I think the FRS and LFA indicate the company's direction well enough.  I think the IS sedan might be getting lost in the shuffle.  The GS performs relatively well and the new Is is built on the same platform now.  The ES revamp is significant and will likely sell tons, it's no longer the bastard child of the brand.  I don't know what the IS sedan is targeting anymore.  They are definitely clearing space for a new IS-F coupe and maybe a future SC (see the concept) based on the next Supra.  Both would be based on the FRS platform which BMW is talking about using for the Z4.  I'm sure there's also some future MR-2 buried in the shadows of Toyota HQ.  MR-2 development is usually Toyota assigning the project to a relatively young, rogue engineer assigned to hand pick about five other nuts that have been ostrocized from either Camry or Crown development teams.  MR-2 always seem to be designed by a few guys, using few resources like a cocktail napkin over late night sake, sushi and some hentai.


1-series?  I was going to snag that or a GTR in 2006/7 but decided to be sensible and get a 2 year old Legacy GT.  I personally have four problems with it.  Heavier than it should be.  Weird  pot belly design they seem keen to protect for some odd reason.  Interior not that roomy or luxurious, feels pretty cheap as all newer Bimmers do (they seem to be attempting a correction w/ the latest new models).  The car feels bigger to me than it is.  I prefer the inverse.  Plus other than the fact I would never buy one due to total lack of long term confidence, I'd have to be okay w/ a lease.  Other than that, could the right car for anybody. 

Thanks guys. Dave, out of curiosity, where are you getting your reliability stats? I don't really know what's actually trustworthy as far as reliability stats go and generally just look over owner forums for reports on potential trouble spots.

Seems like most cars that fulfill what I want are either too expensive, too ostentatious, or come with a whole backlog of potential issues.

What got me in that interview was when they were attempting to quantify and measure what makes their competitors' cars fun. That seemed like they were completely clueless as to what automotive passion actually was and what people wanted out of their cars. Though maybe there's some translation and/or cultural misunderstanding here or maybe I'm just an idiot and missed the point. Hell, I know I'm an idiot but I've been known to have a right hunch occasionally. Not often enough though...

Thanks guys. Dave, out of curiosity, where are you getting your reliability stats? I don't really know what's actually trustworthy as far as reliability stats go and generally just look over owner forums for reports on potential trouble spots.

Seems like most cars that fulfill what I want are either too expensive, too ostentatious, or come with a whole backlog of potential issues.

True Delta. They have much more info on the BMW 1 than CR does, and are generally much closer to the truth in terms of reliability. No reliability metric is perfect, and it's always wise to know what to look out for, but generally I've found TD's reports to be pretty accurate. They report on the number of unscheduled service trips per 100 cars, instead of the nebulous, constantly morphing "average" that CR uses. CR has all of the raw data, but they won't share any of it. They won't even share specific reported problems unless you're a double extra super gold platinum plus member, really irritating.

Unless the car you like is an absolute disaster, I say buy what you want. I bought my car back in '08. I wanted AWD, great seats and a good driving position, precise steering, plenty of power, and reasonably sized rear seats and trunk. I didn't want to spend much over $20K, so the then brand new xDrive version of the 5 series was definitely not an option, and I never really liked the W211 E-class, particularly in the 221hp E320 guise which is what I would've been looking at. From what I recall E500 4matics were too expensive, and an '04 V8 W211 E likely WOULD be a reliability nightmare. TD's sample size for most W211s is pretty small, but the numbers are much better than C5 A6s so who knows.

The 1st gen G35X and Legacy GT also didn't float my boat, so I ended up with an '04 A6 2.7T which ticked all of the boxes I was looking for. I knew going in that the C5 gen A6 wasn't known as a reliability all star, and indeed its been finicky here and there but not the ticket to financial ruin that is the common wisdom on most auto blogs. What I did do though is buy it as a CPO, and if it turned out to be a disaster I would've gotten rid of it before the CPO warranty ran out at the end of 2010.

If you do think you might want a 1 series, that's what I would suggest doing - CPO, and have the ability to dump the car once the warranty is out if necessary. If you can't afford to do that, I would probably suggest looking elsewhere.

Thanks Dave, seems like a legit site. Looks like they're lumping the 128 and 135 together, and a lot of those reports are HPFP issues. With the 128 there seem to be issues with taillights cracking, and faulty tire pressure sensors. In other words, typical BMW bullshit and long-term signs of cost-cutting. At least the mechanicals on the 128 look like they're holding up. We've had HPFP issues on one car and TPS issues on another, so we know all about BMW bullshit

Yeah I don't think they have enough data to separate the 128 and 135. The 328 and 335 are separated though, and for awhile the N54 335s were definitely doing much worse than the NA 328s due to those HPFP problems. The difference seems to have shrunk quite a bit though, I think they've finally gotten a handle on that now. I can't say I'd be a happy camper if I was on my third or fourth HPFP, which I've heard of happening to some.