CincinnatiFiero wrote:
I know my undying love of german cars annoys you, but I've yet to be disappointed and dads 04 lexus is already disappointing me.
Don't think that, because it's absolutely not true! Your lens is
very important to me. In fact its because of you that I probably spend about two hours a week putting BMW's and Merc's under the "microscope". As you know I'm still seriously considering picking up a second generation GS4, and unlike the Fiero, I've done every last bit of possible research to be sure this is a car that was built by a serious company, and meets to serious reliability, form/function/performance demands, and comfort standards. Every time someone mentions the 540i, I think about you and your love for the Bimmer, and start doing an in depth head to head. And no lie, this happens, at the very least, once a week.
As you know, I dislike BMW interiors for the most part - I like some. I also am looking for a more comfortable ride characteristic. So naturally the 540i isn't the right choice for me. But that's ok, because the GS4 outperformed the 540i across the board back in '98, so I really don't feel like I'm sacrificing anything performance wise for a more comfortable ride and an interior I prefer. I also prefer the legendary Toyota UZ and transmission over the BMW's, again just a personal preference, but I think it's a more reliable platform and easier to service, and that's what I'm after.
On the other hand, BMW fanboys who are blindly intolerant of factual data and think they've reached fortune 500 and are better lovers because they bought a ten year old 3 series annoy the hell out of me. I actually went looking for some of these cock suckers, hoping to perhaps draw some perspective I was overlooking. As expected they were into BMW's for the badge, nothing more. One actually did mention road feel, that "rebadged Toyota's" don't give the same feel of being connected with the road. I actually thought about that. I can tell you how many cracks are in the road leading to our driveway, and I'm not exactly thrilled about admitting that, so again, I'm not looking for road feel, I'm looking for luxury and performance. I'm sure F1 drivers say the same thing about BMW's. I'm not racing. I don't give a shit.
I will certainly agree with you about American cars, I can't get into one without looking around and thinking about how cheap they are and that some sucker actually forked over MSRP for one. The Corvette is the only vehicle GM has ever built that actually gets taken care of by the engineers; aluminum chassy, reliable drivetrains, good instrumentation. It's intolerable that American's are allowed to get away with this, and then get bailed out when they get exactly what they deserve. I do agree that on the whole BMW's are much more reliable cars. But its a fact that BMW's spend a lot of time in service bays for all sorts of problems (mechanical/electrical/suspension), and that is a
big reason I'm not that interested in them. Mercedes has really built some lemons in the past ten years, and we all here of course know why with the Chrysler buy and quality control. I really am sad about that, Mercedes can build such classy vehicles, but the ones in my price range suffer from chronic unreliability.
In short, don't apologize for being who you are. I know where you're coming from and why you enjoy what you do.