[onewhippedpuppy]

I've been pondering this for a while now, I'm curious what thoughts you all have. I'm very proud of the fact that I do all of my own maintenance and repair work on my vehicles, not only do I save money but I enjoy it. There's nothing like getting up early on a Saturday morning and heading out to tinker on cars while everyone sleeps. Me being me, I've also been contemplating picking up a used sedan so my family has an around town car, we've put over 10k on my wife's new F150 in 3 months. In looking at my options in a 2005-ish sport sedan, I've come to a difficult realization - there is a lot on these cars that I simply cannot fix.

I don't know how many ECUs an E60 545i BMW has, but I know it's a lot. Without BMW specific diagnostic computers there are many problems (and there will be problems) that I simply cannot diagnose and repair. If the iDrive flakes out and I can't control 90% of my car's functions, I'm SOL. Same goes for my Maserati, a car that scares me because of the potential for big bills. There are many items that require the Ferrari/Maserati SD2/3 computer, which means a 2.5 hour drive for me. Even my RX8, a relatively simple car that has been dead nuts reliable, has multiple proprietary ECUs that can only be fully read by a dealer.

So, other than running up the white flag, what to do? Much to my wife's dismay I've been looking at older cars that are actually fixable, which of course has its own challenges. While an E34 M5 or W124 500E (both lust worthy) are certainly simple in comparison to modern cars, they are also all 20+ years old. So I'll be lucky that I can fix them, because there's plenty of fixing that will need to be done. I think my '88 Carrera hits the sweet spot for technology vs convenience vs simplicity, so maybe I need to look older yet to an E28 M5 or W201 190E 2.3-16. I don't have an answer to my problem statement, but I think it's an interesting question for the DIY-ers to ponder. Which is better - having an old car that you can fix (and will probably have to), or a new one that you can't?