Warranty or not?

[leeburn]

Having just bought an 06 BMW Z4M, I'm in 2 minds whether or not to purchase a BMW extended warranty.
The guy I bought the car off was paying £70 per month for the full warranty cover but he's stopping the payments and the cover will run out on 1st August.

Question i've got is are the Z4M's reliable enough to take a risk and not bother with a warranty. The car has 18,500 miles on with full service history. The only issue that seems to be with the car is a bit of a squeak coming from the rear drivers side (suspension i guess). I've got about 5k miles till the next service.

Cheers for your thoughts

[Carfiend]

Well you have to ask yourself, do you feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?!

[fridaypassion]

Well you have a broken coil spring for starters

[physprof]

will be in same boat come september...

insurance (aka warranty) - do you take the risk....

we've paid several hundreds a year for years at home - claims? - one for 1200 accidental to shower.... is it VFM? Well what is the worst case scenario and can you pay for that? Rebuild house - eh no. So Insurance it is.

On Z4M at £60-100/hr labour, try getting away with any fault and a bill less than a grand especially once they know you are out of warranty ;-)

Love the car but compared to my e39, there seems more electric gremlins and glitches that spontaneouly appear/dissappear and reality is it isn't BMW's best screwed together car.

I'll be biting the leather and paying monthly come september.

[john_p]

Out of interest what did you pay for the Z4M? PM if you prefer.

[Daz4m]

I'm going to extend mine too, common problems seem to be rear springs and o2 sensors.

Other than that they are ok.

[leeburn]

just a thought on the warranty cover though, when you read the small print it seems that the comprehensive warranty does not cover that much. It also does not cover "all service items which will require periodic replacement". Does this include coil springs i wonder??

[dan101smith]

leeburn said:

just a thought on the warranty cover though, when you read the small print it seems that the comprehensive warranty does not cover that much. It also does not cover "all service items which will require periodic replacement". Does this include coil springs i wonder??

It covers the springs.

[Stu3500]

I took it out on the e46 m3 (which is currently for sale;)). The way i look at is;

1. You can handle bit's and bob's but if some major goes then i certainly couldn't take a 2/3/4 k hit to fix it.
2. I know that each of my services is going to cost exactly what BMW say it will and i'm not going to get landed with this, that and the next thing extra.

Edited by Stu3500 on Thursday 16th July 17:46

[DMS1979]

The squeak might not be the coil. Mine had a squeak that turned out to be the handbrake. Every time i got in our out it would squeak. Of course if you hear it when your moving then perhaps not!
Mine was very reliable mechanically. Electrically was fine except a fried sat nav that cost £1k plus to replace on warranty. Apart from that just interior trim rattles.

[leeburn]

The squeak is indeed just when I get in the car (and not all the time I may add). Was this a simple fix with the hand brake?
Back onto the warranty, i'm still undecided. Any more thoughts on Z4M reliability?

[physprof]

The squeak culprit is indeed likely to be the handbrake, try pushing down on rear 3/4s each side with handbrake engaged and then not.

Point above about being landed with extras/advisables on service is good, especially in current climate where car sales are slow and there is a steady stream of punters coming in for services - only takes one or two a day to swallow the "....it needs this that and the next thing sir/madam..."

O2 sensor as said before - seems to be related to letting it run too much into light on fuel gauage....

I've had two go (though I can't relate to low fuel) - Other things I've had going from 23 to 36 K since sept. 08 is - lost a brake pad retaining clip, intermittent seatbelt warning (that damn buzzer and imagine you'd get skint in dealer getting cause i.d. 'ed and then fixed) and bluetooth for phone thrown a wobbler twice - but disconnect battery for 10 secs clears it.