let's talk you're at the local car show and you're wondering I'm gonna go check

out some great brand new German made sedans and coupes I'm not sure you know

what I'm buying I'm looking at Audi BMW Mercedes Porsche VW checking them all

out but today I'm really kind of focused in on the BMWs and Mercedes what are you

looking at for reliability because that is in fact one of the main priorities

and of course today I'm gonna share with you guys which one between Benz and BMW

is the most reliable now I dipped into resources I've done a lot of research

and resources such as AM online and repair pal tell me a lot of what I need

to know and so a lot of these ratings are going to expose the most reliable

between Benz and Beamer so let's get rolling into this so in the first five

to six years first of all all cars are very much the same whether you're

driving a Bentley or a BMW or a Ferrari or whatever you're driving these cars

are all pretty typical in the first five years and that's no different between

Benz and BMW and Audi of course they're very comparable in terms of reliability

not Lots goes on because to be out quite frank a lot of these parts are

engineered to last for five six years but then after five years after six

years that's when the parts mortality starts to kick in

that's when what you find is a lot of the engineering lifespan of parts in a

lot of these cars like Benz and BMW are starting to expire so it's from that six

years to twelve year time frame that you're going to find where you're gonna

see a lot of the big expenses what a coincidence warranty's expired now

you're into the big repairs of course and of course you know what's what's the

magic number with the 12 years well historically 10 to 12 years is where

people start really giving it down and to be honest with you that's when they

start letting things slide you see an engine light if the car is running you

let it go nobody really cares at that point but somewhere between that

five-year and ten-year window is when people still care and they're trying to

keep the car running they're trying to extend the life span and that's

unfortunately when the engineering lifespan of a lot of these parts in

these cars start to fail now since we're talking about BMW and Benz in that five

to six year time onward the majority of the failures start happening in a BMW

BMW has historically seen a little bit more frequency of failures than Benz

does within that six year and on six to ten years timeframe BMW starts to fail

and a lot of the failures are related to suspension bushings suspension parts in

general of course cooling systems where they start to deteriorate because we all

know that there's plastic tee stats and plastic Rad's and plastic water pumps

and these parts start to crumble and start to fail and you wind up with a

leak so lots of failures starting hitting BMWs after about six years where

a band starts to see failures but it's just BMW starts to see a little bit

increased frequency now like everything generally speaking with all the

additional new electronics and technology and performance enhancements

that you see in cars today you would expect a dramatic increase in failures

but in reality most cars nowadays are getting better in terms of reliability

versus the technology levels that are actually in the cars

they learn from their mistakes but you know historically there have been a lot

of really bad engineering mistakes and designs that have left to premature

failures for example in the benz world leaky and loose power steering systems

that allowed the car to sort of wander and sway even though you're driving down

the road it's hard to keep a straight line vacuum door actuators that fail

either locking the passenger in or locking the person out from getting

inside the car doesn't release single roll and if you can believe it single

row timing chain installations all for the sake of saving money single row

timing chains that were historically known to fail in certain entry level

engines and as well a more recent issue with sudden acceleration to the point

where it's out of control and the car almost gets away from the driver

creating a very hazardous experience that's another one with a Benz all

examples in mercy these were some bad engineering took

over then we talk about BMW bad designs historically the s65 SAT five engines

with the extremely tight rod bearing tolerances that led to premature rod

bearing failures failing cooling systems because all the parts made of plastic

eventually led to them crumbling and failing and leaking possibly resulting

even further in overheated engines and warped heads because of aluminum heads

and certain bad designs like the n47 the turbo diesel inline four-cylinder engine

that BMW created that had timing chain failures way prematurely and it would

essentially wind up with a catastrophic failure so no question

both BMW and Benz have historically had problem areas issues poor design

engineering problems as well as quality control in general so fortunately

there's a lot of people out there and a lot of resources and I like to use a

resource called repair pal which is sort of an independent group that likes to

collect statistics and share them with the public for the sake of transparency

and sharing knowledge and wisdom with the public like you guys to help you

make wise decisions on cars now repair pal digs in traditionally from cars from

about 2010 to 2017 so it gives you a pretty good idea of relatively late

model cars and the failures that you see and what's the rate of repair for these

vehicles so we'll dig into the repair pal statistics and we'll compare BMW to

Mercedes now not only will we share you the statistics such as rate of failures

the cost of failures the average ownership costs per year as well as the

overall frequency and the ultimate rating of each vehicle we'll share all

that information with you for each vehicle but we're also going to

summarize at the end how good and how bad these two different vehicle brands

really are so of these statistics they compare the national average for the

average vehicle now the BMW for example on the average cost you annually about

1081 dollars us one outage for you know combining all the different vehicle

types models you're essentially looking at about a thousand eighty one dollars

per year of ownership costs for your average BMW between 2010 and 2017

compare that with 631 dollars for the average vehicle the average

consumer lightweight vehicle that you would buy today so as you can see it's

virtually double what a normal vehicle a typical vehicle might cost now in terms

of the frequency so BMW is ranked at 1.4 times per year for an unexpected

unscheduled failure versus the national average and vehicle industry average of

0.4 times per year so less than half so every other vehicle in industry would

have one unscheduled failure during the year whereas BMW is one and a half so

there's substantially higher failure rate with BMWs and then we talk about

the severity or how major those repairs are and of the BMW significance in terms

of repairs 14% are considered major failures in the BMW world while 11% is

the industry standard so again not dramatically different although you know

large costs associate with BMW repairs are higher than most vehicles so as a

result the BMWs as a summary from 2010 to 2017 rated by repair pal an

independent group not associated with any particular brand rates the average

BMW at 2 out of 5 which puts them below average in terms of overall reliability

and cost of maintenance however if you want to buy a BMW but you want to focus

on something reliable there are a handful of cars that are recommended 328

the 128 the z4 528 and the x1 and with the x1 I would say stay away from the 35

series stick with the 28 series again you see the theme those are the more

reliable versions of those vehicles so then we'll talk about the Mercedes

statistics based on repair pal and the average Mercedes costs per year is one

thousand one hundred and fifty eight dollars us three year for maintenance

and more or less servicing costs per year again versus the six hundred thirty

one dollar industry average and versus the thousand eighty one for BMW now

you'll see that's interesting because the Mercedes on average is a little bit

more than the average BMW overall for a particular year for

servicing but that's not the only indicator here so let's talk more about

this and why those aren't the only indicators is because only one point

zero unexpected visits to the shop buy a Mercedes owner is the current rating

versus the one point four four BMW and the zero point four four industry

standard so you'll notice even though the costs

per visit might be a little bit higher with a Benz you're visiting the dealer

less often so which essentially makes that more reliable less unexpected

breakdowns and then the other rating of course being the severity or how major

that failure is well the Mercedes has a rating of about twelve percent of their

failures are of significant or major failure rates and of course while again

BMW at fourteen percent an industry standard being around eleven percent

you'll notice Mercedes is very close to the average so they're actually a higher

rating in terms of overall reliability and how robust they are so in the final

rating for Mercedes is actually a three out of five based on yourself which puts

it at average which happens to be better significantly better than BMW for

reliability and overall durability now you want to understand where some of the

more reliable Mercedes cars can be found how about a c 300 C 350 a C 250 glk350

as well as the III 50 you'll notice the 350 series again a consistent theme

there's certain drive trains in the Mercedes world that are consistently

more reliable just as there are in the BMW world at 28 I here we've got the 350

s in the Benz so at the end of the day as a summary both these cars are very

well built and both manufacturers take great pride and great strides to improve

their cars reliability over the years and the generations they also both take

great pride in new technology being the latest and the greatest in terms of

introducing new things to the industry they're both great vehicles to drive in

general Benz and BMW a lot of great options on both sides of the fence that

being said if you're looking for Strictly durability or reliability

Mercedes currently owns the they're wearing the crown for most

reliable German car and that includes the Audi's which we featured before

because the BMWs are slightly better than outie

but Benz is better than BMW in terms of overall reliability in the last 10 years

so thanks again everybody and as always make sure you guys don't forget to

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thumbs up like and I'd love to hear in the comment section below what you guys

have to think do you agree with it do you not agree with what I've been

talking about today so thanks again everybody I'd love to see you on the

next one hope to see you soon bye bye