[ejm3]

Unpopular opinion:

I would never own any BMW as my main vehicle.
I love them but honestly if you just need a reliable car that goes when you push the button with a minimum of drama and cost, German cars in general are not the way to go.

Its Ironic that with my 135i convertible I would go on the message boards here and identify exactly what will go wrong and roughly when. My repair history was exactly like everyone else's. Except my issues happened about 10k miles before everyone else's even though I baby the car. Oil filter housing gasket (40k), water pump (50k), charge pipe (70k), etc.

Though I got a $1k back from BMW years later on the water pump because of a class action lawsuit (e.g. $1800 water pumps shouldn't go at 50k miles).
That doesn't include the other stuff I couldn't predict from the owners group here (like the entire main computer failure).

So my friend bought a new X5 a couple years ago and I figured they probably got better since my 135i. Seems doubtful though.
Carplay was not working from day 1.
A new alternator at less than 2 years (she doesn't put a lot of miles on the car either). And as I type this its in the shop for carplay issues again and "something" is leaking that needs to be repaired and of course its still in the shop waiting for whatever part it needs. All covered under warranty except the tires she needs at 34k miles.

Luckily like me she has other cars to drive because at least at the dealerships around here you need to book service at least a month in advance if you want a loaner, at that was before Covid.

My cousin who always owns nice sports cars was driving an M3 and recently I saw him diving something else and said where's the M3? He said he traded it in because there's no way he's owning that thing out of warranty. So take that for what its worth.

Reliability and quality are subjective. If you normally drive German cars and are accustom to paying thousands of dollars on repairs once or twice a year then you won't really have issues with owning one. But if you come from owning Hondas and Toyotas you might be a little surprised.

And don't confuse "build quality" with "reliability"; they are very different things. A car that "feels solid and well built" (which BMW's do) doesn't mean it will run forever with little cost or maintenance (they won't).

So if you plan on just leasing it for 3 years you will likely have some [hopefully] minor issues but at least they'll be covered by warranty so go for it.

But beyond 50k miles you need to be prepared for repairs that will be pricy.
That's why they are better as second or third cars.

All this said I still nearly bought a Z4 M440 when Covid hit and I chickened out. And as it turns out I'm working from home forever now so hardly driving anymore so probably best I didn't spend $70k on a car that I will hardly use.
But I still want one ;-)