Here is your daily dose of pedantic knowledge:

Not to ever scare someone off owning a car they want to, I’d never want to do that. But it’s a car that exists on the same list as the Audi Allroad, V10 TDI Touraeg, Phaeton W12, Passat W8, and every other flavor the M275 comes fitted in from M-B. There’s no reason for it to be so good, so infrequently. It’s the…

First thing is that you should absolutely believe the horror stories you read on the internet. They have Achilles heels which will cost half the purchase price to fix when they go wrong.

What would you like to know?

Met it. Bought it. Own it. Daily it.

Remember the Hyundai Elantra GT? It was a sum-of-its-parts version of the Elantra hatchback meant to attract buyers with equipment that should have been suspicious at the price point? Leather seats and alloy wheels and a general look of respectability on the showroom floor?

I would love it if people judged my datability based on the car I drove!

Is this really an Equus Ultimate? If it were a true Ultimate it shouldn’t it seat 4 with a full fixed console in the rear with a fridge, not have a fold down arm rest? It’s also missing the front forward facing camera in the middle of the grille.

Remember kiddies, the W140 S73 AMG Touring/estate/wagon is absolutely a thing. It uses the original Pagani 7.3L version of M-Bs M120 V12, it does use the C140 nose, AND THE SULTAN OF BRUNEI IS HOARDING ALMOST ALL OF THEM!!!

I think we’ve all been going about this a bit wrong. If he wants it to feel like an old sweater, it needs to be big, comfy, a little baggy, and something that “old sweater” people wear: like a Saab, or a Volvo, or a Jaguar, or a Mercedes. And if it needs to seat 4, be fun but comfortable, and create memories - I would…

Perhaps because German auto manufacturers have a long and proud history of drastically overestimating fluid life?

If they think I’m going to put this:

I have a simple anecdote to illustrate how bass ackwards the Chinese perception of new car smell is:

But the real benchmark of that transmission is how long it lasts behind it’s more powerful engine applications. And I’m here to tell you that after 157,000 miles of dealing with a “garden variety” 5.5 M275 Bi-Turbo V12 - it doesn’t. Feel those hard shifts before it gets up to operating temperature. Experience the…

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: the best first car bar-none is a 1996-1999 Mercedes-Benz W140 S320.

$31,500?

Well...close to the scariest. Same car, different message:

Look, just don’t even try. Mercedes S-Class dashboard error messages are like the Necronomicon - if you try to read, comprehend, and understand the who, what, when, where, why or how you will be driven to utter and complete irriversable insanity.

One of the last customers I dealt with before I finally quit the dealership was a woman in a Cadillac CTS standard 2.0 T with panorama roof and ventilated seats. She was throwing up all the red flags - she had rolled another Cadillac’s negative equity into it, she HAD to go through her credit union, she was…