It's a love it or hate it sound, I am firmly in the former camp. A heads/cam viper is the best sounding car I have ever heard

 

Not at all unless you are going max effort, to can easily get 800-1200hp with normal idle these days. Reliability is superb if you use an LS based design or a hemi, far in excess of any stock BMW engine in that metric.

You are right it's no comparison, a FBO tuned hellcat makes 1000 to the wheels and is a perfectly calm daily engine. Or a FBO LS3/7 or any modern V8 with mild forced induction really, stock everything and 8-10 psi retains all manners and makes more power than any stock car. That's why you never see imports at any competitive event, they just aren't at that level with a few Japanese exceptions that are boosted to hell and back and have very limited passes before overhaul.

But hey if you like stock you like stock. There are known combos though that are very civilized. If you don't want to build then get a German 4.0 engine and have it retuned for much more power and smoothness vs stock and you will be faster than any stock car on the streets. Just don't expect to hang against a modified car

 

You are all over the place now, this is not even what we were discussing.

 

Wow surprised Lexus didn’t go for wider rubber and 20in setup running 245/275.
I think with proper suspension setup and wheels/tires, this will be sharp looking car. But that’s another $10k for mods.

 

Everytime reliability and German cars are mentioned online it’s always I know a guy or my mechanic said. It’s almost a running joke at this point that nobody with a German car complains about their reliability.

 

Truth of the matter is that reliability issues of Germans are overhyped. It's not that bad. It's bad but not THAT bad that majority of them suffer from horrific issues. It's upkeep that is a major pita when it comes to BMW, for example X5 goes through tires like crazy and so on.

 

The reliability of any car (insert brand here) isn't as good or bad as some make them out to be. The overall reality is somewhere in the middle.

 

what i find funny is my family and friends in europe don't think of german brands as unreliable at all. expensive yes, unreliable, no.

 

Not really. I know a guy with an almost $200,000 new Range Rover Autobiography and it's been in the shop for a month. The shoe fits, as RR is rated the worst. What I do notice though is the sheer number of them around town. They're everywhere, must be one of the most popular high end SUVs around here.

 

I've owned a few German cars so I know a bit about their reliability. I mentioned this earlier, reliability to a BMW or VW owner is viewed from a totally different lense than a Toyota or Honda owner. When I moved from German cars to Toyota, I realized what reliability actually was when things I thought were just supposed to break stopped breaking. I still to this day find myself asking, why doesn't my 10 year IS350, or my 14 year old Camry (with 160K of hard driven miles) or my 2013 Toyota Sienna with 146K leak or burn oil? Why????

 

we all know a guy, with whatever brand you want to mention.

 

Well, I know lots of people then...

 

Eh, I have a lot of direct experience and they do break a lot more often and more importantly cost a lot more to fix the same issue vs other brands. Case in point if my turbos go it's technically a $13000 job, in reality it's less than $2000 to DIY with pure upgrades and less than $1000 to just fix it. It also doesn't require any particularly advanced skills if you are careful.

 

Just saw the SmokingTire review of the IS500. He did it way way back in July but they just released the video to their channel on the 10th. I'll summarize...he loved it!

 

Which Engines are you speaking about when Mentioning BMW? The B58 and ZF transmission are very reliable. I wouldn't be too concerned with long term reliability of that motor. Toyota is even using it. Also once the car is out of warranty, I don't think many people go back to the dealership due to price gouging. That goes for any brand, I had an Infiniti Red Sport and maintanance was NOT cheap. Even Oil Changes at the dealer were $140