BMW Quality Issues?

[GTA45E]

Latest JDPower report from Germany.

Finally, we get to see a graph from Europe! (leave it to GTA to deliver, j/k)

Latest JD Power car ownership survey, conducted in Germany, ranks Scandinavian brand top for satisfaction.
German car owners have voted a non-German car brand as the most satisfying to own, according to the latest JD Power report.
Brands and makes of cars are ranked on a 1000 point scale, with Volvo scoring 841 to pip German brands Mercedes-Benz (second; 839 points), Audi (equal sixth; 820), BMW (eighth; 815) and Volkswagen, which fell below the industry average score of 807, ranking 12th with 806 points.
The lowest-scoring brands included General Motors-owned brand Chevrolet, which scored just 730 points to take 28th spot - 44 points behind its nearest competitor, Citroen (774). Mitsubishi (776), Daihatsu (777) and Smart (779) rounded out the bottom five. German GM brand Opel - which is scheduled to be launched in Australia in 2012 - also fared poorly, coming in 21st position with a score of 793 points.
Rankings of individual models saw Mazda's 2 city car and 3 small car top their respective categories, while fellow Japanese manufacturer Honda took out the mid-size category with the Accord.
Mercedes-Benz's C-Class came in first ahead of BMW's 3-Series and Audi's A4 to top the compact luxury car category, with Benz also taking out the SUV segment with the M-Class narrowly beating Audi's Q7 and VW's Touareg.
The JD Power study - which surveyed more than 17,000 owners of two-year-old vehicles - measures levels of satisfaction across four criteria with different weighting for each condition. The most important aspect is vehicle appeal, at 32 per cent, which encompasses performance, design, comfort and features; quality and reliability accounts for 26 per cent; ownership costs make up 22 per cent (it includes fuel consumption, insurance, servicing/repairs); with dealer service satisfaction accounting for 17 per cent of the total score.
The JD Power report found that overall satisfaction levels have fallen from an average 813 in 2010 to 807 in 2011, with company spokesman Brian Walters saying the results should serve as a wake-up call to manufacturers.
"The decline in vehicle quality and reliability, coupled with the decline in vehicle appeal, is an important reminder to manufacturers that the product is a critical driver of ownership satisfaction and will remain a key differentiator among brands in the increasingly competitive automotive market in Germany,"

Walters says.
"The auto market in Germany may be 125 years old, but owners in Germany still require specific performance levels and reward the brands that deliver it."

We can see that BMW isn`t doing so bad in Germany as thay are here in the US. My question is why.

 

[Zafiro]

Like I tried to say so many times. The result differs from country to country and one of the reasons why I dont take surveys literally. Another thing, BMW has a lot more engine variations in Europe than you find in US.

 

[GTA45E]

^
So does Mercedes-benz but Merc is still ahead of BMW in overall quality!

Why are thay so far behind here in the US. (Could thay be using cheaper parts for us Americans?)

Whatever the case it`s still going to reflect on the company as a whole.

 

[Merc1]

I'll say it again, other than when Mercedes dropped the ball during the low point of 1998-2006 a BMW was never as high a quality car as a Mercedes was. The difference between the two was always there. In the early 90's Mercedes ruled the U.S. charts and BMW wasn't even close then when it came to quality. BMW buyers didn't care and still don't because the cars are such a great drive. They were still better than Jaguar, Volvo and Audi and other Euros of the day. Mercedes was always #1 in quality when it came to European cars, at least in the U.S.


M

 

[K-A]

BMW is a much different company now than they were then, and their clientele is ever evolving from hardcore driving enthusiasts to regular non-gearheads like the rest, who just want prestige and efficiency, reliability, etc., hence the obvious catering to Lexus like softness qualities, M-B comfort and quietness, and Class leading weight. Their quality problems in the U.S will and surely already is gonna hurt them in some form or another.

 

[Michael]

While I haven't sifted through all of the comments in this thread, assuming there are a lot of rebuttals to the original post, I find it interesting that BMW and MB have basically switched positions if you look back to when MB was not doing so hot when it came to quality. While the data should not be dismissed, one should consider how numbers are populated. If, for example, company A makes 20 cars and company B makes 10, but both have 3 cars that have trouble, the company with the least amount of cars will have a higher percentage of quality issue than company A, when in reality the percentage is not a accurate representation of an underlying issue that may be present with cutting corners in manufacturing. Just a thought..

 

[Merc1]

That doesn't apply to BMW and Mercedes, they both make millions of cars a year. They virtually sell the same amount of cars in the U.S.


M

 

[bmwownage]

Quality and reliability are two different things, I think BMW is doing pretty well with reliability, but I went to a showroom last week and geez, BMW is really in a cost-savings mode, maybe others are too but compared to maybe 10-12 years ago, there are materials that look worse, and details.

First the F30, damn i think the materials used is worse than E90, let alone E46 which now looks to have plastic on par with the F01. Fit and finish of that thing was average, compartments didn't close as well as the E46 (never tried those out of a E90). The strip inside around the door was velour on the E46, and now a piece of black plastic on the F30, same as on a E87 1series. Yes the E46 is old now but getting inside, the E46 feels more upscale.
F10 is pretty good but i think it "looks" good, not upgrade of materials, but the plastics are OK, nothing worse than Eclass at least imo. Still cost saving is obvious, the door hook that is located on the body of the car, that hooks with the door, is now "just" a piece of silver metal with no cover, so you get this piece of ugly piece of metal exposed. I cannot recall the Bangle-era cars but E46/E39, there was a nice plastic cover so that only the hook part exposes, the rest of piece of metal is covered.
I mean OK, these things aren't exactly important, don't know how much is saved by doing things like these but afterall a BMW should maintain some kind of quality. These things probably won't be noticed by 90% of buyers, and even if I do, it won't stop me from getting one because I'm in serious consideration of getting a F10. But still things can't continuously go downhill.
Damn i miss those old days, those E46s and E39s were so raw, so practical, so solid with quality!

 

[speed_kills]

And the E30 was even better than the E46. And don't get me started on a E21, it was like sitting in a modern day Rolls. Perfect material, fit and finish...