European Car Ownership
- Thread starter The Critic
- Start date
Some of you have never had to deal with european car owners. He is 100% accurate. I even posted the same basic thing a few weeks ago.
I have enough to do most Euro cars inc some factory diagnostic tools but the chances of me seeing a 2017 or newer car is slim and if I do I have enough dealer contacts that I can use so I guess I am fortunate.
He also doesn't want to do Corvette, diesel engines, stolen-recovery vehicles, and vehicles with modifications (aftermarket suspensions, exhausts, ECM tunes, performance chips, etc.
It sound like if its not grandmas Toyota he cant/wont work on it. He would not work on one car I work on.
He's lucky he's down south where he doesn't have to deal with rust 
Painting with a pretty broad brush there. I am sure there are plenty of "Tier 3" Acura, Lexus and Infiniti customers that have pushed the buttons of independents and the dealers.
Yeah, I used to just drive American cars, just Chryslers and Fords. Then I switched to Mercedes. In my research, it seemed the more reliable of the 3 German brands, Audi I think is the worst of the 3 and BMW/Mercedes was kind of a toss up, but BMW seems to have more electrical issues than Mercedes and electrical issues are harder to troubleshoot and repair so I went with Mercedes. Plus E-350's seem a lot more common than 5 series around here. Didn't really consider the Japanese brands, they seemed more limited in their options and seemed like just a more expensive Toyota/Honda/Nissan.
There are tier 3 owners of every brand. You can't judge anybody before giving them a chance and talking to them.
Champagne tastes on a beer budget, a recipe for disappointment
Perusing Consumer Reports of the 3 German luxo brands I'd put Audi reliability first, then MB and BMW last. Whenever you load all the extra accessories and gadgets on a vehicle like all luxury vehicle's do, reliability is certain to go down though. These days you can get a KIA better equipped than a Cadillac of a decade ago.
He'd probably have to close up shop if he lived in the rust belt.He's lucky he's down south where he doesn't have to deal with rust
Euro cars are always ahead in these stuff. That creates issues with reliability. You get 3 series like mine with stick, no iDrive and you enjoy the drive.
Funny how things change. Audi used to be the worst and I'd still stay away from them. I don't think they even have a good CPO program, it's an aftermarket warranty.
Although to be fair, I just replaced my intake manifold on my Mercedes M272 engine, about $800 for parts and labor. I want to say it's a bad design, but I know why they did it, has tuned intake runners so depending on the rpms, you get long or short runners and better performance. But it's $800+ when it fails and it's only a matter of time although mine was at about 130k.
Our 2016 740i has been flawless over almost 80k miles... Not sure what tier we fall into (nor do I care what this guy thinks--we have a great independent shop with a manager who knows his stuff), but we take care of it, follow the computer maintenance minder, and enjoy the drive (and especially the lovely i6).
Plan to keep it for at least 6 more years.
Plan to keep it for at least 6 more years.
The B58 is gem of an engine. I am just waiting a bit to see are there any issues with timing chain as it is behind, but I think X5 4.0i is my wife's next car.
Oh, I don't know. My ZF trans and my iDrive are humming along just fine. Maybe it's just the Stockholm Syndrome, but I actually like the iDrive. I'd never, ever use it for actual navigation, but the layout is actually intuitive and it's handy to have its map up on a wide area while I use my phone for actual nav. Zoomed in and out at the same time, if that makes sense. Only issue has been when the Sirrus receiver died and took out the MOST network. Cost $25 to fix.
That is the first time since it's introduction that I've ever heard intuitive used to describe iDrive.
Our iDrive is very easy to use--it has touch screen + hard buttons + the scrolling wheel as options to use it. Large clear graphics, clear and intuitive menus, all very easy (and I'm not a tech person). My understanding is that the later versions of iDrive are receiving generally solid reviews from users.
I started out with VW bugs. Drove them and repaired them using a Bentley manual. Did the same with the 528es I owned. Found both cars simple and well laid out for a DIY'er. Same but not so well laid out, were the 5 Grand Wagoneers and the terrible Chilton's manuals. I can do oil and filters on the Camrys .So far, so good...
I wouldn't say it is necessarily limited to just Euro car owners. There are idiots who drive all brands of vehicles. I can tell you that in my own family (which is fairly large, I have 27 cousins), the worst are the "gas and go" owners. Doesn't matter if it's a Honda, Toyota, Ford, Chevy, BMW, VW, whatever, they will drive it until it breaks, and don't believe in maintenance. Some of the information on the internet about "Toyotas need no maintenance" or "Hondas run forever on little service" ends up biting them because they drive it without doing anything to it, and then they get upset when their Accord or CRV is burning excessive amounts of oil or has transmission issues because they never changed the oil. I have started to shy away from helping these people because they want me to fix something and the car comes in with brakes that are metal on metal, tires on an AWD vehicle that are all different brands, and the transmission fluid is jet black. I don't want to get blamed when it has an issue due to neglecting maintenance.
