The love/hate relationship with German cars
- Thread starter Carmudgeon
- Start date
I guess that's important when this is at the back of the engine? View attachment 131002
Or when "remove the engine" is the second step for many repairs? Taking that hood off all the time would be annoying!
Anyways I'm just grinding your gears, I'm glad you enjoy driving and maintaining your german cars, they are pretty unique and not ever going to be built again.
I'm not in the market for them, but when I see Audi put something like the above in a car, I always think that modern pushrod v8 is a better in almost every measure, except perhaps power at high revs... Mileage, power, weight, overall size, is all very close with much less complexity.
That engine was awesome.
In the S cars it made 340 hp and spun to 7000
In the RS it made 420 and spun to 8000. 100 hp/L naturally aspirated, 15 years ago.
So you had to pull the engine and replace some chain guides every 100k… No big deal
.Audis are awesome, full stop. Because you can do stuff like this:
Last edited:
I not only asked CANDY to dance, but I married her. As for German cars to each their own.
MHO
Smoky
MHO
Smoky
I think I want to own your particular car which is quite reliable!, but not one with common 4 figure repair bills that @mightymousetech sees everyday!
4 figure repair bills are at every make and model any more. I quote them out every single day
Volkswagon and Mercedes. Jeeps have a reputation for not being very reliable also. talking to the service managers and dealers and listening to them blow off steam about the crappy cars and design flaws and how they get to deal with angry and unhappy people who paid big bucks for their new car. Many Japanese car models just keep on going and make dealing with customers much easier. Of course, every manufacturer builds a problem child once in a while. My father saw Cadillacs as a symbol of success, later people moved towards German cars, buying them as a status symbol. I'm not up to date on every new car and its reliability but if I were rolling in dough I would buy a Lexus, which is basically an improved-upon Toyota. Talking to the warranty clerk at a dealer that is selling the car you are interested in could teach a person a lot. They have knowledge of warranty claims with the cars at the dealer. Some models are nearly problem free and others have TSB,s and issues. German cars are overrated and give the service departments headaches. But impress certain people. sorry to ramble on, I just woke up.
Yeah, I guess more and more cars have tacked on AWD, DI, a turbo or two, and then low bidder parts crammed behind dashboards, or behind front clips that need to be removed to get at them...
I tried to go KISS with the Outback, as Subaru(discounting the brz) only makes 1 driveline layout, 2 transmissions, 2 engines, and then repackages them in a few different sizes of the same body with almost the same styling. No "all-new" designs, just evolution and (hopefully)improvement of the same stuff from 10-15 years ago....
The Focus has a bunch of low bidder parts but most of them don't stop the car, don't require taking it half apart, and are replaceable by me. The Focus replacement is probably going to be needed soon, so I'm doing my research.
4WD
$50 site donor 2024
Yep 100%.
Perhaps it's not the 4-figure repair bill itself but the frequency of the 4-figure repair build?
Maybe?
All I know is, it's not far off from everything costing that much. What's a set of tires typically run these days? and that's not even a repair.
Monthly car payment is what again? toss in insurance and reg, and I have to wonder, if anyone should be complaining about a grand in repairs anymore.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
That's not been my experience, the early '00's BMW's we owned were actually very easy to wrench on with some very logically driven accessibility accommodations where entire sections were easily removed to make access easy.German Cars are NOT for the DIY!
Not so sure... Yes, tires are expensive, I just paid $1600 all in for Michelin rubber on our GS and $400 for 1 tire (nail) on the Model 3.
But car payments are a function of vehicle choice and method of payment. Perhaps put those payments into an account a year (or 5) prior to buying and then going in with a big down or even all cash.
Each to their own, but choosing a car that is known for high cost of ownership is asking for it. Just my opinion.
I think it depends on the buyer.
I have friends/family who only own Japanese cars. Their cars do run till 200k easy, but that's it, the rest of the car is falling apart because they do zero maintenance. Their cars are awful to drive, and every little bump in the road feels like the suspension is going to fall out, but it doesn't matter to them because they just care that it drives, and I can understand that. These people would have a horrible ownership experience of a German car, because German cars do need maintenance. If you maintain them, they really aren't bad to own, but if you don't, they will cost you when something does break. My BMW is closing in on 14 years old and 100k miles. It still drives just as tight and quiet as it did when I bought it with 32k miles. I can appreciate that since I used to spend 2.5 hours a day in it, but if I just needed an appliance to do a job (like a truck) I'd buy a Honda or Toyota.
dnewton3
Staff member
It's not just frequency, but magnitude of the bills.
$2000 and $6000 are both "4 figures", but one is 3x larger!
If we are talking about costs associated with insurance coverage or warranty coverage, then the exposure to the owner is probably low, because some other entity is covering that "4 figure" cost.
But if it's an owner-paid repair (engine, trans, brakes, accessories like A/C, etc, etc, etc) then the cost delta is VERY painful and significant with German cars.
My only experience with a German car was a late 1990's BMW 328i owned by my son in law. It was a $1000 car when he got it and I did the maintenance/ repairs on it for a year. I was never so happy as when he slid the azz end over a curb and wrote it off. It rode nicely and had good power but it had not been maintained well and there was always something wrong with it. The next car was a Yaris with over 200,000 miles and there is never anything wrong with it just basic maintenance.
Paco
Paco
Used car experiences are mostly dependent on previous owner maintenance. I've seen BMWs that are falling apart because the person doesn't want to/can't afford to maintain them, and I've also seen people with Toyotas that change the oil every 2k miles and bring it to the dealer every single year regardless because they want it to last. My grandmother was the second category, anyone who bought her trade-ins struck the lottery.
I would never own a european car. I would get a high end japanese car first. If I had money to burn and really, really wanted one, I would only lease a german car. However, they German cars don't appeal to me for whatever reason. Also, I detest monthly payments. After I paid off my mortgage 4 years ago, I told myself I will never take out a loan again in my life.
Much of my family was into German cars (one side of my family is from Germany) and even my uncle got sick of his Mercedes E350. At 45,000 miles it was making this weird ticking sound. It turns out it was something transmission related, but it was 10 months out of warranty. It was 10,000.00 for a new tranny. Since it wasn't a reliability issue, he drove it for another year and then traded it in for an acura. He prefers the acura.
Having a transmission noise (even if it was so soft that quiet music would drown it out) at 45,000 miles is just unacceptable. Although it was a very minor issue and wouldn't affect drivability or reliability, my uncle lost his temper. You don't buy high end European cars to put up with that.
Germans have a great sense of pride about their automobiles, often to a fault. My dad is passionate about German cars and he won't admit the reason he went with Lexus was because he got sick of the constant maintenance. He claims the lexus was too good of a deal to pass up on.
Part of it is that Germans got very good at engineering sometime during the 90s. They got bored and overengineer and overcomplicate things. Furthermore, there is a tendency for car manufacturers to make cars as maintenance expensive as possible. They don't want to make money off of you when you buy the car, that's just a one-time opportunity for them. They want you to keep spending money.
I just read that mercedes and bmw are starting to charge subscriptions for heated seats and navigation. 18 dollars a month for heated seats. I thought I was reading an Onion article. This is the world we are living in now. Corporations don't want to be a mosquito and move on after drinking some blood. They want to be a tick and latch on until they're too engorged to stay on anymore.
Much of my family was into German cars (one side of my family is from Germany) and even my uncle got sick of his Mercedes E350. At 45,000 miles it was making this weird ticking sound. It turns out it was something transmission related, but it was 10 months out of warranty. It was 10,000.00 for a new tranny. Since it wasn't a reliability issue, he drove it for another year and then traded it in for an acura. He prefers the acura.
Having a transmission noise (even if it was so soft that quiet music would drown it out) at 45,000 miles is just unacceptable. Although it was a very minor issue and wouldn't affect drivability or reliability, my uncle lost his temper. You don't buy high end European cars to put up with that.
Germans have a great sense of pride about their automobiles, often to a fault. My dad is passionate about German cars and he won't admit the reason he went with Lexus was because he got sick of the constant maintenance. He claims the lexus was too good of a deal to pass up on.
Part of it is that Germans got very good at engineering sometime during the 90s. They got bored and overengineer and overcomplicate things. Furthermore, there is a tendency for car manufacturers to make cars as maintenance expensive as possible. They don't want to make money off of you when you buy the car, that's just a one-time opportunity for them. They want you to keep spending money.
I just read that mercedes and bmw are starting to charge subscriptions for heated seats and navigation. 18 dollars a month for heated seats. I thought I was reading an Onion article. This is the world we are living in now. Corporations don't want to be a mosquito and move on after drinking some blood. They want to be a tick and latch on until they're too engorged to stay on anymore.
I had an '08 RS4 Cabriolet with the 4.2L V8. Only had only 8k miles on it when I bought it in 2012. 10.5 qt oil capacity! Other than a leaking oil cooler line, it was a great weekend car.That engine was awesome.
In the RS it made 420 and spun to 8000. 100 hp/L naturally aspirated, 15 years ago.
So you had to pull the engine and replace some chain guides every 100k… No big deal
Audis are awesome, full stop.
Sold it in 2016 to buy a house.
Engineering brought to you by the country with hydrogen filled dirigibles.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23761340/1240781106.jpg)
BMW starts selling heated seat subscriptions for $18 a month
Now being sold in South Korea, the UK, and elsewhere
www.theverge.com
I know Mercedes already started doing this in Canada. Not sure if it has caught on in the U.S.
