Quote:
Originally Posted by SilberUrS6
It means that the folks who think this have had bad luck buying VWs or Audis. And by bad luck, I mean they bought cars that weren't good cars to begin with. I have owned a string of Audis, for over two decades. And before that, watercooled VWs. Feed them the proper oil at the proper interval, do the suggested maintenance with quality parts on time, and fix the stuff that breaks, and they'll reward you with years of service., And the stuff that breaks is all the same stuff that breaks on those Japanese cars. And oddly, it costs about the same to fix, and sometimes less (have you seen the cost of Toyota parts lately? Who do they think they are, Porsche???) In fact, my least favorite car was a Honda Accord my wife owned. That damn thing was always needing one thing or another. She would borrow my Audi all the time while her "bulletproof" Honda was in the shop. She would always tell everyone how reliable her car was, right up until the time I gave her a copy of a four year spreadsheet where I tabulated the running time and costs for her Honda, and my Audi. She sold her Honda and bought an Audi.  |
So, what you're saying is this-- if you always fix the stuff that breaks on your car, you can have a car that lasts for years? Well, I certainly would hope so. But how far are you willing to go is the question. Therein lies the difference between a Japanese car and a German car-- Japanese cars rarely break, and when they do they aren't catastrophic failures as seen so often on the German counterparts. As for the "and the stuff that breaks is all the same stuff that breaks on those Japanese cars" comment-- I have no choice but to assume you were being sarcastic.
Audi, Mercedes, BMW and so forth are poor choices as RELIABLE AND COST EFFECTIVE means of transportation. Sure there are always anecdotal exceptions, but saying that Audi is on the same reliability plane as Toyota or Honda is opinion rooted in nothing but one's personal account. Do you go around telling your friends who drive Toyotas for low-cost commuting to get into a rock-solid
Audi?
Honda and Toyota resale value is driven by reliability, period. Not the suspension damping or ability to soak up miles on an autobahn at 155 mph. When talking about non-collector automobiles, almost all resale is based off reliability. So why then are Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar, (and Porsche until recently) etc constantly at the bottom of the list? Are these the hidden gems in the used car market? There's a "prestige" used car dealer near my house that sells nothing but S classes and 7 series. Maybe I should wise up and even-trade my Prius.
