BMW has long been regarded as a premium brand, and that premium feel extends to the entry level models of the brand. Naturally there’s a good penny to pay for quality at the door opening end, but what about the services costs associated with a premium brand?

It’s a fair question to ask and with so many models and variants available, service costs could, could, make the decision to buy a make-or-break decision.

It then makes for a fair guess that owning a luxury oriented brand makes for a hit to the wallet. However, this doesn't have to be the case.

Customers have the right to expect that a luxury brand builds a vehicle with higher quality and better tolerances. By no means should that infer a non-luxury brand shouldn’t; if you buy a car on brand it’s reasonable to presume that more care and better inspection standards would apply. That’s a human cost and it reflects the time taken by brands to train their staff to the levels expected.

One wouldn’t be comfortable taking their uber-luxury Sports Urban Vehicle to a mechanic that has more experience working on classic cars from the 1960s.

Then there are the costs of parts. Some companies consolidate a cost by having commonality for say, brake components, or air-conditioning systems. This makes a replacement cost cheaper, in theory, due to the expected more readily available replacement part.

But there are country’s import and tax charges to consider. One country’s rate to bring in x amount of part ABC can be more or less than another’s, therefore a unit cost will be different.

As a company releases updates to a model range, it can have the knock-on effect of reducing costs in one area, however as accompany then doesn’t continue to manufacture replacement parts, the cost of those items and the resources in obtaining them, can potentially increase.

Then there are the costs involved in the sheer technology. A diesel engine has different requirements in servicing and the same applies to a six speed auto as opposed to an eight or nine speed auto. Again, it’s expected that a brand such as BMW will be class and brand leading in their offerings and this can be seen in respect to maintenance costs.

Experience? It’s said you can’t put a price on that however a mechanic that has worked for one brand such as BMW will have that knowledge that will diagnose an issue in an eye-blink, and that is why specialists in fields such as education, public speaking, and medicine, for example, command high rates. Experience.

In essence, there is no one simple answer but a range of reasons as to why a BMW can appear to be expensive to maintain. At SouthernBM we always recommend following the required servicing schedule, because to not do so means that hit to the bank account stands a big chance of being a harder one.

Need to know more about your BMW? Come and see us at SouthernBM, where we can answer your questions over a cuppa in a friendly environment.