[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by JamesNoBrakes

The more stuff they are packing into cars these days, the more can go wrong, and the less chance I think there is of it working 15 years down the road. It's especially expensive with german cars and possibly more of an issue with how they try to "lead" technology improvements, but I fear this is going to be affecting all vehicles. One day, I walked out to my 4-series and tried to open the hatch, nothing happened. In fact, nothing really in the rear half of the car worked, like lights, parking alert, doors, etc. The rear computer unit had just decided to crap out and had to be re-coded. I mean, what happens 15 years from now or more, is anyone even going to support the car? What do you do then? This is happening more and more IME. These cars are designed to last for their warranty period and then it's "no care".

I'm 3 months past 12 years ownership of my car and well above 300,000 miles. I can still get almost every part of the car from BMW. I have a 21 year old Z3 and just a year ago prepped it for a cross-country road trip, I was still able to get the obscure plastic cooling system parts for the M44 in it for reasonable prices from BMW. When I had my E30, even after 18 years, BMW still had virtually every part for the car available to keep it running. I've not checked lately, but I'd bet 90% of the E30 parts are still available from BMW 26 years past its last production date. My experience with BMW for over 30 years has been they have great part support for the cars they produce.

I can't disagree more with your last statement.