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Yeah, the Europeans haven't improved anything since '74. It's smart for you to stay away.
My BMWs have been quite reliable, but they're newer than '74 so you wouldn't know about that.
I never even mentioned anything about the reliability of my 1973. But I do know plenty of people with much newer European cars and their reliability has been pretty spotty. And when something needs to be fixed, it's a pretty expensive once it's out of warranty.
Both of yours are pretty new. Wait until they're out of warranty and become money pits. I always pass on the extended warranty, but I would never buy a European brand without one. The only European vehicle I've ever owned was a 1973 model that I sold in 1974. I seriously doubt there will ever be another one in my garage.
My well to do neighbor had a late model Mercedes 500 sedan.
Paid $85,000 for it new.
At 37,000 miles he traded it. Got $15,000 off MSRP for another Euro brand.
Needed shocks they told him. At $1,800 each. All straight flat paved driving. No accidents.
And no, he is not a monkey wrench guy.
I started driving without a license when I was 14 back in 1979. ( Worked on a used truck lot washing and taking care of the trucks. Most built in the 1960's or 1970's.) For the past 20 years nearly every car with a clutch I have driven has been relatively easy on the body. I prefer a stick. I have been driving them since I started driving a car or truck. First stick I drove was a 4 speed and the clutch was a bit heavy. I have driven vehicles from the 1940's era on out. I have driven large trucks with multiple gears and split rear ends that were a lot of fun to drive. My last truck was a 3 on the tree. Had a 1980 Chevy Luv with a 4 speed that has a heavy clutch. It was so heavy that the bracket that held the clutch petal on would eventually fail. I ended up replacing that bracket every year or two.
One car that I would consider with a stick is the 2019 Ford Mustang Bullitt. I love the Dearborn Green color of the car. That car is supposed to hit showrooms soon. 6 speed gear box. For the price you get a lot of car for the money. Some one mentioned German cars. The Germans buy more Ford Mustangs than they do any home grown sports car.
Don't drive in a hilly city like Seattle or San Francisco. Driving up hill with lot's of traffic can be a real problem. it's hard not to roll back a little when the light changes. I was always nervous about hitting the car behind me. It never happened, but for hilly city driving give me an automatic every time.
This is a very good point. Some of those hills are very steep.
Third, in a performance car, the automatic is tuned for performance: shift-points, shift-style, speed and delay and so forth. For an economy car, or even one of middling performance aspirations, this isn’t the case. Its automatic is tuned for efficiency, safety, reliability, quietness, low-maintenance, minimal liability. The performance-car may admit various driver-accessible (or at least dealer-accessible) tuning aides; the economy-car will not. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to un-tune it form its economy-programming, making it raucous and raw. In a performance-car, the automatic likely knows that when the driver mashes the throttle, it’s time to downshift. An economy car, or even a luxury-cruiser type of car, would filter out such rapid motion of the pedal, resulting in an irritating delay. This is why, perhaps paradoxically, it is more important to have a manual in a 100-hp commuter sedan, than a 500-hp grand-tourer.
I think you've hit on a key point. A lot of us do not need nor can put to practical use a car with 300+ horsepower, but we want to get the best performance out of what are designed as economy cars. A turbocharged 4-cylinder engine works for most of us, and a naturally-aspirated 4-cylinder is enough for lots of folks.
There are really four kinds of transmission in common use, ignoring the fully-electric cars which do not have transmission: manual with a clutch, conventional slush-box automatic, the dual-clutch gearboxes like the DSG, and the continuously variable transmission (CVT). The DSG shifts faster than a human can, but they cost more and require more maintenance or costlier repairs than a manual transmission. The CVT? Please! It's the most boring kind of transmission and increasingly the most common for smaller cars. And while the conventional automatic may be able to handle plenty of horsepower, and some are really quite excellent, they seem to be disappearing on smaller cars as there is a fuel-economy cost.
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