I got mine off lease, and it was pretty well maintained. It was hard to even tell it was used but for a rock chip and some tire wear.

I picked mine up with 30k on the clock and im just at 53k now. I brought it in under warranty to fix a broken horn (well used ;P), and a second time just before the warranty was up to have them replace the seat recline handle, as the "chrome" coating on the handle cracked and cut me one day. Other than that, no issues so far. Oil changes are a breeze. I've had the dash apart to fix a rattle and it was well engineered, the way the radio secures is much better than I'm used to.

I'd like to go up to a four-door, but you can't get the c350 4matic in a 4-dr, which is annoying. I keep eyeing the is350 AWS F-Sport -- it'll most likely be what I end up with. I'd rock an e550, but it's not a sexy imho, and it's a lot more car than i need, but the v8 powerplant is nice. I think the new c-class is ugly, so not even a consideration.

My commute is about to go from 25miles to 3 miles, so i can get something a little ridiculous, but i still want 4-dr. It's becoming a bit of a pain -- might as well be a roadster if only 2-dr...

Yeap, that is correct. The gen C63 I have, the 14 has plastic valve covers where the older C63's had aluminum valve covers. Weight aside, there is no way a plastic valve cover is better. It's cheaper. The aluminum will last forever, and when my plastic ones break I'll replace them with aluminum ones from an older C63. BMW is terrible about making everything out of plastic on engines, Audi too.

I saw a youtube vid about this a couple years ago. Back in the day, mercedes built cars to a standard, and whatever it cost, it cost. Now all cars are built to a price, and thus standards are adjusted to hit the price they are aiming for. I want to build a 300D turbo at some point just because of how overkill well built they were. They are a 4 door tank without the tracks.

Mercedes made a choice to go mass market in the late 1980's. I recall reading about it. They decided to chase sales volume instead of upmarket quality. I can't recall who was running things then.

can i just mention the Prius is a cheap pos? i was in vegas over the weekend and in about a dozen of them... they are so shitty.

Subaru as well.

LS Swap?

And yet more reliable than basically any modern Mercedes.
And better gas mileage. And resale value.
And more practical than most of them.
And...

It's a well developed hybrid powertrain with the interior slapped together as an afterthought for the pennies left on the budget. We loved our 2010 because we didn't expect it to be anything it's not.

One of the most popular selling cars recently made for a reason.

If you want Honda reliability, buy a Honda, they mostly fail to fit the "fun DD" category, though.

I've owned Audis as my daily driver for the last 17 years, and been very pleased with them. While they haven't been as reliable as a Honda, the internet horror stories about them are totally overblown IMHO. Mine have been new or very-low-mile used, though, and I definitely buy the extended warranty after the factory one runs out. And yeah, no tunes. There's a $1200 chip for my S6 that would turn it up to 600+ hp, but realistically the 450 stock figure is just fine and the factory warranty is far too precious to risk that way.

--Ian

I have been loving my Fit. Set of $1k coil overs (Bilstein PSS9) and some decent tires and it is fun for all the reasons a Miata is. It also has similar road noise... Way better than my 97 Civic was though.

My wife wont let me buy an audi... :(

I'd love and S4, S5, or S6

Depends on the system you use. ECUTek trips a counter in the ECU that can be detected if looked for.

OFT does not.

Keep in mind I haven't had my MK7 GTI for a year now, but they were also using a flash counter. At that time, nobody seemed to have a way around it and I've not kept up with it.

If the dealer even suspected you had a flash at some point, they would send the PCM to the VAG "tech center" and they would analyze it further. I never felt the need to jeapardize my powertrain warranty for another 20whp, so I was more than happy with the JB1 piggyback. To each their own though.

This was a big bitch for a lot of MK7 owners because the first run of the cars had highly failure prone IHI turbos on them. I don't even blame the tunes, tons of stock cars shatout turbochargers as well (including my car). I did not put the JB1 until after the turbo was replaced. Some of them failed spectacularly enough to lunch the engines.

When I bought my first Cobalt SS/Turbo in 2009 (I had three), I had a whole spare PCM I could swap back/forth... but that car, to my surprise, was totally reliable even on E85+30psi of boost :P go figure.

And that's part of what keeps me from getting an Audi S3. They don't seem to have found a way to flash a tune, then flash back to stock without it being traceable.

It wouldn't be so bad, but the MK7 GTI, and I guess by extension the A3, is underpowered when stacked up with the competition in my opinion. There is no reason the 2.0 Ecotec Turbo in the older Cobalt/SS should have more HP/TQ than a GTI which is labeled and marketed as a hot hatch. Then they leave you no aftermarket or even factory option to increase power.

I'm sure someone will chime in to tell me balance/blah/handling/blah but the GTI in stock form does NOT put a smile on my face when you go WOT. Adding the JB1 made the car have acceptable power, for my tastes. They even pipe in fake engine noises, which I promptly disabled, through the "soundaktor" in the cowl. I would love to have been in the boardroom when that decision was made, and yes I know VW has been using those for a while now. Like I said in my first post, I bought my MK7 on a whim and promptly regretted the decision.

Previous to that MK7, my wife and I owned a MK4 new from 2005-2016. People love to hate the MK4's, but we loved it and it was totally reliable for us and looked like new when we traded it in for her Beetle. We have been pretty loyal to the VW/Audi brand, I drove a B6 and a B7 A4 on lease.

It's the same with the newer fords, and everything I've seen points to no way around it.

At least the Monotune doesn't violate the Focus RS warranty, right? By the end of the year I really want to get something that's just a touch more practical and much quicker. And preferably a bit more luxurious as well.

I may end up just leasing something, I work from home a couple of days per week and my roundtrip commute is less than 20 per miles day, so I wouldn't have a problem keeping under the 10k mile limit on the cheapest leases.

Leasing has been great for me, it's not for everyone. It helps I have other cars to keep the mileage pressure off of my leases which I'm guessing you do as well. I tend to lease econoboxes that are on special these days though. Before this Nissan Leaf, I had a 2013 Chevy Volt on lease and before that a string of Audi's.

I love working on cars, but not my DD. I just consider it an operational cost of living at this point. How many people, assuming they arent paying cash, ever bring their cars note to conclusion anyway? Not many, especially in the age of people financing shit for 72-84 months.

edit: also don't believe the horror stories about returning a lease. I've had no issue on the 5-6 cars I've leased, zero drama. Do make sure you research and understand how to negotiate money factor and residuals though.