Modern four channel ABS first appeared on the Mercedes S-Class, as did climate control. And airbags, electronic stability control, seatbelt pre-tensioning, adaptive cruise control, heated seats, powered liftgates, and assymetric wipers.
Each successive generation of S-Class is invariably the most advanced production car in the world.
For its part, BMW makes the best luxury drivers’ cars in the world.
Depreciation is not a very good measure of product quality. Alfa Romeo makes cars which are worth little more than pocket lint after a year, but they’re terrific.
This thread is pretty predictable, I think. Without having read any of the responses, I’m betting a lot of posters have pointed out the maintenance problems and expensive parts and repairs . And I’m also betting that posters who have actually dropped a load of cash to drive these cars are going to jump in with defensive posts about performance (when, let’s face it, you bought the car to impress people).
“Luxury” these days is (IMO) more about the marque than necessarily any inherent properties of the cars themselves. Back in the day, a “luxury car” (in this country, meaning Cadillac and Lincoln) had the “upscale” stuff like leather or velour seats, a door “chime” instead of a buzzer, wood/fake wood trim, a big, low-revving smooth engine, and a ride that could best be described as floaty. More pedestrian-brand cars had things like vinyl or cloth seats and were visibly cheaper.
now the line isn’t so clear-cut, since even mainstream brands have things like nice leather seats, good handling, lots of tech features, good build quality, etc.
So again IMO there’s nothing really “luxury” about German cars, other than the perceived value of the brand itself.
To me, the big difference between German & US/Japanese cars is in the handling – how the car feels on the road, and how it responds to steering input. To me, the German cars feel more crisp & responsive, which to me is more important than minor differences in reliability or ease of repair. It’s rather subjective, and I’m sure that others would feel differently.
German cars, to my mind, also are a bit nicer looking, especially on the interior. I’m especially fond of the current VW/Audi look; it’s more spartan than most Japanese cars, yet it feels more luxurious. That’s probably due to the quality of the plastics – even the hard plastic bits in my A3 have a surface softness, almost like a microfiber cloth. Japanese cars tend to have harder plastics that don’t look quite as nice, and feel hard or rough.
Many decades ago, Cadillac was the iconic American luxury car. Then in the 70’s and 80’s they put out some crap (remember the Cimarron?), and while they lost some reputation and lost some sales, the word “Cadillac” was still used as an indicator of class and luxury. I think to some extent this is the case with high-end German cars. They aren’t as wonderful as they used to be, but their names still have some cachet from what they did in the 50’s/60’s/70’s.
I would say they are overengineered. Some people appreciate some facets of that (e.g., exceptional handling); others deplore some facets (e.g. ridiculously high maintenance/repair costs). So they’re worth more to the afficionado who willing to pay for a certain type of driving experience, worth more to the status-seeker who sees them as iconic, not worth more to the average Joe who wants reliable, affordable transportation.
Volvo S70
BMW 3 series (328i if memory serves)
MBZ C class
Infinity J30 (I30?, the one that had the rear end that looked like a '48 Packard)
Lexus E250
Honda Accord V-6
Why would anyone compare an Accord to the other cars on this list? If you want to have a valid comparison , don’t use an Accord, use an Acura which is priced about the same as the others.
Personally I drive one of our two Honda GX sedans. Their fuel source is natural gas, the stuff we cook with. We fill them in our garage, at a cost of about @40 dollars a month for both cars, and drive all over Los Angeles County with them. With the white car pool lane sticker that we are entitled to have for them, we can drive in the HOV lane alone, vital when we drive downtown in the morning. so Value is relative. I value my little green Hondas for more than their fuel economy, cleanliness, (they will never need a smog test as all other vehicles in California do). The cost about $25,000. new at a Honda dealer, and are made here in the USA.
I bought a 1999 BMW 5 series and it is without a doubt the finest car I have ever driven. I would gladly buy a new one, but I just don’t like what they’ve done with the styling.
For the first 7 years I paid for nothing but standard maintenance, however in the last 3 years I’ve spent over $2k for repairs and I haven’t been especially happy about that. But, nonetheless, the car has been worth every penny I paid for it, and the 2010s don’t look so bad and I’ll probably buy a new one next year.
I don’t know where some of the prices listed above came from, but I know for a fact that I could get between 7 and 9 thousand for my 10 year old sweet machine.
This is kind of a bizarre post - you declare that the thread is ‘predictable’, and prove it by declaring what it’s about without having read it? That pretty much makes it predictable by definition, doesn’t it? Or were you planning to surprise yourself?
Correct. I saw the Top Gear episode where they talked about where the innovations appeared and it was the MB S-class that they referred to.
I have owned a BMW and when I drove it everything felt right and good quality - more so than the Lexus I now own, for example. However, it was excruciatingly expensive to maintain. This was 20 years ago and things may have changed since, but once I got past 30k miles, the cheapest service (approx every 6000 miles) was about $700 - even when in theory all it should need was an oil change.
After reading the thread, it turns out I was right. So alas, I didn’t get to surprise myself. (Let me guess. You’re one of the defensive luxury car owners.)
I lived in Germany many years, and for Germans a Mercedes is no more classy for them than owning a Chrysler is for Americans. However, either they take better care of cars than we do, or the cars are better built; those cars could last decades and still run perfectly. The resale value was always strong.
Lots of taxis in Germany are Mercedes and I got to ride in all types - older, newer, larger and smaller. I always found them to be really comfortable, nice rides. Granted, the diesel version used to have this annoying “tick tick” sound, but other than that, they were very stylish, comfortable and reliable work horses.
Oddly, status cars in Germany were American cars - simply because they cost more and looked different. Mercedes and BMW’s in Germany are simply the local everyday car - and Germans have a higher expectation of quality and technology when coughing up the Euros to buy them.
One of the cool things you can do in Germany is to special order your Mercedes, and then go to the factory and watch the last few steps in production. Then you get to actually drive it off the factory floor when it has zero miles on it. One funny story is a guy in one of my ESL classes did that, everyone all proud and happy, and he got in his brand new Mercedes and drove away, only to be t-boned 30 meters away as he pulled out of the Mercedes complex. Totaled his car with less than 1 kilometer on it!
As long as we’re making predictions, let me make one. Without knowing you, it’s pretty obvious, at least to me, that you’ll turn out to be a sarcastic, sad loser who’ll never be able to experience the pleasure of driving a fine piece of machinery.
Yet I defended the BMW based on performance, but then said I wouldn’t own one myself based on the reliability and expensive maintenance. So I confounded your prescience :).
You’d think that resale would be a good indictator of mechanical reliability but the top of the best/worst lists would be reversed if that were the case. The Prius is an expensive car to maintain while the Crown Vic is very reliable. The Prius gets it’s resale because people covet the car while the Crown Vic suffers from fleet-car syndrome.
If I had the money and the space I’d buy up low mileage CV’s for their utility value.
