Sadly being the first thing I noticed kind of put me off, I thought the Land Rover Freelander felt better screwed together than say the X3.
The X3 wasn't a particularly nicely made car, though, it was a bizarre hybrid of E46 era tech with the newer design language and dodgy plastics. But then it's somewhat foolish to think several cars reflect the entire range. Thats like me saying Audi's suck build quality wise because the A5 is dubious quality-wise inside.
The reduction in quality is something which is affecting Audi and Mercedes as well - its not just a BMW thing. Compare a 2002 Audi A6 to a current Audi A6 and you'll notice the older car is the better built car. Your A4 feels better screwed together than the more modern A5, for example. Pretty much nothing these days is made quite in the same was as it once was. The only real exception to this is something like Jaguar, who used to make nice but shoddy products and now seem unable to do anything other than bang out consistently high quality cars.
Cost cutting is universal unfortunately. Comparatively speaking, the latest generation of BMW cars is as good as anything else in the class quality wise. There is nothing about the new A6 that's better built than the F10, for example.
Nowadays, selling cars is about how many mpg it can do with its tedious diesel engine, how much tech you can stuff into it and how modern and funky it looks with LED's and other trinkets. Pure quality is far down most buyers lists these days, especially as most buyers are simply fleets buying cars for people whose only investment in the vehicle is a small amount of company car every month.
Its hard to blame the manufacturer if they think they'll flog more cars to fleets by adding Facebook integration and bright white LED's than if they made the plastics used for the door bin pocket really high quality, however annoying it is to those who prefer quality.
and we got tallking... they have been spouting about how the build quality etc... of the new BMW's is not as good as what it once was.They say that the new 3 series is for girls
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