The really expensive services on European cars is a little misleading, though, because they run full synthetic oil with long change intervals. For example in recent years BMW has typically recommended a 15,000 mile oil change interval whereas Toyota has done 5,000 mile ones. No question maintenance is still more expensive on the Beemer, but not insanely so as implied by just looking at the relative cost of the service itself.
The other thing, though, is that the Japanese prestige brands (Lexus, Acura and Infiniti) hold their value a tiny bit better than their European counterparts, but not by much. These all score pretty good on the various reliability indexes and maintenance isn’t crazy expensive on them, but they still depreciate hard like any other luxury car. The perceived unreliability and high costs of operating of the European luxury brands definitely doesn’t help their resale value, but the major part of the story is just the diminishing prestige value of driving an older luxury car.
I know a dealership that uses this as their business model. They sell mainly a bit older and higher mileage luxury cars than what you would find at the BMW dealership where they are selling them as certified pre-owned. They are typically very well maintained with no major issues, but more people in the market want new or close to new. Interestingly, they sell a lot to people who are buying a car for their kids. We live in an upscale area and they want their kids to drive a luxury car but don’t want to drop $60k on something a teenager is going to beat up.
Oh it is definitely true. I bought a used 1994 BMW 3 series with low miles in 1996 and great sticker price because it came from a really scuzzy used car lot but I had to have it and it didn’t have any big problems ever until I totalled it five years later. I was single when I got it, earning decent money and I absolutely loved that car and looked forward to nothing more than just taking it for a joy ride even though I also had to drive it every day. I was usually disappointed when my commute was over.
The maintenance and repair bills were a bit much though. I considered myself lucky to get out of any BMW shop in the Boston area for less than $1000 even for very basic things like belt or shock absorber changes. You can’t just take them to a regular mechanic either because most regular shops will not touch them. I finally found a highly rated BMW speciality shop in Cambridge that only did the work that you really needed and they will not screw you but they were not cheap either. I never had a major mechanical problem even when I had her up to over 150,000 miles but normal maintenance had probably cost me about as much as the purchase price at that point.
I have a Toyota now with just under 100,000 miles and zero problems. I spent a lot on preventative maintenance compared to most Toyota owners because I am that way about my cars but it is just a small fraction of what it cost to maintain a BMW.
Every thread about foreign cars has these same jokes, no matter how outdated. Fix It Again Tony, Lucas the prince of darkness, etc., despite the fact that Lucas no longer exists and almost nobody in America has experience of cars that Fiat has produced in the last thirty years, apart from the current 500 model. Some of which, bafflingly, have been quite successful.