520d SE 184 5dr

Minefield

I bought my 520d Touring five years ago partly on the strength of the reviews found on HJ.

It was a 26K miles, full service history car. It is a great car when it works.....

The purpose of this review is to highlight the massive pitfalls with the car which will cost owners large sums to rectify.

If you search for these faults, you will find that they are very common. Despite this, they do not qualify as warranty repairs in the UK although it may be different in other markets.

1. the infamous yellow grommet failure.

The engine compartment is separated from the passenger compartment by a bulkhead. This bulkhead has holes in it for both right and left hand drive set ups. One of the redundant holes is blanked by a large yellow grommet, which fails after a few years and lets gallons of rainwater in to the car. This happens because the failed grommet is positioned right where the rainwater from the windscreen is channelled down. A genius piece of design that leads to the carpets and floor being flooded, and the electrics that run under the carpet short circuiting. The repair costs are enormous. The part itself is only approx £30 and can be replaced by a determined home mechanic - the problem being that you don't know you need one until your car is full of water.

2. air suspension compressor and bags/struts

These simply fail after six or seven years due to a combination of wear (the bags) and rust caused by condensation (the compressor, specifically the solenoid). The cost to repair is north of £1K. If yours hasn't failed yet, it will. Note that the compressor is also used by LRJ on a number of models and it fails there too in large numbers and yet there is no warranty replacement offered by BMW.

3. headlight condensation

The headlights are extremely vulnerable and after an innocuous parking knock or two will start to let water in. If you have the dynamic lights, BMW will charge you approx £1.25K per light unit (not a pair) plus fitting charge and coding, plus more money for the controller module and LED side light if they are also cooked by the water ingress. The fitting charge is high as the bumper has to come off. If you have the LCI version then factor in that the bumper has to come off just to replace a headlight bulb.

4. suspension alignment and tyre wear

The car is extremely prone to the suspension being put out of alignment by touching kerbs etc. This leads to costly tyre wear. There are also issues with tyre wear in general.

5. automatic box

This item too is being revealed to have a flaw after about 60-80K miles. It is claimed to be a sealed unit that never require re-lubing but the lack of servicing is causing its downfall. Eye-watering repair costs as you would expect.

As mentioned above, in theory this car looks like a great idea. It is large, comfortable (when the suspension works), is fuel efficient, and drives really well. However, it only makes sense if you have it as a company car as you'll need a company's financial resources to keep it on the road.

Do not buy this car, there are very many better alternatives!!

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