I had a Mercedes convertible and owned it 20 years. Little things drove me nuts as parts, labor and maint expensive. I ended up buying knock off oil filters and such in line and having regular mechanic installed mixed with junkyard parts and later goodtires and diehard batteries. The issue is car becomes totally worthless with fake parts and non dealer mechanics over time. On high end German cars folks look for service history big time.

I had a BMW 5 series I loved to death. My favorite car to drive. But once maint plan ran out oil changes $200, battery $600 and run flat tires like $500 each.

My current car I have a Cadillac. All American parts no mark ups. I literally have a 2011 Cadillac with original battery. I change oil once a year and did tires and brakes. No mark up on parts. Actually cheaper to maintain than my wives Toyota or her Subaru as no foreign parts.

Cadillac down fall it depreciates quicker. I bought mine from dealer 18 months old with 5,000 miles in 2012 at a good discount to new. In my nine years nothing has ever broken, not one single repair. I loved my BMW the most, my Mercedes convertible had bling big time, but the caddie is way cheaper to operate and the depreciation helps big time as a used car buyer

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Discovery sport poster here - as a side note since you said you were looking for a compact SUV, what I like about this vehicle is the large space in second row (have kids) and still large storage space in back of car, and handles extremely well in bad conditions. It does NOT have spunk, however, if that is of interest...but it is a safe, reliable, comfortable drive for a smallish SUV. Interior space is very well designed. FWIW.

I have not read further down the thread but you are going to get some flack for calling a Land Rover "reliable". I myself am not brave enough to own an LR but I understand the people who are drawn towards them. It's one of the few brands left on the market with a real story to tell and can stir real emotion for its owners and drivers. It doesn't do this for everyone, of course, and for those people, they should get something like a Lexus RX350, which is the automotive equivalence of a very high-quality bowl of oatmeal.

a discovery sport has as much in common with a classic defender as a jeep compass does with a Willys. Land Rover is great at selling that connection, but most range rovers will never go off road.

They need to lift them off the road when they tow them to the dealer.

Audi owner here. Never had it break down on me. The key with these cars is to do the maintenance as scheduled. That will keep things running smoothly.

With Audi, go on their site and "build" an Audi Q5 SUV. It offers Audi Care for $1,199. That's pre-paid maintenance plan, and since it's considered part of the car price, you can roll it into your loan.

What drives up the cost compared to a Ford is parts cost and labor cost. For example, in MD most routine service has a fixed labor length (defined by the state), like for example an oil change is billable as 0.75 hours of work. An Audi dealer's rate is $90/hour, while it will be $60/hour at a Ford dealer. Likewise, the (usually imported) parts needed in an Audi cost more than Ford parts.

What that means is a routine service may be $500 in an Audi vs $200-300 in a Ford. It's more, but not unaffordable, and you can buy Audi Care to cover those costs. I'm sure BMW has the same option.

Honestly just get a Lexus or Infiniti.