I have seen many Benz, BMWs and VWs go 300k + miles. I have also seen many Toyotas do the same as well. Im not saying Toyota doesnt build a great engine, b/c they do, They dont build a good CAR. Their engines will run for ever while the car is falling apart.
I can go out and find bad reviews about any car makes and model. The same gos for the good. One bad review about Saab, one good review about the Camry, and bam, you pick Toyota. I bet I could probably go out and find some one whos pissed up with their car sounding like a glorified sowing machines too.
I dunno. I have only owned two Japanese imports. Both Toyotas more or less. A 2004 Tundra with a 4.7L V8. This truck was al right. Not the greatest, and not what I wanted, but I gave it a shot. Every thing about this truck felt cheap, expect the engine. The engine pushed the truck around nicely, and did a decent job of pulling a trailer. The other was a 1998 Lexus LS400. Its a Lexus need I say more?
Never the less, I dont think I will ever bring my self to buy another Japanese import until they stop making cheap cars. But thats what they do
build cheap economy through away cars. You buy a Camry to trade it in, in a few years. You buy a Benz to last ten years.
Given enough TLC, any care will last while. But most people dont care about the drive they drive, they just drive it. And from what Ive noticed, this is mostly Toyota and Nissan drivers. They buy the car and with in a few years its beat to hell, exhaust leaks and it burns more oil than gas. Ya, I see it with domestic cars too, but more so with cheap ass imports.
Hate me fine, I dont care. But until the Japanese get off their ass, and can show my a REAL truck that can pull 20,000lbs all day long and put 300k on the clock, Im staying with Dodge from now on. Maybe if they also came out with cars they didnt start to fall a part Id reconsider them.
One bad review? Try 7-8 bad reviews in a row complaining about how expensive parts were. Not to mention my mechanic giving me a look of horror whenever I mentioned a European car and the first words out of their mouths were comments on how expensive parts were for those cars. Once again man, your experiences contradict everything that I (and most of the other people here and elsewhere) have seen. As has been mentioned above, every Mercedes that I have seen will run for quite a while but they are plagued with all sorts of problems that are horribly expensive to fix (notorious for electical problems among other things). My ex's step father bought a Mercedes and it spent more time in the shop than her mom's oldsmobile Achieva (which isn't saying much since the Achieva isn't a very well built car). On the other hand my brother has a '93 Corolla with well over 200K miles and the maintenance on it has been nominal (he bought it brand new for about $8-$9K and still owns it), very little required outside of routine maintenance. I also had a buddy in college that had a BMW coupe (I believe it was the 318) and he spent all sorts of time working on it. He replaced it with a '92 Eagle Talon TSI and spent about the same amount of time working on it (and money invested) but got a hell of alot more performance out of it. That isn't saying much since the Eagle Talon (Mitsubishi Eclipse) are notorious for high maintenance. As for your experience with imports, you keep going on about how they "feel" cheap instead of how they "were" cheap. Your argument might have more credibility if you could describe how both vehicles were peices of crap and you had to go overboard with maintenance on them. As for people holding on to European cars versus selling them and not so with the Japanese imports? I find that argument pretty weak, because in all of the areas I have lived in, there tend to be about an equal percentage who get rid of their Japanese Imports as European imports. Of course this is all proportionate since more people can afford Japanese vehicles to begin with, hence the reason I mentioned percentage.
