I recently attended one of these, it's like the performance days they used to hold before, just that it's now called innovation days haha.

The [insert number here]35is are fun to drive, as are the z4s and there's also a 325i Sports with nearly all the performance parts excluding the seats.

They'll take you through two modules of the driver training in 320ds, which would include stuff like the slalom course and brake tests and such. The funnest I've ever had was the traction one where they let you loose on an oil slicked skidpad, but I'm not sure if they're doing this module for these events.

You'll be taken out in fairly new (>5000km) cars, and encouraged to nail the hell out of them. Full on WOT, kickdown button engaged. You'll be hitting 180km+ on public highways with other traffic, so keeping watch on the traffic ahead and being ready to engage brakes is a very good idea. BTW this kind of abuse (especially what the 320d training cars are put through) are exactly why one would NEVER want to buy a demonstrator car from any authorised BMW dealer here

For starters, most modern cars, BMWs and Merc included, come with a host of electronics that control a heap of things.
Now, these "motherboards" are electronic boards in modular cases, and are often referred to as control units. This is so that if one unit fails, it can be swapped out for a new one without having to change the working ones. Of course there's a central system linking all these together, so if that fails, then yes it costs a lot, but you'll find such things on every modern car.

The answer to your above question is No, it is not true (although YMMV). Mercs, just like BMWs, can suffer from expensive electronic problems.
As the owner of a couple of BMWs for the past few years, yes I've had to change out some control units, one relating to communications and the other one to gearbox. Yes, it was expensive, but the car worked even with those failures.

Unlike the Merc E-class and SL I had before that. The E suffered from a whole host of mechanical coolant failures (both water and oil) that rendered it unusable for a few days each time, and died on me three times on the road due to those failures. The SL blew its ECU one fine day when I had to be somewhere else, that was quite expensive and inconvenient. Not as much as the gearbox swap it needed at 80k. Or the fact that after a couple of years, the roof no longer worked (5k for that control box - no thanks).

Pretty much why I swore off Mercs. BMWs can be problematic, true, but the reliability of my cars and the better driving experience makes up for it. So everyone has their own opinions, I'd say getting a BMW is a better option, because I've lived through the mess that was DiamlerChrysler. Also, BMWs look better and less of a contractor car

Pics where?
Ahhhh things ppl do with Other People's Cars.

8000km over 4 years is like driving it up and down the street every other day for the past 48 months. Which would make for an excellent buy, because 8000km is like hardly used.

However, what's probably happened is that the car was driven once a month for the past 48 months, or even worse, left to sit there for a couple of months at a time. Gravity will pull fluids down, oil will start to change in viscosity. IF the car wasn't parked in shade, UV will attack plastics and their solvent bonds. Leather will start to harden. Basically, you'd need to send it in to a proper BMW centre for a thorough once-over, and/or a trusted mechanic familiar with E60s. Mileage tweaking on a recent BMW is not a case of using a power drill to rewind anymore, and requires software access via the ODB-II with some special equipment. Doable? Yes, there's China-made stuff out there that can happily do an odo reset. But a 8000km car would have fairly minimal wear and tear, so have them check the obvious places such as brakes, suspension bushings, etc to see if there's been excessive wear.

Ingress lah.

Issit a ~5k km 320d? Probably a test unit, or one of the few 320ds I've personally trashed during the innovation/performance days

No lah. By trashed, I mean really pushed hard lah. In the slalom, I'm flooring it from the start, and pushing the car hard left/right, and slamming on the brakes hard too. The car is made for this, yes, but I'd think that the bushings, pads, seals, and pretty much all of the wear and tear parts go through accelerated decline. 10k on a test BMW has to be like twice that on a road car that's used normally. The F10s, I was flat out redlining it to catch up with the rest who were hitting 180km/h, and that particular car I had only had 2k on the clock.

This post has been edited by Roland San: Mar 8 2011, 04:09 PM

Given the choice of a BMW unit which I KNOW has been misused by people who know better, or a BMW which I suspect has been misused by a lady who probably doesn't know better, I'd take the one the lady had.

I'll gamble that not all ladies fall into that stereotype

Hint: Ingress > AB.