didn’t read it properly it seems, I just assumed it was a generic one but now I have put the details in, the prices are cheaper!

£522 for comprehensive with £100 excess or £422 with £250 excess. Seems the £522 is the best option

Thanks!

[McBeemer]

A 320d F31 Xdrive that I did 66k miles from new in 2 years, then my current F31 335d, sitting on 56k miles ..... both had/have remaps & although driven with mechanical sympathy, have been driven very briskly from time to time. Only issue I had with 320 was creaking doors, which they fixed with tape & 335 has had no issues at all.
I have got an EGR recall letter which i will need to have it booked in for though.
In my opinion decent reliability.

[Ennoch]

The reliability will be whatever it is, and to be honest hasn't been bad (hitting wildlife aside). The EGR recall was sorted while they did the bodyshop work the first time, then replaced the dampers when it was in the bodyshop for the third time so those weren't massive inconveniences. And to be fair the rack is just the knocking noise they didn't sort when they changed the dampers. Either way I'm still glad of the warranty!

Back to the question though, is it too much to hope that steering feel will be better with the revised rack?

[Watsey]

Originally Posted by Ennoch

Back to the question though, is it too much to hope that steering feel will be better with the revised rack?

The steering rack was replaced in my car a few years ago - it cured the knocking but apart from that there wasn't any difference that I could feel.

What has made a difference was replacing the thrust block with the redesigned unit. DIY job and the steering has a much smoother action as a result. If you do it yourself you'll need a torque wrench and you'll need to be careful - the thrust block is very sensitive to the precise torque applied and I found that the nut needs to be backed-off slightly once you've applied the BNW recommended 70Nm of torque - the thrust block applies so much pressure to the rod inside the rack that mine became fixed in position. Loosening the nut by about 1/16th of a turn was enough to cure that.

[Ennoch]

Originally Posted by Watsey

The steering rack was replaced in my car a few years ago - it cured the knocking but apart from that there wasn't any difference that I could feel.

What has made a difference was replacing the thrust block with the redesigned unit. DIY job and the steering has a much smoother action as a result. If you do it yourself you'll need a torque wrench and you'll need to be careful - the thrust block is very sensitive to the precise torque applied and I found that the nut needs to be backed-off slightly once you've applied the BNW recommended 70Nm of torque - the thrust block applies so much pressure to the rod inside the rack that mine became fixed in position. Loosening the nut by about 1/16th of a turn was enough to cure that.

That's interesting, how long did the rack last before you needed to then do the DIY block change? I'm hoping that the rack they fit would have the latest block spec in it as it would seem odd that they're selling an upgraded component without fitting it to the latest manufactured parts! Was yours a VSS rack?

[Watsey]

I've had so much warranty work done on my car I can't actually remember whether it's had one replacement rack or two.

Apparently the racks don't become dangerous they just go out of tolerance, hence the knocking noise.

A bit of a guess but I reckon about 30k miles after the second (I think) rack until it started knocking again.

The revised thrust block has been in for around 10k miles.

Standard rack; not VSS.

[Ennoch]

Got the car back on Friday ready for a trip up north to go climbing. Steering feel is as pish as ever, but the clunk has gone so I'll take that. Of course they handed me the car back with dirty marks on the Opal White leather (again) and with the steering wheel off centre. And the earliest they can fit me back in is the middle of August, for what they suggest could be a 3-4 hour job. Oh the laughter I had when they told me that. At some point I'll have a car that doesn't need a monthly trip to the dealer...

[KRS_SN]

Originally Posted by Ennoch

Got the car back on Friday ready for a trip up north to go climbing. Steering feel is as pish as ever, but the clunk has gone so I'll take that. Of course they handed me the car back with dirty marks on the Opal White leather (again) and with the steering wheel off centre. And the earliest they can fit me back in is the middle of August, for what they suggest could be a 3-4 hour job. Oh the laughter I had when they told me that. At some point I'll have a car that doesn't need a monthly trip to the dealer...

I'm going to be harsh here..a clunk or rattle isn't considered to be a big fault especially in a 3 series.
I spent a lot of time and money chasing a clunk. So many times driving with the garage bmw foreman.. but couldn't win hence sold the 335d after 2 years of ownership.
Mechanically and electrically 100 %sound cars but refinement (ie clunk) I couldn't live with.
Just my experience..didn't put me off the brand as it was reliable but I knew if I wanted refinement too I had to go up in the series and additionally buy AUC only.

[Ennoch]

Originally Posted by KRS_SN

I'm going to be harsh here..a clunk or rattle isn't considered to be a big fault especially in a 3 series.
I spent a lot of time and money chasing a clunk. So many times driving with the garage bmw foreman.. but couldn't win hence sold the 335d after 2 years of ownership.
Mechanically and electrically 100 %sound cars but refinement (ie clunk) I couldn't live with.
Just my experience..didn't put me off the brand as it was reliable but I knew if I wanted refinement too I had to go up in the series and additionally buy AUC only.

And yet people still think of BMW as a premium brand!

This was more of a banging/knocking like a knackered top mount rather than a non-descript clunk. The front end still has that hollow 'thunk' sound over rough roads which all the F30/1's I've driven seem to have and I'm not too bothered about. The offset steering wheel is far more annoying. It's also mental that it made it out a workshop charging £130p/h, and that it then takes another two weeks to get it back in to resolve. I suspect that I'll not be keeping this car as long as originally intended and instead go and buy the MY12 FFRR I was originally considering but we'll see how it goes. It's only really had two issues; a knocking which took a few visits to resolve, and the paint after hitting a deer (my fault). It's just that between lockdowns and all those things it doesn't feel like I've had a very good run with it in the last 11 months since getting it! I did enjoy driving it up north again though so that was good.