A guy I know who works at an Acura dealer said that warranty stuff is always a PITA to the dealer because the MFR is always trying to underpay. With the quality of warranty service I get on my C30, I think that is the case with my local dealer. Either that or they just suck at life.

Youtube?

With each new article about the E30 M3, I see my chances of ownership fading away faster into the distance :(

"But you know it's done right"

Hey dude, you're preaching to the choir, but we are in the minority. A vast majority of car owners would rather pay someone else to do it for them. I'm not saying right or wrong, it is just the preference of many car owners.

Yes, people are lazy, and would rather pay others to do stuff they don't want to do. Bitching about it is not going to change anything.

For the low, LOW price of $26,000, you can get a larger "outlook" on life!

Why can't these people keep the tarps on until about 10-15 years from now when I will have enough money to swoop in and fill a garage with vintage BMWs?!?!?

I mean I agree with you, once my oil changes are no longer free (along with everything else wrong with my car up to 60k) I will do them myself.

Resources include time as well. Have you ever tried to use those ramps with a car with reasonably low ground clearance? Bye bye bumper!

The "scheduled maintenance" from any factory dealer. I get these covered for free under a factory maintenance plan that came with the Volvo. They show what the cost would have been if I had paid for it myself though, and its over $400 for the scheduled maintenance where they only do an oil change and inspect a…

Some people don't have the resources to do an oil change themselves.

Except duurtlang is in Europe and I was replying to him, so I mentioned the car he would be familiar with. Also, the Spark and Encore are based on the same Gamma II platform which underpins the Spark, Sonic, Encore, Mokka and others.

I'm going to have to agree with you, I like where they went with the styling. They really integrated the look of this car with the new CTS and ATS pretty well. I wouldn't want to own one myself, but unlike previous generations, this Escalade will be much less of an eyesore.

**Meanwhile, on the island of misfit cars...**

I have seen a number of X1s on the road already, and I have yet to see the new 3-Series wagon outside of a car show. When I showed the X1 to my friend who is looking for a car, she liked it very much, even though it emulates the shape of a wagon nearly identically.

You're implying causation the wrong way. It is true that CAFE induced our market into SUV shock, but that was in the 70's. The current push for "tall-ness" stems from all the SUVs already on the road. People are frightened of being crushed and not being able to see, and all the other perils of having a large number…

The CUV is not a fad, it is a shift. I was helping someone identify cars she liked, and she came across the Opel Mokka and said it was perfect. What happened when I showed her the Chevy Spark? Hates it. Other than the bumpers and lights and lift height (which is a lot, but not anything functional), they are…

What about sales of the Juke? I don't think the market for smaller SUVs is waning, those examples listed in the article just show poor execution.

The is a heartening story in an otherwise depressing series of events.