Quote:
Originally Posted by bcrdukes
Having owned both Japanese and German cars (currently BMW) you have to keep up and stay on top of maintenance on German cars. They're just not the same as Japanese cars where you can get away without having to do something at a set interval.
And as "refined" as I find BMWs (or Euros in general) it's the stupid little things that go wrong make me think "Why did I buy this POS!?" Then again, I still like my M3. The E91 - not so much. 
The example of the MKII VW hitting 500,000km - everybody says that but how much stupid shit went wrong along the way? On a Civic or Corolla? What, a window regulator went bad and it probably needed new shocks and an oil change here and there and still managed to squeeze 500,00km on the same motor before the rebuild? *Shrug* |
Exactly.
I think it's more about how
forgiving the car is.
On a Civic, you hear a weird noise, you can still get away with driving it for X amount of time, and then finally take it to a shop for a $300 fix.
On a German, I imagine, if you hear a weird noise and don't immediately beeline it to the shop, A, B, and C will go wrong within hours, and by the time you get to the shop, you've racked up a $2000 bill.
The "stupid shit" you brought up is exactly what's going on with my friend's A4. I think every electrical problem that
could go wrong, did. Mechanically, Audi addressed the timing belt issues by throwing in a timing chain on the B6, but because of that, the timing chain guides are known to break.
So far it seems like the E46 is relatively
okay. And of the common issues, I'm pretty confident I can do the fixes myself.
I'm still a little uneasy about making the jump, but god damn, it's SO SHEXSHY.
Totally feels like deciding whether or not I want to date a high maintenance Vancouver girl.