there is nothing wrong with all of this ^^. Just the claim that German cars cost the same the to maintain as the Japanese just not true. The service intervals such as spark plugs and transmission fluids are shorter as well. But Lexus with their new turbos have shortened their intervals as well.


Obviously.

My Audi is cheaper to service and repair than my LSs, parts are 1/3 the cost for OE and 1/2 for aftermarket. They are also far easier to get and it's WAY more clear what parts are OE vs not and brands don't hide the facts.

You can reuse the sensors for any of these cars unless something is out there I am not aware of that somehow requires you to replace them.

Batteries are batteries, you would have to love setting money ablaze to buy one from a dealer. That LC battery is a fantastic example of overpriced nonsense.

Literally nobody has said they cost the same. We said the extra cost was worth it and that the "unreliability" was not as big a thing as people think it is. A lot of that extra cost though is in dealership cost. I bet using this independent I found it doesn't cost more to maintain my S560 than it did my LS460s at the independent I used for them. The Mercedes dealer is WAY more expensive than the Lexus dealer, but that doesnt mean the car requires more maintenance.

Im not familiar with Audis maintenance. My guess is that Audi has shorter intervals just like Mercedes compared to Lexus.

Long term publications and word of mouth from my family and friends tell me otherwise.

And those things tell me that its not as big a deal as its made out to be, and IMO its worth the tradeoff for the more sophisticated vehicle. You also said all your family and friends loved their German cars.

You mentioned spark plugs, the Mercedes 50k interval is because of the turbocharged engine. With the TTV6 Lexus had to reduce the spark plug interval from 120k to 60k, LS500 and LX600 require new plugs at 60k miles. Like I said before, one of the big reasons why Lexus vehicles have been cheaper to maintain is they are very simple compared to German cars. When they become more like German cars in complexity, they lose their edge there.

yes. They do. It’s very hard to move on from a German car feel. But all three of them have had nagging issues. (One of them the engine went bye)

You also can't lump them all in together as "German" cars. Just like Toyotas and Hondas or Nissans are not equal even though they are all Japanese. It depends on the manufacturer and the model. The W222 S Class is pretty reliable with few trouble spots, the same can't be said of every Mercedes. BMWs for instance with the I6 are known to be quite reliable, while their V8s are much more problematic. It just depends.

@SW17LS and @Striker223 both own and maintain German cars, and both are owners of Lexus vehicles, therefore they are the best people to give us information on ownership, reliability, and maintenance costs. If you think they are lying, than maybe they are not the best people to ask. But I don't think they have any reason to lie or mislead about their ownership experience, including comparisons to Toyota/Lexus. If I had any questions about owning German cars, these are the two people I would consult, not what I heard from my 5th cousin who heard it from their friend, who heard it from their great great grandfather.

That said, I wouldn't trust Striker when it comes to EV'S because he has a definite bias in that department. Sorry Striker

I honestly don’t recall or remember if I said that all German brand cars were less reliable than Japanese brand cars. But I am pretty certain German cars are more costly to service and maintain. Over the long term, 5-10, 15 and 20 years. Consumers definitely do love German cars

No actually. The intervals are the same as an LS and longer in some instances plus stuff like the air suspension doesn't have nearly the same level of issues as it does in Lexus cars. They have really stepped their game up.......I will admit they are scary since they have SO MUCH stuff on them, I have at least 10 systems in the Audi that even my LS doesn't have period. To top it off half of those are straight up standard equipment on ANY A8 not just a optioned one. Those systems have to be ignored when we are talking about reliability since the Lexus simply doesn't have them......however core systems like brakes, suspension, engine, trans, diffs, electrical generation and control, cooling, and interior space controls/adjustments are all fair game and as someone who owns both the German car is better from a functional, service, and parts cost standpoint. Where you can get absolutely destroyed on costs though is that people simply do not know how to repair them properly and this leads to those nightmare rabbit hole issues, if you took the car to someone like me it would NOT be an issue.

The Lexus though IS built better and more solid with higher levels of attention and fit/finish, I have said as much MANY times I would love to have the German driveline in my Lexus body/interior....that would be perfect for me but I do think that is called a Porsche so...

Hey man that's all good and totally fair! You already know exactly why I hold those biases lol!

LOL it's all good ! But hey if I had an Audi, BMW etc, you'd be the man!

the pad sensors are reusable, I never changed them in my ls460, for 140k miles or so till I sold it the car.
the dealer likes to change them and charge for it.
i do my brakes myself , easy job on the LS or any Lexus car.

I took the senors out and put them back, in my ls430 they went out and I was a rookie. They only go out when your pads gets closer to like 1 or 0 meaning nothing is left by that time you will hear metal to metal sound in a short while.

my trusty mechanic favorite car is the Audi. Since it gives him so much business. Range rovers are up there too, Lexus are easy to service very diy friendly like a Toyota.