[Bluebeem]

A lovely unbiased review. I recently bought an F30 3 series and it seems to have many things that you were expecting (and wanted) in the 520d.

For example fuel consumption display in the speedo, bottle holders, seat memory on the seats and plus the same engine for about 15 lacs less. But the best thing is the driving modes available which completely satisfy a driving enthusiast (your comparison with MT).

My booking experience was surprisingly similar to yours btw ! Do read my review.

BTW I am shocked to hear the road taxes in bangalore. That's murder! ESP compared to road taxes in chd (4%) and Punjab (8%)

Note from the Team-BHP Support Team: Please avoid quoting an entire large post. It inconveniences our small screen & mobile readers.

[androdev]

Wanted to update the ownership costs so far for the benefit of others:

Service (covered by BSI):

1st service @ 8K km: Rs.11K
-Only oil change. filters cleaned
-Oil cost is 5.2L for 7K plus tax.

2nd service @ 14K km: Rs 30K
-Oil 7K + tax
-A/C filter 10K +
-Air filter 4K +
-Oil filter 1.5K +
-Brake fluid 1.5K +

Accidents:

Transmission replacement (covered by BSI): Rs 7L
Wiper stalk replacement after a freak accident (opted not to claim insurance): Rs 40K

Miscellaneous:
Space wheel + jack : Rs 62.5K
- alloy 30K + tax, tire 14K + tax, jack 10K + tax

BSI:
Rs 3L 5yrs/100K

BMW Secure for 3 years:
Rs 1.5L per year on average

[Maky]

Originally Posted by androdev

Wanted to update the ownership costs so far for the benefit of others:

Service (covered by BSI):

1st service @ 8K km: Rs.11K
-Only oil change. filters cleaned
-Oil cost is 5.2L for 7K plus tax.

2nd service @ 14K km: Rs 30K
-Oil 7K + tax
-A/C filter 10K +
-Air filter 4K +
-Oil filter 1.5K +
-Brake fluid 1.5K +

Accidents:

Transmission replacement (covered by BSI): Rs 7L
Wiper stalk replacement after a freak accident (opted not to claim insurance): Rs 40K

Miscellaneous:
Space wheel + jack : Rs 62.5K
- alloy 30K + tax, tire 14K + tax, jack 10K + tax

BSI:
Rs 3L 5yrs/100K

BMW Secure for 3 years:
Rs 1.5L per year on average

Thanks Andro! I've been wanting to get estimates on BMW with BSI for a while now. This helps me better understand what a Merc without it would cost. It looks like you benefited massively from BSI.
You had to pay 40k for wiper stalks my god, What is NCB like?

[androdev]

Originally Posted by Maky

Thanks Andro! I've been wanting to get estimates on BMW with BSI for a while now. This helps me better understand what a Merc without it would cost. It looks like you benefited massively from BSI.
You had to pay 40k for wiper stalks my god, What is NCB like?

There is hardly any benefit from BSI (which is for service) if you consider that I paid 3L for 5years and got covered for 40K service bill for the two services I had in first two years. BSI also includes extended warranty, so it is a decent cover to have I suppose.

You are probably referring to the insurance bill of 7L which is covered by BMW Secure and not by BSI. Any insurance which has add-ons like zero depreciation, engine/tranmission protector would offer the same coverage.

Wiper stalk = part of the steering column in most cars. So it has wiper stalk, indicator stalks and the works. I paid 40K as it was the first 'accident' and i didn't want to claim insurance, all that paperwork for little gain. I didn't save any NCB because I had a transmission related accident during that year

There is lot of misunderstanding about BSI of BMW. It really doesn't make BMW ownership that much easier say compared to Mercedes. Here is how I would compare the current Merc vs BMW in the context of BSI:

Service costs:
Merc and BMW should be comparable. What BSI does is allow you to cap it by pre-paying it. But if you decide not to opt for it, you are not likely to pay more than what BSI costs. The real benefit of BSI is the ext.warranty and not savings in service costs.

No clear winner here.

Warranty:
BMW: 2yr standard warranty + 3yrs extended warranty as part of BSI ultimate.
Mercedes: 3yrs standard warranty + 1yr paid ext. warranty.
Here BMW has the option for 5th year ext warranty but only if you buy their highest service package (BSI ultimate 5yrs). You get the Mercedes 4th year ext. warranty at 1% ex-showroom cost. But BSI 5yrs costs about 8% of the ex-showroom (of course it covers service also for 5 yrs).

No clear winner really.

Insurance:
When BMW Secure was introduced, it was a great product. It covered everything including "new car replacement in case of total loss". By now all insurance companies offer insurance products that match BMW Secure at a lower price. Mercedes has "Star protect" which is same as BMW Secure.

Again no clear winner.

The whole BSI+BMW Secure advantage made sense when Mercedes offered just two years of warranty and insurance products were not as advanced. But as of today the difference isn't much. If anything BMW 5yr-warranty can't be bought without paying 8% of the ex-showroom amount which is steep.

[Maky]

Originally Posted by androdev

There is hardly any benefit from BSI (which is for service) if you consider that I paid 3L for 5years and got covered for 40K service bill for the two services I had in first two years. BSI also includes extended warranty, so it is a decent cover to have I suppose.

You are probably referring to the insurance bill of 7L which is covered by BMW Secure and not by BSI. Any insurance which has add-ons like zero depreciation, engine/tranmission protector would offer the same coverage.

Yes It would appear I confused the two to be one and the same.

Originally Posted by androdev

There is lot of misunderstanding about BSI of BMW. It really doesn't make BMW ownership that much easier say compared to Mercedes. Here is how I would compare the current Merc vs BMW in the context of BSI:

Service costs:
Merc and BMW should be comparable. ...

Clears up a lot of misconceptions for me. Well I suppose they weren't misconception at the time as you mentioned, BMW had a clear advantage a while back. Thank you very much for the breakdown and information there.

[Bluebeem]

Originally Posted by androdev

There is hardly any benefit from BSI (which is for service) if you consider that I paid 3L for 5years and got covered for 40K service bill for the two services I had in first two years. BSI also includes extended warranty, so it is a decent cover to have I suppose.

You are probably referring to the insurance bill of 7L which is covered by BMW Secure and not by BSI. Any insurance which has add-ons like zero depreciation, engine/tranmission protector would offer the same coverage.

Wiper stalk = part of the steering column in most cars. So it has wiper stalk, indicator stalks and the works. I paid 40K as it was the first 'accident' and i didn't want to claim insurance, all that paperwork for little gain. I didn't save any NCB because I had a transmission related accident during that year

There is lot of misunderstanding about BSI of BMW. It really doesn't make BMW ownership that much easier say compared to Mercedes. Here is how I would compare the current Merc vs BMW in the context of BSI:

Service costs:
Merc and BMW should be comparable. What BSI does is allow you to cap it by pre-paying it. But if you decide not to opt for it, you are not likely to pay more than what BSI costs. The real benefit of BSI is the ext.warranty and not savings in service costs.

No clear winner here.

Warranty:
BMW: 2yr standard warranty + 3yrs extended warranty as part of BSI ultimate.
Mercedes: 3yrs standard warranty + 1yr paid ext. warranty.
Here BMW has the option for 5th year ext warranty but only if you buy their highest service package (BSI ultimate 5yrs). You get the Mercedes 4th year ext. warranty at 1% ex-showroom cost. But BSI 5yrs costs about 8% of the ex-showroom (of course it covers service also for 5 yrs).

No clear winner really.

Insurance:
When BMW Secure was introduced, it was a great product. It covered everything including "new car replacement in case of total loss". By now all insurance companies offer insurance products that match BMW Secure at a lower price. Mercedes has "Star protect" which is same as BMW Secure.

Again no clear winner.

The whole BSI+BMW Secure advantage made sense when Mercedes offered just two years of warranty and insurance products were not as advanced. But as of today the difference isn't much. If anything BMW 5yr-warranty can't be bought without paying 8% of the ex-showroom amount which is steep.

BMW Secure only comes for a year now and cannot be extended. The one year is standard with every car at no extra cost.

BSI Ultimate has entirely been discontinued since June 15th. The only big advantage that the BSI Ultimate has over others is the fact that is also covers all consumables and services. That's something you can't ignore. A set of break pass alone costs you in the region of 60-80k.

Anyway, I guess a lot of customers will now start seing how good or bad the BSI Ultimate really was , since its gone now.

[sandeep108]

Originally Posted by Bluebeem

BMW Secure only comes for a year now and cannot be extended. The one year is standard with every car at no extra cost.

BSI Ultimate has entirely been discontinued since June 15th. The only big advantage that the BSI Ultimate has over others is the fact that is also covers all consumables and services. That's something you can't ignore. A set of break pass alone costs you in the region of 60-80k.

Anyway, I guess a lot of customers will now start seing how good or bad the BSI Ultimate really was , since its gone now.

Then BMW will further lose out to Audi and Merc it seems, since Secure/BSI was something that gave owners quite a lot of peace of mind when splurging on these Germans. Now it will simply be all out price war.

[FlyingSpur]

Originally Posted by Bluebeem

BMW Secure only comes for a year now and cannot be extended. The one year is standard with every car at no extra cost.

Cost will be very much included in the stratospherically high insurance quote. Zero dep policy is availabie with any insurer now. This is no big deal really.

BSI Ultimate has entirely been discontinued since June 15th. The only big advantage that the BSI Ultimate has over others is the fact that is also covers all consumables and services.

I'm entirely shocked, this just widened the consideration set for the next upgrade to include the E and A6 as well. The sticker price for the BSI ultimate was 2.7L at the time of purchase. Three years on and the car has already run up service+repair (excluding accidental) of close to 3L. And I still have 2 years / 40,000 km coverage left. Agreed that it may not make much sense for a 3-year coverage, but every single person I know has benefitted from a 5-year BSI Ultimate.

No offence to anyone, but a lot of the opposition I hear against BSI is basis paper calculations (I'm not referring to any forum discussions here). Doesn't work that way. Last month some sensor conked off and I was presented with a 42k part replacement. Didn't have to pay so I didn't care, they just replaced it and sent the car back. This peace of mind has been the highlight of the ownership until now, and if BMW has done away with it, they have squandered a major advantage.

[Bluebeem]

Originally Posted by FlyingSpur

Cost will be very much included in the stratospherically high insurance quote. Zero dep policy is availabie with any insurer now. This is no big deal really.

No offence to anyone, but a lot of the opposition I hear against BSI is basis paper calculations. Doesn't work that way. Last month some sensor conked off and I was presented with a 42k part replacement. Didn't have to pay so I didn't care, they just replaced it and sent the car back. This peace of mind has been the highlight of the ownership until now, and if BMW has done away with it, they have squandered a major advantage.

Secure is a little different than zero dep insurance. It covers the 3 things insurance doesn't - tires, Alloy Wheels (bending, not accidental breakage) and provides free pick up and drop facilities for your car in case of any problems.

Couldn't agree more about the assumptive cost calculations. I'm yet to meet anybody who has benefitted from not buying the 5 year BSI.

[mani_jeenu]

can anyone tell me the color temperature in the headlight in BMW 520d.
Is it 6000K or 5000K ? seems more like 6000K.

Thanks

[sameerg001]

Originally Posted by mani_jeenu

can anyone tell me the color temperature in the headlight in BMW 520d.
Is it 6000K or 5000K ? seems more like 6000K.

Thanks

As far as i know, it's 4300k.

[androdev]

About to complete 3 years. Time for insurance renewal. Have been paying for BMW Secure all these years but having second thoughts about it this time. The quote for BMW Secure renewal is Rs1.24L (secure:Rs 86K + bajaj-allianz:Rs 38K).

Ignoring the fluff, the really useful features of Secure are:
1. zero depreciation
2. consumables during repair
3. new car replacement
4. road side assistance that actually works
5. cashless
6. red-carpet treatment - minimal hassle during claims and "no-questions-asked coverage" (as BMW itself covers you for risk)

One can buy an equivalent policy from say ICICI Lombard for maybe 80-90K and only miss out on #6 (red-carpet treatment). In general I am noticing that the manufacturer branded insurance products are a lot more expensive than alternatives (BMW Secure, Honda Assure, Mercedes Star Protect, etc.) and the only real differentiator is "hassle free claim settlement" but 30-40% difference is steep.

I have claim experience with BMW Secure, regular Bajaj Allianz with zero depreciation and ICICI Lombard, etc. Most certainly Secure experience was super smooth. When it comes to Bajaj Allianz and ICICI Lombard I don't see any difference to justify the higher premiums that BA charges.

There is a brokerage firm (http://www.idealinsurance.in) that is claiming they will provide a lot of assistance during claims that I won't miss out much on #6 because they enjoy a better leverage than an individual customer directly dealing with insurance companies. I heard this same story regarding health insurance. They claim it is too much headache for a customer to deal with insurance company directly.

Any thoughts from other members?

[drmohitg]

I got secure free for the first year but at that time also I had a detailed discussion with my SA ( who had sort of become a friend). And the bottomline was that except the point number 6, the policies offered outside are same as Secure. I don't see much of a point in paying 30-40% more for just that. Moreover I anyways drive carefully and the chances of needing to use Secure/Insurance claims is very little. Hence for that little chance, I am more than willing to make 2 extra visits/phone calls to get the claim processed. Will surely opt for outside insurance unless the price difference is not more than 10-15%.

[Akshay1234]

Androdev I doubt number 3 applies now, new car replacement in case of total loss is only in the first year I believe.

[275BHP]

Apart from what's already mentioned, BMW also offers roadside assistance as a separate package which you can always opt for. Not sure about its terms and conditions though.

I just renewed my insurance too and didn't take secure for the same reasons as already mentioned above.

Also, how's the ownership experience been so far? Any warranty claims till date?