Both Polestar and BMW are considered luxury car brands which means that they focus on innovation and an abundance of tech and comfort features. Cars such as these are inherently complex in their construction which means that more things could potentially go wrong at some point.
However, BMW tends to occupy an average position in most reliability charts which means that it’s not one of the most reliable brands out there. Even so, if you take good care of your BMW and you maintain it correctly and in due time, you should not worry about your BMW leaving you on the side of the road.
Polestar on the other hand is a newcomer brand with only a single car on sale currently, and that’s the Polestar 1 which is not exactly common nor ordinary. However, Polestar is backed by Volvo who seems to fare better than BMW in most reliability charts.
As such, the predicted reliability of Polestar models is a tad bit better when compared to most BMWs. Considering the fact that Polestar is focusing on perfecting a single model before they release it to the public, chances are that reliability is not going to be an issue.
BMW reliability – Mediocre
BMW is firmly edged into the history of luxury cars with a sporty edge which means that the brand appeal BMW carries is certainly above average, even when compared to its fearsome German rivals. However, for a car to be so packed with an abundance of features it needs to be considerably more reliable when compared to an economy car.
This means that BMW needs to do more in order for their cars to be comparably reliable because they are so complex and filled with all sorts of gadgets which could potentially cause issues down the line. However, lately it seems that BMW manages to continue improving their reliability, but only if you maintain the cars correctly.
The BMW 3-series seems to be the most reliable BMW out there while older X5 models seem to be the most problematic. Either way, newer BMWs come with 4-year long warranties from the factory that cover all your repair costs until you cross the 50k miles mark.
If this is not enough for you to buy a BMW comfortably you can extend this factory warranty for up to 7 years or 100k miles which should keep you trouble-free for a long time.
Polestar reliability – Most likely better than BMWs
Polestar is still a newcomer brand with only 2 cars at the moment, the Polestar 1 and the upcoming Polestar 2. The Polestar 1 is the only car on the market, but it’s not exactly an ordinary car considering that it costs $150k and is limited to only 750 models.
This means that we still can’t gauge how reliable or unreliable Polestar models are because there aren’t enough models out there. However, we do know that Polestar is backed heavily by Volvo which is rather apparent the moment you lay your eyes on any Polestar model.
It is true that Polestar and Volvo share many parts between each other which means that they are likely going to be similar as far as reliability is concerned. Volvo cars are more reliable than BMWs even though they are arguably even more complex so it’s safe to suggest that Polestar is also a more reliable brand.
Either way, Polestars also offers a 4-year long 50k mile warranty which can also be extended for a similar period.
Maintenance – An essential reliability aspect
All the predicted reliability charts online only make sense if you maintain your car correctly which means that even the most reliable cars on the market are hardly going to be able to match the most unreliable ones if they are not maintained and the latter are.
This is where reliability charts stop making all that much sense because proper maintenance is a precondition of most reliability charts. Furthermore, these charts only show the greater picture without taking into account individual cases where some supposedly reliable cars had more problems than some unreliable ones.
This means that you should never consider these charts as 100% reliable as they are only there to be used as a reference point when it comes to car comparisons. Countless individual aspects influence how well a car does and they simply can’t be considered in these charts.
FAQ Section
How expensive are BMWs to maintain?
BMWs are known to cost more per year as far as maintenance is concerned but that is to be expected because BMWs are more complex than most cars out there. This does not necessarily mean that BMWs need more work done to them because the components are of lesser quality but because there are more components in general.
Even so, you can expect to pay $150 to $400 on service every 10k miles or so. Major services can easily cost more than $2,000 which gives us an average of $1,000-$1,700 per year for maintenance costs.
How expensive are Polestar cars to maintain?
The Polestar 1 is the only current Polestar available at the moment and it seems that it does cost a lot of money to maintain which is not a surprise because it’s a limited edition high-end GT coupe that is both turbocharged and supercharged and boosted by two electric motors.
Such complexity needs thorough maintenance and that’s also a reality of the segment. The Polestar 2 is not out yet but it’s easy to suggest that it’s going to be comparable to most Volvo models out there.
Are electric cars more reliable than ICE cars?
There aren’t many electric cars on the market right now which means that we can’t make a precise assessment because the patterns we are studying are disproportioned. However, EVs have fewer moving parts which should mean that there are fewer things that can go wrong.
However, EVs are troublesome because of their batteries which still cost obscene amounts of money to replace. Finally, EVs also benefit from regenerative braking which means that brake wear is not as big of an issue as it is with ICE cars.
