The love/hate relationship with German cars

As I've worked for a very busy indy for the last 10+ years, located in a neighborhood full of 30 something's that love to show their success, I work on many many European brands. Swedish, German, British, you name it. Heck, my shop used to service an entire fleet of Amphicar 770's! Should anyone be unfamiliar, I'm referring to these abominations:

Amphicar 770

Anyway... in the end, every manufacturer has their quirks. Sure, European (weighted towards German) cars are more of a pain. However, there's also aspects of their engineering which boggle the mind. For every special tool I've purchased purely to service a Euro, there's the opposing Nissan Rogue with it's blower motor mounted deep in the dash. Removing the complete pedal assembly just to service a blower motor? Now THAT'S thinking like a German!
I was told something once about not buying a Mercedes if the ac didn't work. they have to remove the dashboard and the labor was kind of intense to get to the ac parts.
 
I was told something once about not buying a Mercedes if the ac didn't work. they have to remove the dashboard and the labor was kind of intense to get to the ac parts.
I've heard the same in reference to the earlier MB cars, say pre-'95. Those cars used vacuum for almost every function, and from what I've read were basically built once, never to be taken apart again.

I once worked on an early E-class, and recall the front sway bar being mounted in a way that it actually crossed the chassis up near the firewall, surrounded by mountains of other components.
 
Free Starbucks is better than the prison coffee at Hyundai
I'll give you that ... the last service dept I visited had a Keurig machine ... Gag me with a spoon!** No offense to those who like Keurig, it's just that the coffee isn't my cup of tea.

** Barbara Biro, Newtown H.S., 1963
 
As I've worked for a very busy indy for the last 10+ years, located in a neighborhood full of 30 something's that love to show their success, I work on many many European brands. Swedish, German, British, you name it. Heck, my shop used to service an entire fleet of Amphicar 770's! Should anyone be unfamiliar, I'm referring to these abominations:

Amphicar 770

Anyway... in the end, every manufacturer has their quirks. Sure, European (weighted towards German) cars are more of a pain. However, there's also aspects of their engineering which boggle the mind. For every special tool I've purchased purely to service a Euro, there's the opposing Nissan Rogue with it's blower motor mounted deep in the dash. Removing the complete pedal assembly just to service a blower motor? Now THAT'S thinking like a German!
Abomination? Some of us dream about Amphicars.
 
I was told something once about not buying a Mercedes if the ac didn't work. they have to remove the dashboard and the labor was kind of intense to get to the ac parts.
In all fairness to Mercedes, there were several Jaguars that were built around their heater core. I recall that being the case with some Jeep models as well ...


 
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Abomination? Some of us dream about Amphicars.

Alright, that's fair. For what they are, they're admittedly ASTONISHING. We're talking about a (relatively) legitimate vehicle, built in West Germany in the 60's, that can actually function both on land and in water. Kind of.

While the idea of a multi-functional land/sea machine sounds amazing on the surface... we've yet to prove their worth in the real world. The Amphicar attempted to prove just that, and failed spectacularly. It was not only a terrible automobile, it was a terrible boat. Thankfully, only once did I have the displeasure of riding in one while on water. It was terrifying. 50 year old seals combined with 50 year old running gear combined with 50 year old electronics. We made it, that's about the only upside.

I was elated when I learned that Disney opened an attraction somewhere and bought up every Amphicar they could find to use as an attraction to transport guests from land to some "island restaurant". I have no way to validate this, but from what I hear they were so unreliable that Disney actually had to build an underwater track between the two so the cars could roll to and from. Their actual aquatic abilities were so poor that using them became a liability.

Funny side note: I believe my shop still has binders full of the original service manuals for those things. Many of which are hand-written or drawn. They used a positive ground electrical system with a generator, and loved to change wire colors year to year so trying to diagnose their MANY faults was a chore.

Not only that, but their braking system was basically for show. 4 wheel drum with DUAL wheel cylinders up front. I'm not making this up: the owners would take them for a swim, after which they would IMMEDIATELY break down. We'd fix them up and make them road worth, only to repeat the process.

I get that today these are $100k+ collectors items, but 10 years ago they weren't even worth the $40k they commanded. Beyond that, parts THEN were unobtainable. There's ONE vendor out of California that has a ton of NOS parts, but that's it.
 
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On second thought, never mind ...

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Please....say what's on your mind. Feel free to send me another one of your colorful DMs as well.
 
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.
Alot of ppl cannot affort to maintain/repair that BMW after they bought it. BMW would make buying one easy but after sale it is not.
 
Alot of ppl cannot affort to maintain/repair that BMW after they bought it.
To be fair, many can’t do that with appliance vehicles either. Pretty popular to buy the most you can afford... while ignoring all incidental expenses that might occur (including the ones that should be expected, like tires and brakes, and anything on a schedule).
 
Isn't that essentially the case with the climate control systems of modern vehicles?
I do believe so.

Thing that gets me is, what is intense? When a mechanic says it's hard, and it'll take him 10+ hours, you know it's a real chore. Joe Blow says it's a big job, a good 2 hours and 3 beers... is it really that hard? perspective matters, and sometimes I don't get that from various opinions.
 
Alot of ppl cannot affort to maintain/repair that BMW after they bought it. BMW would make buying one easy but after sale it is not.
Yep, I see it all the time, people buy one and then it needs a suspension bushing or fluid change. They put it off because it is expensive, and then things break and it becomes even more expensive.
 
To be fair, many can’t do that with appliance vehicles either. Pretty popular to buy the most you can afford... while ignoring all incidental expenses that might occur (including the ones that should be expected, like tires and brakes, and anything on a schedule).
One of my friends in high school bought a Chevy truck with a Duramax diesel. He could barely afford the payments on the truck, never mind the fuel to go anywhere in it. We all used to make fun of him because he would brag about his truck, but then want a ride everywhere. Completely pointless IMO. If anything broke on it or it needed maintenance he wouldn't have the money, and I think that is where a lot of people are in our society right now. This was ~2008 back when gas was $4/gallon and I think Diesel was about what it is now.
 
Car Wizard is Scotty Kilmer level stupid.
I don't think either of them are stupid. Both make a considerable amount of money on youtube by being ridiculous. I think the Car Wizard isn't as crazy as Scotty, but one thing that annoys me about the Wizard is it always seems like every video he spends a decent amount of time explaining why he is such a good/fair mechanic. Like we get it, you don't need to keep explaining why you won't screw people.
 
I don't think either of them are stupid. Both make a considerable amount of money on youtube by being ridiculous. I think the Car Wizard isn't as crazy as Scotty, but one thing that annoys me about the Wizard is it always seems like every video he spends a decent amount of time explaining why he is such a good/fair mechanic. Like we get it, you don't need to keep explaining why you won't screw people.

I didn't say either of them were stupid, but the content they provide is. Both are very knowledgeable, but they're developing content for YouTube, these aren't educational videos. And don't get me started on the elusive Mrs. Wizard we never see...lol
 
I didn't say either of them were stupid, but the content they provide is. Both are very knowledgeable, but they're developing content for YouTube, these aren't educational videos. And don't get me started on the elusive Mrs. Wizard we never see...lol
She appears at least once in every video ...
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