it seems to me that most people who are having serious, repeat problems are not the first owners of their automobiles--- i'm not saying that everybody has fallen upon a neglected car, but if you're buying one of these things secondhand it's reasonable to expect to have to bring them up to par.

out of 4 mercedes bought new, and still having 3 of them (1983 300td, 1987 300tdt, 1993 190 2.6), none of them have had any problems or wear as severe as the cars on this board have had. fluids are changed, bushings replaced, and a/c refreshed as scheduled or needed; all the finances are monitored via excel, and ownership costs have been extremely low per mile (getting close to 800,000 combined)

i prefer BMWs for dirt cheap parts and availability--- but maybe it's smart to take one their rules and transpose it: $15,000 for an E30 M3--- what you save on the price of the car, you'll need to put back because of wear.