This is dumb. Owner finds a new car they want and ends up trading in their Audi, and now it’s at Mark’s. You know nothing about the history but are just dismissing the car.

I’m like a bull, I see red flags and I just run straight at them.

First off, I’m technically a millennial. Second, I said nothing about it being a right of passage. I said the blue flame is a fairly common engine to know for car trivia. 

Because car guys only like newer cars...give me a break. 

If it’s the same one used on the current Jetta, you won’t want to be under the hood using it. It is a flexing piece of crap you expect to fail at any moment.

Escalade???? A storage shed on wheels. I’m hoping no one is saying this is an innovation. 

Seriously.  I smell cost cutting all over this thing.  The hood prop rod is especially offensive to me.

surprised you didn’t get the blue flame.  I feel like thats a fairly common “whats this engine” for car guys.

Gotta provide a counterpoint. Screens are in no way more reliable than a knob or switch failing— maybe on cheap beater cars that haven’t been maintained, a plastic knob will snap off, but i know in any car i’ve ever owned there has never been a failure of a knob or switch and I’ve never heard of them failing from…

Co-worker used to have an ION Redline and now a Cobalt SS (supercharged engine). I’ve had a SAAB 9-3 2.0T (GM Ecotec) and a 9-3 Aero (GM turbo V6). All of these vehicles were ECU tuned, especially the Cobalt and ION, which had the specific GM tunes with hardware upgrades. You have to be kidding me If you think those…

Seriously, trade the stupid interior screens for some hood struts

“and touch screens are certainly more reliable and cheaper than a network of switches and buttons. Replacing is likely a single wiring harness.”

Literally EVERY single comment about IMS failures. The early model year Porsches had the DUAL-ROW bearing, which hardly fails. It’s the single-row bearings that tend to fail, and the problem as a whole is nowhere near as big as the internet will have you believe. Let the folks whine about “big dollar repairs” and…

Prop rod instead of hood struts...cost cutting!

These model years don’t have the issue. They have the dual-row radial bearing which doesn’t fail (though there may be isolate cases). The models after ‘99 have the single-row, which may fail. It isn’t a hugely widespread problem, as the internet would have you believe. If it was so bad and folks were blowing engines…

I’ll be standing on my front Porsche screaming from my soap Boxster about how good of a deal this is

Replacing a touch panel is several times more expensive than replacing a bank of knobs and switches. Ease has nothing to do with it. Knobs and buttons also only have one wiring harness per switch pack.

As far as reliability, Cadillac’s misbegotten Cue system had delamination issues. See also:

I have a Mark 7, I’m not sure how it’s more ergonomic when you now have to avert your eyes from the road for the touchscreen. I’ll concede the audio controls, I can do mostly all of that from the steering wheel, and the current car is touchscreen for that anyway. But I don’t see the 3-knob temp/fan/direction dials…

never thought i would see it suggested that a network of buttons is unreliable. if one switch physically fails it won’t disable all the other switches nearby. it would take a wiring problem to produce a result of 0 functional switches, which would meam by definition it isn’t the switches that were unreliable. switches…