BK - My brother had a BMW for a year or two... Before all the "simple repairs" just started to add up and up and up. He had to replace his whole back bumper after it was tapped in a parking lot. He saw it happen, and it didn't think it was that bad a "tap". But then realized that the whole back bumper had gotten pushed "in" and was coming back out again.
He had one of the sportier BMWs, and, apparently, in order to make them "sportier" and faster, they make the body of the car out of lighter and thinner material than usual. He finally went back to a Toyota.