termigni

People usually think Japanese cars are bullet proof. "Honda will last xxxx years, so buy Honda."
Hondas and Toyotas have tons of recalls that go unnoticed. but when an American car company issue a recall, it gets blown up.

I became a non-believer recently when my 3 year old MDX started having break-down.
1. Bluetooth module was bronken as soon as my warranty expired, (widely known issue, but yet Acura still won't cover it after warranty)
2. door stoppers stopped working on all 4 doors. I got jammed 3 times and my wife too.
3. interior trims and leather started to fall apart,
4. Power steering pump started to fail (known issue)
5. changed battery 3 times. (found out later it was related to the failed bluetooth module)
6. belt noise from hell.
7. went to dealership 3 times for "transmission software update". still jerks like a SMG mode 6.

I bought this car thinking Acura is Honda, so it should last me forever, so I would keep it for at least 7 years. WRONG, I was still making payments and paying for all these fixes, making my monthly payment close to $1000/mo.
After one last breakage, I said hell with Acura. I went out and traded this POS in for a German car.

A car is a car. they will break. Even our beloved HONDA S2000 have some known issues. Even Toyotas will have stuck throttle and kill you off the cliff. Drive what you like, what's fun to you. I went back to German this time around and it looks like i'm not coming back for a while since I've had a lot of good ownership experiences with Germans.

*a lot of people seem to think they should make some ROI on cars in here. Here is the truth = No, cars are not investments.

rob-2

You miss the point. Honda and Toyota have the lowest 'rate' of major problems. The stats will tell you they are the lowest cost to opperate per mile of any car. If you bought a Chrysler mini van for example you were replacing or rebuilding tranny's after 60-80k like clock work.

While it sounds like you had a bad experience you are talking about much equipment that was non-honda related. The motor didn't fail and Honda got active about the tranny problems. It also affected certain years. It's a far more complicated tranny then most makers bring to market. I'm not saying your problems are small but I am saying if you bought a car that costs $1000/month you were silly in thinking that more dollars meant no problems.

As for your German car purchase, this pretty much disqualifies you from ever speaking about buying smart for reliability. German cars plummit in value, have regular and expensive service ontop of being over enginered with reliability problems. Don't you recall when Merc was the 21st worst made car for a few years after buthcering their S series. Want to talk about spending coin on a pile of junk? Talk about how Germans have fooled so many people into buying over priced unreliable cars. How many 15 year old BMW/Merc/VW's do you see on the road? You don't. You see Toyota/Honda/Subi/Nissan.

No one is talking about a car being an investment. But if I'm loosing 10%/year anyway I don't want to be dropping coin on service.

FYI when Acura screwed up their 5 speed auto in our 2000 TL they bent over backwards for us. Replaced the tranny at 75k and extended the warranty on the car to 105k. I was the 3rd owner, yet no problems at all with getting them to stand behind the car.

Second owner on a Subi and while I'm generally disappointed in the car Subaru stepped up to cover half the cost on a used car repair for a known problem they fixed in other states but weren't authorized to do in my state.

I think you'll be hard pressed to get that level of service on those disposable German cars. Best of luck. Your sample size of 1 isn't enough to sway 25 years of reliability history. Heck my parents neighbor drives a 1991 Accord with original everything with over 350K on the clock. Burns a qt of oil per change. You won't see a German car do that.

Presto123

I see quite a few late 80 and early 90s Mercedes (turbo diesels especially) running on the road down here. My uncle still drives his 92 S500 pushing 200K miles and it just recently began giving him a few electrical issues. I rarely/never see any 90s Audi/VW/BMW though.

HGL1668

From my own experience, older Mercedes are much more reliable than older BMW/VW/Audi. I had a E39 Wagon, while it was nice to drive, I was always afraid it was going to break down. Mercedes are easier to work on, at least the older ones. (1995 E320 Wagon, 2001 E320 Sedan)

Ford has came a long way. I used to drive a 13' Ford Fusion Hybrid (company's car) for 8 months (40k miles) Very nice car but only average 40mpg for a hybrid. Handles very well.

I recently almost picked up a new Accord but bought a TSX Wagon instead. TSX is a little nicer in every way, except for MPG. However, there are so many options out there, hard to pick the perfect car. To me, TSX wagon is "understated, reliable?, does everything well but not one thing great"