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.
Many years ago the Standard Motor Company of Coventry solved this problem on the tailgate of their "Vanguard" estate car. They ran the wires in a piece of hosepipe and included a bicycle spoke which ensured that the bending was evenly spread.
Mine never gave a problem in the 25 years and 350,000 miles that I owned it.
-- ~ Adrian Tuddenham ~ (Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply) www.poppyrecords.co.uk
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 :-#)#
Laptops! Oy!
-- Andrew Muzi Open every day since 1 April, 1971
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.
nate
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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.
nate
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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.
-- fact check required
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.
nate
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wow, that idiocy is right up there with your trunk organizers.
and i've watched preludes DOMINATE m3's and m5's on the track. you simply have not the slightest clue what you're talking about.
no, they do a great job of brainwashing. "only a fool can't see that the emperor's clothes [your over-priced deutche-crap] isn't fantastic".
no, any one who buys into their hype is a brainwashed sucker.
they don't make them any more, but the wishbone hondas were awesome. the crx was incredibly cheap and handled superbly - my old crx could crush m3's on the twisties with skinny little tires, and i'm not a good driver. miata's handle well too. hyundai are just wishbone junk wrt handling.
-- fact check required
On Thu, 14 Mar 2013 20:16:35 -0400, Nate Nagel wrote as underneath snip
Have to be extra vigilant to water rundown in your scenario which for the wiring longevity agree would be much better! C+
late night typo - "macpherson junk".
-- fact check required
A: german engineering.
the fact is, germans aren't good with automotive wiring. german designed vehicles have the shittiest electrical systems ever created.
Worse, even, than Lucas Electric, the Prince of Darkness?
Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus
A: german engineering.
the fact is, germans aren't good with automotive wiring. german designed vehicles have the shittiest electrical systems ever created.
Having owned, driven, maintained and repaired BMW, MG and Fiat the differences among them are not all that significant
-- Andrew Muzi Open every day since 1 April, 1971
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)
besides the rear door wires which i understand like the BMW is a very common spot for wires to break on this car...
and interestingly the rear door is used maybe 1/100 of the time compared to the drivers door so you would have to think there is something "special" about the way those particular wires are designed and/or built to make them break before the drivers door wires break
Mark
ouch.
-- fact check required
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.
Ooops. 3, 5, and 7 series (embarrassing typo!)
The inside handles seem to be designed to break at the 8 to 10 year mark. The have a slot molded in to the highest stress point, I might add I don't see any reason for it. Other than to help the dealer sell replacement handles. Other than the door handles I'm a happy Toyota owner, had a Camry, have a T-100 still a sharp looking truck, have a Lexus and an Avalon. My wife is a persistent patient shopper, and will wait until she finds a great used car at a steal. Mikek
ok, you're not going to like a lot of what i have to say, so i'm going to preface this by reminding you that i recognize that you may be sincere in what you believe - so don't take all this personally.
bmw's power trains are indeed "phenomenal", but for entirely different reasons than those by which others would measure.
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.
it's not cost dude. see above.
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.
no they don't - they use macpherson strut. if they were serious, they'd use wishbone.
now, bmw are at least smart enough to have realized before most others, porsche included, that rear suspension is crucial to making a cheaply made car handle better, so they do at least concede to a little extra expenditure on that, but by definition, any front suspension that offers no camber control is just cheap junk.
it most definitely is. bmw are the pioneers of modern life limitation control. nobody has spent more on ensuring that whatever they use works for a closely defined period, and not a moment longer. as said before, it costs more to do this, but it pays. customers buying new are snowed into believing this "ultimate driving machine" advertising [the ultimate meaningless tagline!] so they don't care. and second [or later] owners have no recourse. it gets older bmw's [and their parts] off the road, and keeps sales up.
-- fact check required
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