Hmmm..not sure how to compare to others, but you can always find someome to deal. When I was deciding between the M and 330, I found a dealer in Houston (I live in Austin) who would give me around $2k (IIRC) off a premium package 330 (and this was the first month or so they were available). I also found an Infiniti dealer (an a BBS) doing deals from Dallas on the new M's (first month for them also). He gave me a quote, and if my local dealer did not match it I would have gone w/ the Dallas dealer (who was willing to deliver my car at n/c). BTW...the BMW dealer in Houston was in Clear Lake. IIRC name was Alex, maybe a Brit. If your dealer won't deal, just find others on the Net from Dallas, SA, where ever and tell them you're from Houston. Some will be very aggressive.
i was thinking models within the same brand mb s series will have better reliability than e and e better than c but not the other way around
With Mercedes, it works that way, yes, but the 3series is BMW's bread-and-butter, so they take extreme care with it. BMW had some problems in the past, as did Mercedes, mainly because they loaded their vehicles with the latest high-teck toys and didn't pay much attention to quality and reliability; they both relied on their names to move cars. Then, however, when everyone started to complain about their vehicles, they starting investing heavily into making sure that their cars are not just loaded with the latest high-tech gadgets, but that they should also be high quality to stay competitive. They both understood that their clients will look elsewhere (primarily Lexus) if they didn't fix their problems. As for their latest models, I am yet to hear of any real problems with their vehicles, they seem to have addressed those issues, most likely a thing of the past. The good news is the automobile market nowadays is extremely competitive, which pushes all carmakers to ensure product quality and reliability if they want to compete. I think vehicles today (generally speaking) are light years ahead in quality and reliability than vehicles were just 10 years ago. Heck, even GM and Hundai now have multiple vehicles that are near the top of the list in quality and reliability. Car and Driver and other magazines test-drove the newest GM big-utes and were stunned by their 'fit-and-finish' and 'high quality', you would've been hard-pressed to find those comments mentioned in the same sentence as 'GM' just 5 years ago. I think the 'quality gap' has been rapidly closing, the competition is catching up with the Japanese.
