RE: (Not) Driven: BMW i8

[RemarkLima]

PaulMoor said:

Bladedancer said:

The way new cars are deigned, no they will not be reliable because it is not in manufacturer's interest.
Look at diesels. Before CR systems they did starship mileages. Now you're lucky getting to 150k without injectors, DMF, DPF, EGR, fuel pump or turbo going wrong.
Parts that are known to break and on their own are cheap to replace bounded with expensive ones to force you to pay a lot more.

You are comparing 90s cars (probably japanese I take it) to modern ones. Good try but won't quite work. Type into google 'vag 1.4 tsi engine problems' and enjoy your reading. In fact, it's one of 4 things google will suggest when you type in 'vw 1.4', so a lot of hits there.

A lot of problems with today's wonder-child 1.0 and 1.2 highly stressed turbo engines won't be that apparent till they hit 100k or so in a few years.

Ah. Rose tinted specs. 20 years ago the engines might have had a chance of getting huge miles (In SOME cars)because the engines were massivley over engineerd and horrifically inefficient compaired to a modern engine. The body would rot long before that anyway. Cars are massively more reliable than they ever used to be. There is no conspiracy for stuff to brake, just things are far more complex and people are no longer willing to put up with the lack of reliability they used too, and will complain on the internet about anything.

Agree with you there PaulMoor!

BMW Common Rail Derv here with 150,000 miles and not a problem at all... Well, the glow plugs had to be changed, but I had to do that on my Xantia as well. I'd say there's more problems with VAG stuff than anything else.

As said, the reality is on a long journey how many broken down cars do you see now as compared to the 90's? Or even the 80's? Really very few.

[Fidgits]

Timbola said:

garypotter said:

astra la vista said:

call me a cynic but anyone who can spend £80-130K on a car isn't bothered about fuel consumption. manufacturers should be doing their best to get this technology into the mass market cars where it'd be appreciated more.

+1, nail on the head, |BMW should be looking at this tech in the crappy mini and 1 series,

You're both missing the main thrust of the point of this car. The i8 isn't about fuel consumption or emissions, it's about the ability of new, green technologies to deliver (nigh-on) supercar performance. Fuel-consumption and emissions are relevant, but an aside.

To address what you're talking about, BMW also has the i3 Concept, which is indeed aimed at the mass market, and therefore much more concerned with fuel-consumption and emissions. And also much cheaper, of course.

Edited by Timbola on Wednesday 27th February 15:57

very true.

i would be interested in something mid-range, around £50k, M3-esq hybrid just to see what mass market can really do