Thanks for the laugh guys as a long time german car owner, the vw and audi's have their quirks. The electronics always seem to have something broken, and it's usually expensive to fix. It only gets worse as the fill the car with more high tech crap.

Best one I've owned is a VW TDI. It doesn't have any electric options to break, and is more reliable than others I've owned.

To the original poster those audi 2.7t's are probably the most difficult cars to work on other than the Mitsu 3000GT vr4.

This, my brother had one forever before he got a 350z, it was on the road more than it was off. The turbos would go out, then the engine spun a rod, because on the earlier models, the passages in the crank feeding the rods were to small, and caused oil starvation. So he had it put back together, the guy did a rebuild, then i threw a rod a month later, then he said it wasn't his fault, my brother sued, then the guy was forced to rebuild the engine, then he sold it to some poor ricer dipshit.

Somehow my friend managed to daily drive a 3gt vr4 for 5 years. I don't know how, but he managed. EVERYTHING is a PITA to fix on these and its power and awd is lost with it's 4,000 lb curb weight.

I have a 193k mile E36. It's a good looking, well-packaged, utter POS with awesome steering, linear handling and decent brakes. The paint is keyed and rock chipped, but original and on top of perfectly straight metal. Never been hit. As long as I keep my expectations really low, it's pretty satisfying. It costs $36/month to keep. Add about $.05/mile for maintenance plus gas. But that's because I do all the work myself and get parts at about 50-off. I've done enough on it now that I have all the special tools and take about book time to do most jobs.

As race cars, the fundamental chassis goodness of BMWs, combined with the fact that everything is going to be running against appropriate competition, makes them pretty good. The ridiculous required maintenance and reliability fixes blend into the massive amount of work it takes to build and prep a proper race car, so you almost don't notice. Getting rid of the interior and luxury items eliminates a bunch of the standard problem areas, too.

As street cars, they will from time to time torture you. And the "maintenance" that's required isn't really maintenance. It's replacing stuff that should last a really long time at regular intervals to keep it from stranding you or causing very expensive collateral damage when it inevitably fails prematurely. Every part of the cooling system, in particular, is a fucking joke. I have a long list of examples of completely lame design details. And if you work on it yourself, you will constantly curse the a-holes who designed it without ever having worked on a car before. Superior German engineering is a crock.

As high-performance, dual-purpose street/track cars, BMWs are retarded. Expensive, every upgrade is 50 percent German-car tax, fragile, liable to self-destruct in eight different ways, and not really all that fast.

I keep mine for Camry duty, because life is too long to drive a Camry. The things it does well, the Miata will never do. The things the Miata does well, the BMW will never do.

It seems there's a love of Bimmers here, which, coincidentally, is the only German brand of car I'd even consider owning (E30, E28 or E36)

I dunno. Meg's mini cooper (bmw built) does flakey shit all the time. Weird electrical shit...I can tolerate mechanical stuff but electrical grimlins stress me out. I don't like not being sure the window will go up if I lower it, etc.

But my bone stock old man driven subaru ate an exhaust valve at 85k miles. So far the miata is the only car that hasn't done anything silly and it's the most f'ed with.

Word.

I have an E36 myself. The design is a weird combination of "Why don't they just build it like everyone else?" and "Why doesn't everyone else build their cars that way?" For example, they put the oil filter right on the front of the engine where you can just pop the hood and unscrew it. On the other hand, it is a weird cartridge filter that tends to break O-rings if you don't torque it down just right, and costs twice as much as a spin on. It's like German engineers spend too much time thinking and not enough time doing.

I'm not a "German car nut", but I do love my 04 a4 quattro. It's got almost 100k and I've owned it since 48k. The only real problem are the stupid coils which I have replaced randomly 3 times.

Nature of the beast bro... I carry a full set in my trunk at all times just because of this. Got word back on mine going boom finally. Timing belt tensioner sheared in two and ripped itself out of the head. Pistons - 1; Valves - 0. Now with slightly lower compression pistons (exhaust valves gouged all 4), my Audi is getting MOAR boost. Rebuild thread soon to follow...

I carry two at all times, and my scanner to figure out which one. The only good thing is it takes as long to replace them as it does to pop the hood.

But you have to pop your hood to replace them... I don't understand your logic??? Haha I kid, I kid.

i owned a '99 528i.. it was a great car. had its fair share of little issues but nothing major, and it was really a very nice driving / handling car, especially considering the price!

i sold it because the seat hurt my back but now it seems like it was my couch's fault all along (so i'm a little sad).

Just an update on my car... Got it back Friday. $2300 later, it drives nice. Moar boost to follow soon.

I had an older A4 and it had so many goddamn problems, half the dash didnt work, it would never start when the engine was up to temp (like after filling up with gas), it was slow as shiz, and it tore through drive side wheel bearings.

But Ive got a buddy with a new A4 and it seems to be pretty brilliant, and lacking in any problems