I think more entry/new car enthusiasts need to read articles like this. As you pointed out, what appears to be catastrophic failure to the unseasoned, and what would undoubtedly cost nearly a quarter of the cost of the car to fix at a dealer, ultimately boiled down to 40 bucks, a couple hours of your time, and some…

I remember I helped a friend sell his 2000 Corolla, same generation as the 99 pictured. I drove it regularly for 6 months. It was a fairly stout little car, and he never had any problems with it. That said, forget the Corolla, buy the Civic.

I thought you were ditching that busted accord in lieu of something that actually was a reliable beater?!? I know what will solve you problem... buy a sixth car!!! No, seriously. Go get what the accord was supposed to to be, that way you can offload the it without being in the predicament you are currently in.

I have owned a few BMW’s and, between my buddy and my various cars, have worked on 6 different ones. From my black daily commuter 1993 325 is to the identical car, in gray, that we bought to have a cheap track car, I have always had fond memories of BMW’s.

I also decided, after weeks of soul searching, that most human beings can be trusted, when it comes to parking.

Tell him to actually buy a car and put 160k miles on it with this ideology. See how it works out for him. It’s so easy to offer armchair advice with little to no experience on the matter.

On a lower mileage motor, this is probably accurate. On a higher mileage motor, not so much. In my opinion, the OLM is all but useless, I would not trust my engine on it. When my car was new, I changed the oil roughly every 5k-6k miles. And that worked fine. But it is getting up there in mileage and I have noticed oil…

Ok. So. There seem to be two things at play here:

Most definitely. I had a 95 civic with much the same experience. But a small engine making a little over 100 horsepower is not the same as a higher power, more complicated motor that makes much more power more efficiently at the cost of simplicity.

You speak truth.

I would take manufacturer specifications on oil change intervals with a grain of salt. BMW specification of 10k seems kind of insane to me and may be why there are so many 7 series out there with worn out motors.

Oh Dear God.

I agree, super cars in general are a waste of money, value per dollar wise, and this one is just stupid. But I think its worth noting that while it is fundamentally stupid, the decision to bring it into existence is not. And to understand why, you (the general you, not you specifically, Jason, as you hinted at this)…

I think every serious gear-head has traveled down a painful road like this with a car that “seemed like a good idea at the time”, though, I imagine most threw in the towel at some point.

Agreed. Even though the VQ in my 350z is old, beaten, and abused, it still runs, and makes plenty of power. At 155k, it burns an entire oil pan worth of oil in roughly 2500 miles, but with the exception of a busted valve cover gasket, loose spark, and blown O2 sensor, the car has ran without issue.

I have been asked “What car should I buy?” more times than I care to count. The interesting thing is, in the majority of instances, it does not matter whether the person does or does not like cars. The answer is usually the same: It makes no difference what you tell them, they won’t listen to you anyway.

Every BMW owner ever selling their 3-Series “V6”. Drives me nuts.

David, I don’t mean to alarm you, but there are ICICLES FORMING ON YOUR TRANSFER CASE! I do not know how you are able to work on this thing in that kind of weather, so massive kudos to you.

This is such a beautiful car and it’s fun to see how actually owning one will fair over the next year, so thank you for your “Aston Martin Buyer’s Guide”.

...only if after a year of perfect reliability, it blew up catastrophically 3 days before the warranty expired. ;)