Don’t Buy Lexus or BMW Until You Learn About These LATEST ISSUES!

Stop. Don't buy that new Lexus or that new BMW until you understand three major problems of each brand. I want to summarize those because Toyota and Lexus have been some of the most reliable products in the industry bar none and on top of it BMW has been moving up its ranks in consumers reports and they're looked at very favorably, especially with that new B58 engine, but guess what? They're not perfect and I'm gonna share three major problems with each vehicle that can be both dangerous and extremely costly. Let's get into it now. Life's too short to drive boring cars. Now I've been shopping recently for a new luxury vehicle. BMW is always up there. I've had many BMWs and they just keep getting better and better. More reliability, better performance and they're just easy to own these days. Lexus, I've been browsing there too. I love the NX series, the mid-size SUVs, the RX are nice as well and honestly the GX is wonderful but I've got to wait for that engine problem to be resolved. Unfortunately, neither of these brands are perfect and we're hearing issues each and every week, both from BMW and Lexus and it begs the question, what do you actually buy today when these are considered two of the most reliable based on consumers reports and where do you go from here if everything else is below these vehicles? Let's compare both brands one for one, shall we? First one, let's talk about Lexus. Going back to 2019, allegedly there's a lawsuit regarding one of the most reliable Lexus products that I've even said I would buy and I would still buy but it comes with a caveat. The Lexus ES, one of their full-size luxury sedans, front-wheel drive, you can get either a four-cylinder and a hybrid attached to that or a V6 is a wonderful drivetrain. It's reliable, it's great for hundreds of thousands of miles but there has been an alleged lawsuit related to about 500 vehicles for 2019 versions that can in fact cause severe issues, injuries, lacerations. Yes, it's the Takata airbags on the knee installations. That's right, the knee airbags are an alleged issue and concerning problem that a lot of would-be ES Lexus owners would see. A lot of these cars we drive around in each and every day are loaded with all kinds of these airbags. We've got curtain airbags, knee airbags, frontal airbags and while they're there for our safety, the vast majority of the time they actually cause injury. It's not a fun experience in any way. It just reduces. It's the lesser of two evils but unfortunately there are allegedly at least 500 vehicles included in a lawsuit for 2019 Lexus ES models that can literally cause severe injury and it seems to be a huge issue related to any vehicles that are generally driven in high humidity areas as well as high temperature areas. They get worse with age and if you've owned any of these vehicle brands you probably got that letter in the mail saying you have a Takata airbag and it needs to be retrofitted out. But what about BMW? What do they have? Well BMW has been using Takata airbags as well and they've also had their share of problems but they have another problem and it's an alleged lawsuit from four owners who represent as many as 145,000 would-be owners of various BMWs ranging from 2019 up to 2025 vehicles and related of course to their starters. The initial recall by BMW came out saying that essentially the starters could overheat and potential for fire was imminent but now along comes these other customers saying that you know what having these types of repairs could potentially cause the devaluation of their vehicles meaning that trade-in value or future value of their cars would be diminished. Current models that are likely to be included in some of these recalls related to the starter are 2020 model year M340i, a 20 to 25 840, a 20 to 2023 740li, a 19 to 2020 x7, a 2020 BMW x6 and a 2019 and 2020 BMW x5 are all potentially included in this starter recall but this alleged lawsuit now wants to expand on that recalling for the lost value of their vehicles even though a lot of these vehicles are done with a safety update and a software change it appears that many owners within this particular recall are just not satisfied with the repair and the fix. We've heard this story before with many manufacturers. Another one of the big issues that we've all been hearing about it's almost 127,000 vehicles of Toyota and Lexus that are unfortunately included in an engine problem called the V35a which is their 3.4 liter twin turbo V6 from 2022 to 2024 inclusive of Tundras, the Lexus LX600 and now unfortunately the Lexus GX550. They all carry that engine and that drivetrain and they are part of these recalls. A lot of particulate unfortunately machining process material and metals stay in the engine and weren't properly cleaned out resulting in catastrophic engine failures down the road. We've heard of cases of a thousand, five thousand, ten thousand miles later and the engine starts knocking or stalls completely or just catastrophically fails. Now while Toyota and Lexus have been very diligent about trying to get to the bottom of this problem, driving one of these vehicles suggests a high risk right now and I can't say for certain that we won't see more problems in the newer generation yet. I'm not confident enough in this V6 by Toyota that it's going to be trouble-free. Time will tell, I'd have to wait and see. Now there's allegedly a problem at BMW land, something that's new off the press and I was filming a video recently and I actually had somebody reach out and say Mark you know what have you heard about the problem with the transfer cases in the X5s? After some research there's far more than just the X5s. As a matter of fact virtually every BMW that has an all-wheel drive setup, in other words your xDrive system aside from anything related to the M vehicles is potentially on the list and we're talking about vehicles from 2019 all the way up to almost current generation 2025. There's been customers that said they were out $13,000 having to rectify and repair a problem with a faulty transfer case that went kaflouie right after the warranty ran out. Now this one sadly didn't go with the recall route and unfortunately this one's going to become more of a lawsuit environment where the plaintiffs are suggesting that BMW allegedly knew of all of these issues for quite some time and failed to do anything about it. Yep believe it or not you're noticing under a very light moderate acceleration or tight turns and you're getting a jerking or a shuddering or a vibration that is the early signs and indicative to a possible failure in your all-wheel drive system which of course is your transfer case. It's sad disheartening and could potentially cost you thousands of dollars out of your pocket. It doesn't just end there because it's a vast majority of their models. The worst part is many of these plaintiffs are suggesting that they were led to believe that this included a lifetime fluid. In other words they never had to touch the transfer case. We've heard of the same storyline in the automatic transmissions and we all know that a lot of these brands like to say those things for marketing purposes that you never need to change your fluid in your transfer case or transmission which implies that it keeps cost maintenance costs down for the consumer but in actuality that seems to be one of leading contributing factors. Most people that I've spoke to are now saying well actually you need to be changing that regularly but you can't just do it on your own and it's kind of a complex procedure and very specific fluid that needs to be utilized. So if you happen to be an owner of that late model X3, X4, X5, X6, X7 or the 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 series vehicles and the 640i x-drive grand turismo and of course the 8 series then it's something that you might be inclined to be looking into because this could in fact impact you in a big ugly way. As a matter of fact if you own one of these vehicles be sure to check into it in depth. Check with your local BMW dealership and make sure that this problem is addressed. If you're having any of these drivability problems you definitely want to check it out. I beg you do so before the warranty expires. Sadly Lexus also has another expensive consideration. It's called the UA80 which is their 8-speed automatic transmission which evolved since about 2017 and beyond. So if you're using ECVT no problem there but if you've got that 8-speed torque converter automatic transmission that could be an alleged problem because of the short shifting because of the way they operate they often maybe shift too frequently and can contribute to excessive heat and burning of the fluid inside. That burning of the fluid then can cause and contribute to premature transmission failure and of course thousands of dollars out of your pocket. Even worse if it happens just outside a warranty and as we noticed 2017's of course those vehicles are vastly gone from warranty so it's a serious consideration for both Toyota and Lexus owners alike and I've always said the three most expensive areas in a vehicle. One the engine if it blows it's no good. Two transmission if it fails it's no good and it's huge bucks. Three major serious electrical gremlins that's another big expensive maintenance repair as well. The vehicles you're going to have to look out for if you own one or you're shopping for one are not just the Toyota models that carry this 8-speed but also the Lexus models like the redesigned 23 and up Lexus RX 350, the 2022 Lexus NX 250, the 22 and up Lexus NX 350 and the 24 and up Lexus TX 350. As you'll notice none of them are the hybrids because in Toyota Lexus land the hybrid drive goes along with the ECVT which of course is not part of this particular issue. If you have a vehicle with a torque converter auto anything that's after a 2017 and newer it's something you really need to look into because let's face it transmissions can cost you five six seven thousand dollars. Bad engines like the V35A can also cost you nine thousand dollars if you need to do an engine so none of them are cheap repairs and most importantly they take your vehicle away from you for weeks while these vehicles get repaired but it's not over because BMW has another big one and it's a little newer. BMW has a recent lawsuit associated with the B46 B48 and yes the B58 that's right their beloved inline six that's one of the most reliable vehicles the one that's actually helped elevate them in terms of overall reliability on consumers reports lists it's the one that all of the tuners love it's the one that every single BMW enthusiast is dreaming of owning they're wonderful engines but there's a few problems and the one we're talking about is the oil filter housing and I could truly speak to that problem I had an N54 many years ago it was a 2007 and I had a problem way back then yet this is not a new issue this is a problem that's been going on and on and on and now we finally got some consumers saying look this is not good enough it doesn't matter this continues on and on and clearly BMW is aware of it allegedly and these problems are not getting sorted out coolant could make its way between the cooling side as well as the oiling side and could potentially cross over and bridge you wind up with coolant in the oil oil in the coolant no that's a catastrophic failure waiting to happen some consumers say they've actually been hit with a four thousand dollar tab to get this rectified once they had this issue that's right there's talk about the cracked housing because since 2011 BMW switched over from a nice cast a solid metal unit over to plastic as they say plastic fantastic and some owners are not loving the corners being cut many of the plaintiffs suggest that oil filter housing should last at least 150 000 miles there's really no reason otherwise but many owners are saying theirs are failing in as quick as 60 000 miles which is clearly inadequate not satisfactory by any stretch of the imagination my old oil filter housing had two weird keyed o-rings one from the cooler of course to the particular engine case and the other one from the cooler to the actual filter housing and they both fail and mine both started to leak i had oil leaking i had coolant leaking and that is a catastrophic issue if you leave it long enough it was an expensive repair took a lot of time i managed to fix mine myself but it's a very time-consuming repair to take care of and here we are how many years later from 2007 to 2026 and we're still talking about the same old same old now apparently BMW is aware of this issue and they've sent notifications to the that doesn't help if you're still stuck with a four thousand dollar bill so if you're looking for this issue and you're trying to avoid it make sure that the dealers are doing more frequent oil services that's always going to help because old dirty oil creates more acids that starts to break down gaskets and it just creates more problems don't go with those long extended oil service intervals because that's bad i've heard of also big issues of course with the oil filters themselves sucking in and possibly jamming up in the housing so make sure you're doing more frequent oil services do them with a proper grade of oil and then you can avoid some of these issues that being said following bmw's rules this is leading to a lot of problems for bmw owners with the following models 1 series 2 series 3 series 4 series the 5 series from 14 to 21 and the bmw x1 2 x3 and x4 from 2014 to 2021 also the 2014 to 2021 mini cooper mini cooper clubman as well as the countryman all have that potential issue and a lot of owners are looking for compensation or some kind of admittance that there's a problem so that they don't have to be on the hook for these issues now knowing these major issues from each brand it's clear that neither are perfect right now they're all both dealing with issues quality issues with both the engine transmission problems and some kind of electrical issues as well safety you name it airbags that's always a problem and always a serious concern which would you buy a lexus or a bmw time will tell you be the judge i'd like to hear in the comment section which one you prefer i mean let's be honest life's too short to drive boring cars make it count each and every mile should actually matter and with all of that said right there the only bmw's i would buy and the only lexus vehicles i would buy right now in 2026 hope to see each and every one of you real soon everybody bye