MattyG

The CLS is a beautiful car but it is a bit too swoopy and that means a lot of compromises that cancel out the idea of a four door sedan. You lose all the head room and greenhouse visibility that a four door Benz offers. I think a proper Benz coupe looks even better, so why not just by the real deal?

But as far as four door coupes are concerned VW did a way better job on its four door coupe than Benz. The VW CC. Too bad about its long term reliability and maintenance costs. But I'd love one of these.

premier3IS

Totally agree with the 3/5/7 looking bland. The 3 series just looks like a regular sedan to me, and everyone and their mom drives one these days. Nothing special about them, unless we start talking M3/4/5/6.

3 series was on my list when I went car shopping. When I actually compared the interior to the IS (F-sport), the IS blew the 3 series away. Much more comfortable and looks a lot more up to date. Plenty of friends own a 3 series and they always mention how they wish they had an interior like the f-sport.

Not to mention the exterior of the IS looks more aggressive as well.

Mr. Burns

You can impale yourself on the rear door of that thing if you're not careful.

Rhambler

Johnhav430

Oh boy, from that angle it looks very like an Avalon, wth are they thinking?

Anyway real life issues.....for the 4th time in its life, buddy's wife's Q5 died. 2012, it also consumes oil. CPO. Sunshade broke, $2k to fix, extensive write up DIY online.

Colleague at work who deals cars on the side said absolutely insist on sunshade under CPO. Email my buddy, he calls me on my cell, thanks for the tip a 3rd dealer said they are covering it. As far as the dying thing, dealer #2 did not find anything, no shadow codes, started fine, diagnostic charge $385.

Many German car owners live with the above. My cousin's wife got rid of a 4.8 X5 CPO as it was always at the dealership, and she got a Range Rover instead (huh? lol).

All I can really say is, it is what it is. Professionals only have so much time to be running around dealing with cars, even when loaners are provided, so my philosophy is to not have 2-3 German cars, but maybe just 1. My 335i has been reliable, but one always has it in the back of their minds anything is possible.

LexBob2

I have 2 German cars in the garage right now and no issues so far. Had 2 right before these nothing with either of them. Just routine maintenence on all of them. These were all my first German vehicles and I'd buy another.

Even though I buy my cars I don't keep them beyond the factory warranties including my Lexus cars.

EZZ

That Buick / Opel isn't over engineered though. It's a pretty simple car compared to the twin scroll turbo BMWs which have all these issues. Just because it's European doesn't mean it's over engineered.

mmarshall

Some of the Opel-based Buicks have turbos....some don't. Yes, they tend to be simple cars by today's standards, but they are well-built.....in some ways, better than the larger, American-designed Buicks.

Johnhav430

Buddy on Fri considering an '18 M3 sedan, and he drove the 6 man and dct back to back. He said there is a '17 6 man that has sat almost a year because nobody wants a clutch.

This kills me. Apparently starting in '18, BMW does the turn signal and washer stalks like everybody else. WTF??! As long as I can remember, there has been no detent on BMWs with respect to these. Apparently research shows this is what people want, the way everyone else does it. This co. Is really going mainstream. Sad. What's next, bikes with automatics and 3 wheels? Lol

Gojirra99

From what I heard from a few salesman here more than a decade ago, manual 3 series had been special order only for a long time, you can test drive one only when a used one came in ......

Toys4RJill

Any brand is worth getting if you only keep it till the warranty period. Not sure what the big deal is.

mmarshall

Although, yes, there are still a few die-hard enthusiasts that want to stir their own gears, traditional 3-pedal manuals are becoming a harder sell each year. Traffic density in most places is not getting any less, and each new stop light, speed bump, stop sign (or whatever have you) just means that much more stop and go conditions. Most drivers simply just don't want to deal with it any more....and I can't say that I blame them.

SW17LS

That's not automatically true. A problematic car even with a warranty is a huge imposition and time suck to be constantly taking it back to the dealer. Especially mainstream cars where the dealers likely don't offer loaners.

My first Jeep was that way, every time I had a service stop it needed to be in the shop for several days to fix a bunch of warranty items, and once or twice we had more time emergent failures where we had to take it in off schedule. Once the day before we left on a family trip to the beach the HVAC control module failed and we had no AC. They luckily had ordered the part for another Jeep owner and the guy gave me his part (sucked for the other guy but I wasn't in a position to take the moral high ground lol). This was a vehicle less than 2 years old.

And each of those times no loaner, so we had to rent a car or carpool and with my schedule being unpredictable and my wife at the time working a 9-5 that was a huge imposition.

I never realized that until I had a problematic car, which I never had truly had until that Jeep. It also makes you worried about upcoming trips, etc.

Now, we liked the Jeep enough to roll the dice again and the 2014 one was perfect for the 14 months we had it until we got the van, but it gives me pause about a Pacifica. If we got a Pacifica like that first Jeep and my wife has to be without her Minivan on a regular basis, you guys are going to be posting on my guestbook at the funeral homes website lol.

Och

iTrader: (3)

I utterly despise bmw turn signals, and even made a huge thread on bmw forum where many others shared my views. Im very glad they are switching to normal turn signals in 2018 models.

Toys4RJill

What is it that you don't like?