Is a BMW 3 series a reliable car to commute with?

I'm considering a Honda Accord, civic si, or Subaru Legacy to commute but really like the awd feature and looks of the BMW… Are they good vehicles for college?

If you aren't going to the snow, the AWD is useless.
BMW are excellent cars, but like fighter jets, they require lots of expensive maintenance.
BMW's suck for college kids unless you have rich parents that pay for everything.
Hondas get stolen… All day…
Subaru Legacy is the way to go. Low maintenance, insurance, gas, and they are AWD as well.

Haha no buddy… The other three options you listed are much better, more reliable commuter cars.BMW's aren't made for college students, they're made for wealthy folks with extra time and money to spend on the maintenance and repairs. After the three year/45k mark they start having problems, believe me it will fail every annual inspection, and a new problem will come up that will cost you $500-$2000 bucks out of pocket. Around the 150K mark something catastrophic will happen that will leave it in the junkyard.

German cars (especially BMW's) are a scam. They know the average clientele has money to spend on maintenance and repairs, so they take advantage of it. They over-engineer the parts to fail, so the owner can take it back to the stealership and supply them with more money every few months. They design the brake pads so the rotors wear poorly and unevenly, so when you need to get the pads replaced, the rotors will almost always replacing as well. They don't give you a dipstick to check your own oil anymore, so that the owner can take it to the stealership and have the "proffessional BMW service team" check their own oil for them (oh, but it will cost a couple hundred bucks out of pocket)… And sometimes, the dealership won't even fix those broken parts properly, because they know you will be right back in their arms in a few months when the part you thought they "fixed" needs repairing again. They engineer their cars to fail, because they want the owner to be at their mercy… But people will always keep buying them because they are the "ultimate driving machine" and they don't want to give up the status or the prestige of owning a fancy BMW to show off to all their friends.

Honda's, on the other hand, engineer their cars to last. I remember a few years back I forgot to put oil in my Honda, and as I was making a lengthy trip down the interstate, the oil levels got to be dangerously low. Luckily the car realized this before I did, and the ECU began lowering the engine RPM's to the minimum possible level and degraded the throttle response, programmed the transmission to shift differently, to save the engine. I made my way to a Honda dealership (which was quite a ways away), thanks to this programming… And that car is still alive and well today with virtually no problems. I ran into a similar problem with an Audi I used to own… I kept the oil changed in that car regularly, but one day without warning the engine began ticking, knocking, sputtering, etc. I had just put oil in it the week before. No oil indicator lit up on the dashboard to warn me… It had just run out of oil out of random and without any warning whatsoever… And just like that, the engine was ruined with irreversible damage.

Believe me, I want a BMW too, but they are designed to be money pits. At this stage of my life, I do not have the money, nor the time, to keep a car like that on the road.

Honda's, Subaru's, and Toyota's are cars that can get you from A to B in safety and reliability. BMW's are cars that can you from A to B in status. It all depends what you're after. It's all up to you, but know that nobody will go "oohh" or "ahh" at your car. Virtually nobody will care that you have a BMW… And after you've been driving it around for a month or two, driving it will become boring and mundane. The fancy leather heated seats, the fancy sunroof.it all gets old after a while. So in the end, it won't even be worth it.

Not to mention you can find a Honda with just about every luxury option that BMW offers at a fraction of the price. Get a Honda, you won't regret it. They are very engaging cars to drive and the only things you'll have to worry about is changing the oil and the normal wear items, that's it. They won't cost you a fortune to repair, either.(that is, if something SHOULD need repairing, which is rare in a Honda).

Also AWD is overrated. They use it as a sales pitch to trick the buyers into believing it makes all the difference, when it doesn't. All it does is waste gas and add unnecessary weight to the car. When driving in snow, it's all about having the right tires, not the drivetrain setup. Of course when choosing between RWD and AWD, get the AWD… But the difference between AWD and FWD is marginal. FWD is still the more reliable and economical choice when buying a car.