I swear, I'm only buying cars with in-line engines from now on, like my wonderful W123. So easy to work on.

Rant: I had to change the spark plugs on my daughter's Malibu yesterday, with the transverse V6 and front-wheel drive. Bastard offspring of GM and Satan. (the Malibu, not my daughter). Here they have a car that measures about 13 feet long x 5 feet wide and what do they do? Shove the engine, trans, axles, and everything else in a 2ft x 3 ft. area so you can't access anything. It took me 3 hours and I scraped up my hands something awful getting at the rear spark plugs.

Every car I ever owned that had a straight engine was just a joy to work on. A couple of BMW 6's come to mind, plus an Alfa, Fiat, TR-6 going back to the 70's. Plus isn't smoothness one of the supposed advantages of V-engines? All the straight-4 and 6 cars I've owned have run equally smooth in my opinion.

I sure hope some of these new diesels coming out will have in-line engines, and ideally longitudinal, although I guess I could live with transverse if I had to.

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'81 300CD - 180K, cannot be killed by any conventional means
'99 Ford Escort - good MPG