[mdusenbery]

Just installed my second starter in my 2006 325. First starter the motor burned out just out of warranty. Second starter was a rebuilt one from GM rebuild division. I can not blame GM, what when wrong is the plastic lever that is pulled on by the solenoid's steel arm that engages the Bendix drive broke off and than sent the steel rod through the starter housing. Why in the world would BMW use plastic in this application is beyond me. And for some reason German plastic is not the best. As i have stated in one of my other posts, this is my last BMW. Just a note; my 69 big block Corvette still has the original starter motor as does my 1928 model A pick that has 65k miles on it.

[lookalikehuuh]

I would venture to say this was due to a poor rebuild not necessarily BMW's fault IMHO. As i myself have replace the starter on 15+ N52 engines never seen a failure like yours which to me points to a rebuilding defect not a design defect. The starter is a well documented weak spot with your car so you should not be upset that a known problem has cropped up.

I mean come on your car is a 2006 stuff will break its normal wear and tear items especially on what I can only assume is your daily driver. I find it funny that you are comparing it to a 69 big block Chevy as if those cars are rock solid reliable or something. Having owned a 1969 Chevy C10 for over a decade I found it to be much much less reliable than my current BMW. Also most people don't daily drive their '69 so of course stuff isn't gonna break when you put 500-1,000 miles on it a year. You gotta take into considerations the failures per mile not "oh this broke 10 times" but the car has 200,000 miles... yea its gonna break.

You do have to realize that no matter what car mfg you go to nowadays every single mfg uses plastic extensively. They do it for a number of reasons many of which have to do with cost, weight control, fuel economy, weight distribution, etc. Keep in mind vehicles nowadays have tons and tons of extra safety equipment and emissions controls that simply did not exist in the past which adds cost and weight. The mfg's have to save pounds somewhere to make up for the weight of these features. Most of these keeping you a million times safer than you "old 69" I'll take the plastic with the great driving dynamics and tons of airbags any day.

Lets make everything out of metal and have cars weigh 6000 pounds for a small family sedan that'll get 5mpg and will cost $90,000.00 that's a great idea! NOT!!

[mdusenbery]

Just to be clear, this BMW is the only car I have had that spends a lot of time on the back of a tow truck. In my 43 years of owning cars and fixing cars this one has been the worst. The great thing is you can do a internet search and find that my car suffers from the same issues as most BMW of the same vintage.
And I do not expect a car not to have plastic in it, I do expect it not to have plastic in a hammering application.

[hassmaschine]

I get your frustration. Newer BMW starters are definitely crap. Lots of us have older BMWs too (like your 43 year old corvette), and those were built like tanks. New stuff just isn't. I don't think a starter failing before the car is used up should be expected. BMW obviously doesn't care, it just has to make it to the end of the warranty before it breaks.

Part of it is chasing light weight, so you get smaller parts and lots of cheap plastic. It's funny that they are chasing "light weight" but the reality is, cars are just huge boats these days. An E90 is about the same size as an E39, and it weighs like 500-700lbs more than an "all metal" E30 or E36 despite being made out of mostly plastic.

When BMW made the switch to the 4 series, it's like they finally just said "fuck it", let their belts loose a couple notches, and pigged out on ice cream and doughnuts because they knew the car was getting fat and there was no turning back..