How To Own A Ridiculously Cheap And Reliable BMW 7-Series - Jalopnik
The Fault The 2002-2008 BMW 7-series was controversial to roughly the same degree that Beyonce is underrated. It had styling made by the love-him-or-hate-him Chris Bangle, and was the first car to come equipped with BMW's proprietary iDrive system, which had the user-friendliness of the Large Hadron Collider. Its long-wheelbase, fully loaded models still had technology that the current S-Class didn't have, like electric rear side window shades, six-speed automatic transmission, electronic parking brake, and an infinitely variable intake manifold. But there was huge problem, and its name was BMW. During the early 2000s, BMW was regularly having its lunch eaten by the Mercedes S-Class , and in order to one-up the rival German automaker, they employed longer engine oil change intervals, called Condition Based Servicing, or CBS. What this meant is that new BMWs needed their oil changed once every 15,000 miles as a minimum, in an attempt to get people interested in their new line of Bangle-butts. 15,000 miles, as it turns out, was way too long of an interval for the 4. 4 and 4. 8 liter N62 V8s in the 745/750i. What this mistake did over time was harden the engine's oil seals so that they became brittle and would leak, allowing oil where it... Source: carbuying.jalopnik.com
