Just because you have the spare cash to get raped by your dealer and pay their bills for the month doesn’t mean that’s the route other people are gonna take. Short of severe engine failure like Rod Bearings on an M3, the cars aren’t that hard to work on if you do the smaller things yourself or that expensive, they do cost more than most cars, but still far short of “expensive” and needing to keep $10k in spare change to have your heater core and fuel filter replaced. Take your car to a smaller reputable euro performance shop and let them do the work. You won’t get your wallet stolen with the numbers they give you either.

I just purchased a CPO 2019 230xi coupe for my daily driver and I've been loving it so far. Definitely an upgrade from my Cruze I bought after college (no hate! I maintained it well, it was competent).

As I'm going to be putting miles on it and I like to keep my cars for at least 5-6 years, I've been wondering about best practices for maintenance - basic stuff like oil change intervals, sparks, fluids as well as more intensive stuff like timing chains or things specific to the B48 engine. Are there any guides online? Or should following the built in maintenance scheduler thing in the infotainment be enough?

I know BMWs are solidly built - my dad's '03 328i lasted 150k miles with more to go before he sold it. But I like staying on top of things to prevent problems down the line.

How common is it for a BMW to blow black smoke from the exhaust when starting it in extreme cold? Car never does that in even in minus 10.

Because of chip shortages, I wasn’t able to get the Harmon Kardon sound system upgrade on my 330i.

Any recommendations on what systems fit well into the 330i and are a decent upgrade from whatever they’re putting in them right now?

I was ready to spend the money on the HK system but it just wasn’t available.