jim beam said:it's not just that though - their physical routing is at fault too. if
they used a torsion bend as opposed to an elbow bend, the mechanical
strain would be spread out along the whole wire, not concentrated in one
spot.
Volvo 240 (1984 and other years) wagons had a similar
problem with their tailgate wiring, where wires would always
break in the hinge - the wiring was not unlike hinge wiring
in laptops. It was a very tight routing which left only a
small amount of wire that could flex with the result that
after a few years stuff on the tailgate would stop working...
I solved the problem by moving the wiring outside the hinge
and had it hang in a loop - not as nice looking, but never
had any further problems. I kept that car for 25 years...
John :-#)#
but it's bmw. they won't spend a cent on better engineering that a cent
on advertising can't brainwash.
Of course it can be. If BMW uses some hippie green
insulation that isn't as pliable as other insulation, then
the insulation will crack. We can't do a forensic investigation
from some pics that don't show how it's mounted, how
much it moves, what tensions are on it, etc. But I'd bet
that area has more bending, tension, etc than the rest of
it.
A cheap shot; perhaps they did have a flaw in the routing/materials of
one wiring harness, but show me a comparable vehicle at the same price
point that handles better.
To accuse BMW across the board of poor
engineering is laughable.
handling??? easy. prelude. only cheaper. crx too for that matter.
then you don't know what you're looking at. i'm a materials guy. bmw
materials are cheap and nasty. not quite as bad as frod or g.m., but
real freakin' close.
and when they do retarded design stuff like fit electronic brake pad
wear monitors, you bmw wash-brains think that's brilliant. except for
the fact that it's on one pad, on one side of the vehicle - that's not
just retarded, it's cheap and retarded both at the same time.
Both are front wheel drive cars, by definition you lose.
I'm not saying that BMW is perfect, or any manufacturer for that matter.
However I think that BMW and also Porsche do an excellent job of
producing good value for the money.
Probably the best going, if you
value performance and handling (and buy used. Anyone who pays new car
prices for a Bimmer or P-car either has an enviable net wealth or is a
sucker.)
Many will find this surprising but I would consider Hyundai an excellent
value for a non-performance driver. Honda and Toyota actually make,
overall, a good product, but are overpriced in comparison.
Yes, that much is true. Someone had mentioned that having the wire in
that area flex in torsion would be preferable and I agree with that
statement as well. Would be simple to have accomplished by having the
hole in the body offset by a few inches (actually as far as possible
would be preferable) from the hole in the trunk lid, and using a
correspondingly longer rubber boot. then most of the flexing of the
wire as the trunk lid opens and closes would result in a slight twisting
of the wire rather than a sharp bending.
The same holds true for wiring running from a body pillar into a door
e.g. for power mirrors, windows, speakers, etc.
hyundai are just wishbone junk wrt
handling.
In sci.electronics.repair Arthur said:Almost every BMW E39 (5-series) and E38 (7-series) and E46 (3-series)
has shorts that develop in the trunk wiring loom - all in the same spot!
Here is a picture of the uniformity of the shorts:
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=286651&stc=1&d=1311702112
Here is another picture from another vehicle:
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=287281&stc=1&d=1312154763
And another:
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=261502&d=1294537117
And another:
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=295239&stc=1&d=1317334573
And another:
http://bimmerfest.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=307223&d=1325771723
And another:
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=200762&stc=1&d=1252530849
I could go on (and on); but we can't figure out WHAT the BMW design flaw is.
http://bimmerfest.com/forums/showthread.php?t=397245
Q: Can you tell from these pictures what the BMW design flaw is?
A: german engineering.
the fact is, germans aren't good with automotive wiring. german designed
vehicles have the shittiest electrical systems ever created.
i had the exact same thing happen in the rear door wiring in a 95
toyota camry.
Mark
Ya, how many "door handles" have broke on you?
Having owned, driven, maintained and repaired BMW, MG and Fiat the
differences among them are not all that significant
perhaps they did have a flaw in the routing/materials of
one wiring harness, but show me a comparable vehicle at the same price
point that handles better. To accuse BMW across the board of poor
engineering is laughable.
Likely not one E39 hasn't had its power steering hose leak under the
fluid reservoir, and not a single E46, E39, or E38 (3,5,6 series)
-
snip
my wife broke the inside passenger side..
i've learned to use only two fingers to pull on the handles, don't
grab them.
i agree they are not very rugged...
but it's about the only flaw i've found with that car (knock knock)
The bimmer handles well, and the power train is phenomenal.
However, the window regulators break on almost every BMW
older than about 5 years, while the blower motor final stage
resistor (FSR), aka the final stage unit (FSU) will fry itself
more than once on every single bimmer ever built in the late
90's and early 2000's.
The VANOS seals are made of a material that won't last the warranty
period; and the Bosch 5.7 ABS control module was placed far too close
to the engine for cost reasons, which fries almost every single one.
The DISA valve, which appears to be an amazing engineering feat,
is practically designed to loosen the pin, which, if the engine
ingests that steel pin, will wreak havoc on the valves as the
pistons pummel it to pieces (there is nothing between the DISA
valve and the intake manifold!).
The almost criminal design of the DISA is dwarfed by the clearly
deficient design of the cooling system, where almost every bimmer
older than a few years has had a catastrophic failure of, and very
many multiple failures. Thousands of bimmers every year are destroyed
by owners not realizing that a single overheating episode causes
cracks in cylinder 3 (e.g., in the M54 engine) that essentially
turn the otherwise fantastic power plant into so much rubbish.
And, there wasn't an E39 ever built (5-series, 1997 to 2003) which
did NOT have the cluster and MID pixels turn to unreadable junk within
a few years of manufacture (due to the infamous "pink tape").
Likewise, not a single E39 is immune to the horrid choice of PBT
plastic for the headlight adjusters, turning $1000 fiber optic
Halogen H7 and Xenon headlights into veritable candles within a
few years of the heat baking the plastic.
Likely not one E39 hasn't had its power steering hose leak under the
fluid reservoir, and not a single E46, E39, or E38 (3,5,6 series)
bimmer hasn't had the CCV valve fail on them (i.e., a PCV valve
which costs hundreds of dollars to replace, frequently).
For the V8, they all have valley pan gaskets leaking, and all the
bimmers I'm talking about have had their thrust arm bushings tear.
Probably not a single bimmer of the categories above hasn't had the
vapor barrier leaking (due to an extremely poor choice of design
coupled with lousy sealant); and half the bimmers have cables slip
out of the otherwise fancy seat, causing the infamous "seat twist".
I could go on (and on), (e.g., more than half will have the windshield
washer pumps leak, and a huge percentage will lose their jack pads,
while a healthy percentage will melt their center brake lamp housing,
and even the roundels will chip away at the car wash until nothing
but silver is left).
The funny thing is that BMW DOES know how to design a powerplant.
It appears that the Germans in Bavaria simply 'care' about some
things (just count the ashtrays, for example, and then compare
them to the unanimously ridiculous cupholders of the E39 era)
while they don't care about others.
Clearly BMW cares about handling
and efficiency of the power train;
yet, just as clearly, overall product quality is NOT even on their
radar screens.
bmw are pioneers in transmission life limitation. gm and frod used to
do this by simply using cheapo clutch packs in their automatics, and
cheapo steel in their sticks so they'd wear out or spall respectively.
bmw didn't like these failure modes, so, not content with "sealed for
life", they decided to design fatigue /into/ their cogs so they'd
fatigue and break. [the beauty of fatigue is that you don't get "whiny
transmission" or slippage symptoms that develop over time - one second
it works, the next, it's a catastrophic failure.] i know this because
one of my old profs was their outside consultant, and it was interesting
to us as students because the metallurgical problem was how to ensure
that individual ratios would fail when each one operates somewhere
within the three [very different mechanism] fatigue "regimes". it's a
"phenomenal" technical achievement and one that bmw paid a lot of money
to solve. all the majors are now reputed to have followed their lead to
some extent. the real kicker is that it costs bmw ~20% more in
materials and q.c. to ensure this life limitation, but the mba's did
their math and it pays because it causes big ticket repairs to vehicles
that are depreciated thus ensuring that the vehicle gets junked.
for a company that spends hundreds of millions each and every year on
research, [although that's substantially less than they spend on
advertising!] do you really think all that is simply oversight?
not from where i sit they don't. single row timing chain, poor
materials, both are manifestation of their overall design philosophy -
they don't sell you a car, they're selling you a period of usage with a
whole bunch of marking brainwash attached.
bmw are pioneers in transmission life limitation. gm and frod used to
do this by simply using cheapo clutch packs in their automatics, and
cheapo steel in their sticks so they'd wear out or spall respectively.
bmw didn't like these failure modes, so, not content with "sealed for
life", they decided to design fatigue /into/ their cogs so they'd
fatigue and break. [the beauty of fatigue is that you don't get "whiny
transmission" or slippage symptoms that develop over time - one second
it works, the next, it's a catastrophic failure.] i know this because
one of my old profs was their outside consultant, and it was interesting
to us as students because the metallurgical problem was how to ensure
that individual ratios would fail when each one operates somewhere
within the three [very different mechanism] fatigue "regimes". it's a
"phenomenal" technical achievement and one that bmw paid a lot of money
to solve. all the majors are now reputed to have followed their lead to
some extent. the real kicker is that it costs bmw ~20% more in
materials and q.c. to ensure this life limitation, but the mba's did
their math and it pays because it causes big ticket repairs to vehicles
that are depreciated thus ensuring that the vehicle gets junked.
Everybody does this, though. This is how cars are designed. I believe
that GM was the original innovator of the concept, at least according to
my old statics professor who had been a GM engineer in the fifties. He
was very enthusiastic about the whole concept of designing for specific
failures.
That said, I have 480,000 miles on the transmission in my old 2002,
and
I had a Chrysler Laser that went through five transmissions before I gave
up on the thing.
for a company that spends hundreds of millions each and every year on
research, [although that's substantially less than they spend on
advertising!] do you really think all that is simply oversight?
I think some of the failures, like VANOS seals and the DISA failures, are
the result of trying to push the technology too hard too fast.
And some of them, like the perpetually underdesigned cooling systems,
are the result of German engineers not understanding that the weather
around the world is not the same as it is in Bavaria.
But some of them are the result of typical German Engineering Disease,
where engineers will never use one part to do a job when they can use
five.
Still, when I drive the 2002, it makes me smile. I'm willing to put up
with a remarkable amount of crap for that. Not everyone is, but that's
why they make so many different kinds of cars.
That is the philosophy of the entire auto industry and singling out one
manufacturer for it is disingenuous.
--scott
