All Of Our BMWs Ranked By How Much We Regret Buying Them

The Autopian staff owns a bunch of cars. Shocking, I know, especially when two of us alone could populate the world’s most horrifying used car dealership. All of our car-buying decisions haven’t always resulted in true love, either. You probably remember Matt’s post about how he regrets buying a new Subaru or how I’ve been burned by three Volkswagen Passat diesel wagons. As it turns out, five of us also currently own a total of eight BMWs and our experiences vary wildly. We’ve decided to rank our cars by how much we regret (or ragret) buying them. Buckle up, because German car ownership isn’t for the faint of heart.

It’s easy to see why a large chunk of the Autopian staff has been enamored by BMW ownership. These cars are advertised as the best driver’s cars on the planet. Why buy a beige Toyota or experience regret with a Subaru when you can own the Ultimate Driving Machine? As a few of us have found out, BMWs make great used purchases years down the road after depreciation has taken its toll. Yet, it also seems like buying a BMW is like rolling a D20 where landing on 20 results in a fairy tale and a landing on 1 means you’ve purchased the smoky, broken spawn of Satan.

This begs a question. Is buying a used BMW worth it? It’s no secret that aging German cars can be temperamental, but taking the chance could result in something beautiful. Amusingly, the answer to this question depends on which Autopian writer you ask. I’ve decided to rank this list from the writers who love their BMWs the most to the ones who are having the most headaches.

No Ragrets: A BMW So Good David Wants More Of Them

I think perhaps the biggest surprise was generated by our rust-loving Jeep man David Tracy buying a BMW i3. David has long respected the engineering of the BMW i3 and despite his love for rotted-out $500 cars, he thinks the BMW i3 is “possibly the greatest small-car of this millennium.”

David detailed an entire gripping saga of how he rented a BMW i3 and fell even deeper in love. Then he bought one of the cheapest running and driving BMW i3s. It had a bad battery, but he utilized one quick trick to get a new battery and now he has quite possibly one of the coolest modern used cars on the planet. He paid just $10,500 for a brilliant technological marvel that’s essentially been as refreshed to new condition as it could be.

I’ve gotten to ride in David’s BMW i3 and I understand why he loves it so much. The interior is out of this world, the acceleration is still surprising, and the range extender is a perfect solution for when you need your EV to go a longer distance than it can on battery alone. I’m with David in that it might be the greatest small car out there and now I want to buy one, too.

Lately, David’s been so stricken by BMW i3 fever that he’s seriously contemplated upgrading to the Holy Grail of BMW i3s. At the same time, he also found an i3 that’s even cheaper than the one he’s driving now. Yes, there’s a non-zero chance that our Michigan rust man might become a BMW collector one day. When asked for comment, David said:

I’m head over heels for my i3. I regret not having bought that i3S a few weeks back even though it’s $26 grand. It’s as close to “the perfect car” as I’ve ever known.

David doesn’t regret buying a BMW; he regrets not buying another BMW. Out of everyone on the Autopian staff, David seems to be the one the most in love with BMW at the moment.

No Ragrets: Matt Loves A $3k BMW More Than A New Subaru

One step down from David, or perhaps even a tie with David, is Matt Hardigree’s current BMW E39 ownership. His love story started with a post titled “I Spent $3,000 On A BMW With 234,000 Miles And It’s The Best Car I’ve Ever Purchased” and it reads as Matt falling totally head over heels for a high mileage silver sedan.

The car in question is a 2003 BMW 530i, one of BMW’s iconic E39s, which is BMW-speak for a fourth-generation 5 Series. It also comes from the time when the alphanumerics on the back of a German car meant something. His sedan comes with a 3.0-liter M54 straight-six making 225 horsepower and 214 lb-ft of torque. Matt’s car also has a five-speed manual. He comments:

I’m approaching 236,000 miles and, frankly, I have not done enough to it. I’ve mostly just driven it when I actually have a long list of things to do:

– Find the small oil leak
– Check to see if I need a new cat or if I need to just replace a few sensors
– Rear brakes are running low
– Tires are getting as smooth as a slicktop E46
– Struts or rear bushings or something is causing a little float at high speeds

It’s not a perfect car, but it’s probably the best car I’ve ever owned. It’s not fast but it’s exactly the right speed for the car and it looks great. Cammisa, another E39 appreciator, called my “gorgeous” and said the 530i is “perfect” so I’ll take it. He has not seen it in person. It needs a lot of detailing and love.

Clive, which is what we call him, did throw up an oil light and a STOP OIL PRESSURE warning, but it turns out that all I had to do was call my mechanic buddy and remove the oil pressure sensor, put it back in, add a half quart of oil and… it’s fine? I’m 14 months into ownership and the car has been easier than I thought. It makes me happy. I want to get it to 300k miles and give it to my daughter. Also… it was only $3k.

So, I think Matt is right up there with David in loving BMWs. To put this story another way, Matt regrets buying a new Subaru, but a $3,000 BMW is probably the best car he’s ever owned. That’s how good his E39 is. As an amusing aside, the article about Matt purchasing an E39 currently has a perfect 39 comments.

No Ragrets: My Teal BMW Motorcycle Is Perfection

The only motorcycle on this list is only just the first of perhaps many BMW motorcycles I will own in my life. I’ve been interested in BMW motorcycles for years, but have largely owned a couple of dozen Japanese motorcycles from the 1970s and 1980s. My desire to own a two-wheeled BMW was given a dose of nitrous when I rode a BMW R 18 and the BMW R 18 Transcontinental in 2021. I suddenly saw what so many motorcyclists have loved for decades about BMW Motorrad.

In 2023, I finally bought my first BMW motorcycle, and it was a 1977 BMW R60/7. Sure, the R60/7 was the runt of the litter, but my gosh does mine look so beautiful in its teal paint. Its original owner loved teal so much he had every vehicle he owned painted in teal with metal flake, including the bike and a pickup truck.

When new, my BMW made just 40 ponies and 35.4 lb-ft torque from its 599cc air-cooled boxer. I don’t even want to guess how many horses are left in the stable, but it still has enough power to exceed the speeds of traffic on an interstate.

Since buying this old Beemer, I’ve been occasionally taking it for scenic rides during the summer. Nothing has broken since my purchase of this bike, but that’s not surprising. BMW airheads have little that could go wrong and you can basically fix broken parts with a hammer and zip ties. The odometer doesn’t work, so I have no idea how many miles I’ve put on it. But I can say it hasn’t been my primary motorcycle. I ride it when I want to take a country road ride through time. This motorcycle is easily one of my favorites in my fleet, second maybe only to my Buell Lightning.

It’s Fine, For Now: My BMW Wagon Is One Of The Best Cars I’ve Owned

Earlier in 2023, I bought an arguably life-changing car from The Bishop. If you’ve read my work for long enough, you know that I like buying terrible $500 clunkers before taking the doors off of them. I also have an obsession with broken Piëch-era Volkswagens. My tolerance for bad cars is really high and it shows in the vehicles I tend to buy.

Then, in early 2023, The Bishop offered to sell me his 2007 BMW 530xi. Sure, it was a base model wagon with an automatic transmission, but this $3,000 car changed something in me. It wasn’t the power, because while my car’s 3.0-liter straight six does make a respectable 255 HP and 220 lb-ft torque, that’s not going to change your life.

Instead, the whole experience of my E61 has essentially rewired my brain. This is a car that makes me feel like I’m sitting on a throne and commanding a bank vault with wheels. The E61 is quiet, soft, and handles the road like it owns the place. The surround sound system is dreamy, the glass roof dazzles, and the car is still more than sporty enough to put a smile as wide as the Grand Canyon on my face.

But, I think most importantly, I have found the E61 to be a great place to kick back. This is a rolling sanctuary compared to my usual cars.

Thankfully, the E61 hasn’t broken more since I picked it up from the Bishop. However, the car has done mostly local trips, so I haven’t put more than a couple of thousand miles on its odometer. The car currently has four issues. The navigation system doesn’t work, the car’s night vision doesn’t work, there’s a tiny rust spot on the trunk, and there’s a check engine light for an EVAP problem. I can pay someone to fix the rust and the EVAP problem is intermittent. I’m not in a rush to fix it. I’m never going to use the old navigation system and I might fix the night vision just to see what it’s like.

Even with those little issues, it’s easily one of the best cars I’ve ever purchased. I rank it near the top next to my Saturn Sky Red Line and my Smarts. In fact, the BMW is so nice that it has changed my standards for car interiors. I recently hopped into my Holy Grail Volkswagen Passat diesel wagon and found myself disappointed.

Mild Discontent: Thomas Hundal’s BMW Is Worn, But Still Lovely

Recently, Thomas detailed all of the issues with his 2006 BMW 325i. This one’s an E90, or the chassis code for the fifth generation of the BMW 3 Series. Thomas has found an alarming amount of rust in various places on the car, it vibrates while braking, and the steering wheel isn’t even close to being on center when the car is driving straight. There’s more as the car now exhibits a lot of slop in its shifter, it might have bad injectors, and there’s even more rust under the car.

Thomas fears his beloved BMW is now closer to being a junker. Still, he loves it dearly. Thomas sent me this comment:

Engine: N52B30 three-liter inline-six.
Drivetrain: Six-speed manual, rear-wheel-drive.
Mileage: 287,000 km.
Repairs: Some, but nothing particularly unusual for a car of this age.

“In this smoking chaos, our shoulder blades kissed. I found you.” – Guante

Why is it that when things get weird, a car always comes along to take my mind off things? While occasionally they’re dalliances, every so often, they complement me like they’re opposite the color wheel. It was March of 2020. I’d just moved to a new home, finished post-grad, and was about to start a co-op placement at a public relations agency when the world shut down. An incredibly contagious lethal virus was sweeping the globe, and we didn’t know exactly what that meant. While some people panic-bought toilet paper, I had my sights on something bigger — my first BMW. The first car I drove on the street was a BMW, and after several years with an Infiniti G35, I was ready for the archetype. By pure coincidence, the exact car I was looking for found me. It was one of my must-have colors, it was a manual rear-wheel-drive car with the sport pack, it had the Logic7 surround sound system, and the xenons, and no iDrive. Sure, it had a few cosmetic imperfections, but on a bargain-basement budget, It was perfect.

In the four years since, I’ve used it to traverse the province, get my kicks in a controlled environment, see family members and friends at parties and weddings and funerals, discover the city, dance beneath the stars, and spark up dozens of friendships. Sure, it’s required some typical older car work, but you know what? Its shine hasn’t worn off. I haven’t gotten bored of it. In fact, I love it even more now than I did when I bought it.

Through thick and thin, first dates and breakups, hirings, promotions, and calling it off, my trusty German steed has been there, and never once truly broken down. Even on the exceptionally rare occasion something went wrong, it would let me know early and let me get to where I need to be to complete repairs. Its steering still telegraphs stretch marks in the pavement through my fingertips, directly into my nervous system. Its three-liter inline-six still rips silk to 7,000 rpm, its seats still hug me like a beloved old sweater through autumnal breeze, its xenon headlights’ steely beams still faithfully guide me home. It’s an old dog, but it doesn’t want to lay down and wait out the last of its days. It wants to be out there, playing fetch, stretching its legs, reveling in sunlight under a clear blue sky. It belongs to me as much as I belong to it, which is why I’m keeping it for as long as I bloody can. This isn’t admiration of capability, it’s sharing a cup of tea with someone you’ve known and adored through everything. I still find myself looking back at it every time I park, thinking “God, how lucky am I to own a car like this?” And if that doesn’t make any sense, let me put it to you this way: Even with an incredibly well-kept Porsche in the garage, there are still days every week on which I’d rather take the BMW.

Now that the love stories are out of the way, now it’s time to witness some misfortune.

Bring More Wallets: My BMW X5 Wants More Money

At the end of 2022, I bought a rare 2003 BMW X5 3.0i with a five-speed manual transmission. If you didn’t know these SUVs existed, well now you do. It’s believed that BMW sold just 4,446 X5s in America with manual transmissions and I believe it, too.

When I bought the SUV, I was blown away by how well its previous owners preserved its interior and while the body had some minor surface rust, it also survived about 20 years on this planet in good shape. There were no warning lights and everything worked, including the window regulators and door handles that are notorious for breaking in these SUVs. That engine purred like a well-tuned kitten. I separated with $5,000 and drove home happy.

This SUV was great for all of a day. The 164,000-mile SUV pulled strong and felt solid, right until the clutch started slipping on my first day of ownership. I tell you what, finding someone to fix that clutch was a nightmare. Every local mechanic I asked about a BMW X5 that needed a new clutch thought I was talking about an automatic transmission. When I said that BMW X5s did come with manuals, they told me I should check again. Well, the stick poking out of my center console says it’s a manual. I did get other quotes for the clutch, some of which got as high as $4,000.

To be clear, this BMW isn’t the only vehicle I’ve had this problem with. Nobody in my area wants to work on my Smarts or my wife’s Scion iQ. We’re only two hours outside of Chicago, but I guess we’re in a desert of mechanics willing to work on weird cars.

Some readers thought that the slipping was from the clutch getting glazed, and believed that if I kept driving, it would go away. So, I kept driving the X5, never taking it too far from home because of the obvious. The issue has gotten worse, so something is wrong. I parked the X5 maybe 8 or so months ago to make sure it had enough grab left to make it to a mechanic under its own power. Sadly, I am no longer allowed to do big wrenching jobs at home. Thankfully, I found someone willing to work on it, so my X5’s fortunes should change.

I don’t regret buying this X5, but I wouldn’t have paid $5k if I knew the clutch was going to go on the day I bought it.

Anguish: My BMW E39 Is Rotting And Smokes Like A Diesel

I think this one is the saddest story of the bunch. At the end of 2022, The Bishop sold me his stately 2001 BMW 525iT for just $1,500. When I bought the wagon, I was well aware that it had some rust issues. What I was not aware of was the trouble my wife and I were getting into.

At first, it was a honeymoon. BMW head Bernd Pischetsrieder called the E39 M5 “the Ultimate Businessman’s Express.” Yet, BMW made sure the base model was still a serene experience. Matt talks a big game about not buying a base model E39, but BMWs were so great in the early 2000s that even the base models were just sublime.

What I really love about the E39 is that it seems to bridge the gap between the more primitive cars of the past and the tech-heavy cars of today. It has modern fuel injection and just enough computers and electronics to be a comfortable, good daily driver. However, it’s not so tech-laden that you feel you need a master’s in computer science just to fix it.

I gave my wife, Sheryl, the E39 as a present. She then drove the car about 30,000 miles in a single year. Then we discovered some nightmares.

The first was the rust. The car had some rocker and tailgate rust when I bought it from The Bishop. I didn’t bother inspecting the rust at the time because both of us knew of body shops that did cheap rust repair, including a shop run by an old-school bodyman who replaced whole rockers for just $1,500. Unfortunately, insurance repairs have become such a lucrative business that neither of the shops Bishop and I had in mind deal with rust anymore.

Sheryl and I called around, hitting up every shop we could find in a 50-mile, 100-mile, and then a 250-mile radius. The vast majority of those shops told us that they used to do rust repairs, but don’t anymore because they’re just inundated with insurance work. The few shops that did give us quotes shot out prices worth more than the repaired value of the car. In other words, I could buy a more powerful rust-free 530iT from California for less than the cost to repair this one.

We thought we saw light at the end of the tunnel when we found another old-school bodyman and he said he would do the project. Then, his shop closed down a week before we showed up.

Normally, I’d just say send it and ignore the rust until it becomes a problem. Unfortunately, it became a problem for Sheryl when she blew a tire 6 hours from home. All four rockers had gotten so bad that the jacking points were crumbling. The rust is well-beyond the outside of the rockers now and the price to fix that stuff continues to climb.

We decided to do the Vice Grip Garage way of doing things and just ignored the rust, but then the car found another exciting way to break. As of right now, the BMW is consuming a quart of oil every 50 miles. That’s not an exaggeration. I measured the oil burn and it’s disappearing at an alarming rate. I’ve confirmed that it’s not dumping oil into the coolant and it’s not leaking the oil out anywhere. The car really is just burning oil like it’s a two-stroke engine. The issue has gotten so bad that two spark plugs have been fouled, so the car runs like crap, too. Of course, crazy oil burn is not good, and we recently discovered that the catalytic converters are shot, too.

This has forced Sheryl into a difficult situation. It’ll be an estimated $5,000 to $7,500 to fix the rust. Then we have this engine issue that we have to fix before the car can pass its emissions test, which was due in November. So the car isn’t even legal to drive right now. I’ve been working with a BMW specialist on diagnosing the oil burn. We’ve come to the conclusion that it’s either the crankcase ventilation valve or something more sinister. So, the oil issue could be a relatively cheap fix.

Little by little, Sheryl has realized that while she loves this car, repairing it is not a logical choice. We could buy a rust-free example from a southern state and literally save thousands. So, she’s considering putting it up for sale.

Sheryl says she has a lot of regrets. She doesn’t regret buying it, because I did that, but she regrets not knowing how bad the rust was before she let it get too far. She regrets putting so much of her heart into a car she might end up saying goodbye to. Seeing this car go away would be like seeing a pet die, but she can’t justify spending what could be an estimated $10,000 on a car we spent $1,500 on.

Screw This Car: Lewin Day Doesn’t Even Want A German Sedan Anymore

That leaves us with Lewin, and his story is almost a tragic comedy. On paper, Lewin might have the coolest sedan of the bunch. His is a 2008 BMW 320D. Oh yeah, it’s a diesel, baby! Normally, “diesel” makes people think of fuel economy and reliability, but Lewin’s has been anything but reliable:

167 horsepower, 250 foot pounds of torque from the N47 2.0-liter turbodiesel.

It’s a great daily when it’s running right. Smooth as silk, with good fuel economy. The excellent handling of the E90 platform is a sweet bonus, and everybody loves rear-wheel-drive.

Forever let me down, however. I bought it to replace my Mercedes, but I had to hang on to my other car as the transmission was playing funny games for a while.

By the time I got the Beemer whipped into shape, my Mercedes broke, so after a year of ownership I’m still stuck with two German sedans. At this point I’m not sure I want one.

If it was a manual, it’d probably be a keeper. However, the ZF auto has just poor enough a reputation that I won’t hang on to this one for much longer.

Lewin is underselling how much his BMW breaks. His BMW has broken so much that he’s written a string of posts about it. Here, just read these snippets. The car broke right after Lewin paid $3,700 for it:

It was a day later that I first reckoned with its issues. A barely-perceptible RPM flicker at cruise. I Googled and Googled and Google led me astray. I spent the next few months changing transmission fluids and filters and seals until eventually I found that a dose of Lubeguard’s Instant Shudder Fixx solved the problem for less than $30.

Of course, that was after I’d been to hell and back. Using a third-party transmission fluid that was supposed to be compatible with ZF Lifeguard 6 led to hard shifts and transmission warning messages. Getting the right fluid in has largely solved the transmission problems, though it still jams in first or second sometimes under a heavy right foot, with the engine soaring to the rev limiter until it eventually grabs the next gear.

So, Lewin figured out that the RPM flicker was a fuel quantity control valve issue and he went through hell to fix it. Then the car still didn’t work right after:

It’s still not perfect; the transmission is still hanging in gear often enough that I don’t feel confident to drive the car hard. I’d hoped maybe fixing the fuel delivery issue would solve the transmission tripping over itself entirely but it’s not quite so. I’m tempted to try another fluid change to get the last of the supposedly “wrong” fluid out, but I know I’ll be mad if that doesn’t fix it.

Then Lewin’s crank pulley blew up. He fixed it, but concluded his article with:

Okay, I’m getting back to anger now. Fundamentally, some of the fault is mine. I’m supposed to know better. I bought a cheap used BMW, even after hearing all the horror stories. I wanted to believe it wouldn’t happen to me, but it did.

That gorgeous steering feel, the supple handling that BMW was known for? Just ask a friend to give you a drive. Don’t invite this storm into your own home. Learn from me, and be stronger for it.

You know it’s bad when poor Lewin says he’s not even sure he wants a German sedan at all, let alone a BMW.

So there you have it. Five of us own eight BMWs and they range from brilliant to total nightmares. You might call us masochists, too, because with the exception of Lewin, who would probably be pleased by seeing his BMW experience a fiery death, most of us would buy another BMW. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

It would appear that BMWs deliver some of the highest highs and the lowest lows in the Autopian staff. We love them, we hate them, and we wish the new ones didn’t have grilles large enough to place your butt cheeks into. One thing seems to be for sure, and if it’s you buy a BMW, you’re going to love every second of it until it breaks.