ALL cars require maintenance. I must agree with Larry, here. Repairs made on my current Benz and my past ones have all stayed fixed! I am having to constantly make little fixes to my Mustang (now there's a money pit), and I just dropped $5K on the Town Car last year.... right now it is setting in the driveway with electrical problems and an oil leak from Hell! I haven't got $5K total in my Mercedes!!!

Let's see.... less than $5K in the Benz.... total, about $20K in the Lincoln (and it is not driveable right now), recently sold the wife's 78 300D for more than I had in her (about $2K profit), recently bought a Saturn wagon and just dropped about $400 for parts..... ON A NEW CAR!

I've owned or driven many cars and had at least one rice-burner in the driveway for the past 15 years. The only one that lasted more than 130K miles was the Nissan Sentra.. she went 250K before I sold her in '95... last I checked she was still running.

I'll stick with Mercedes for reliability, ease of repair, and overall cost factors. BTW, if anyone wants to direct me to one of those $800 deals for a nice, running diesel... let me know.... I have a Lincoln to bury in the back yard....