I’d have to disagree. The x5 was a good car, and it was a better luxury SUV than the ML. It came in a manual. Was there any other luxury SUV since that came with a manual? No problem with branching out, but then they started building things that were not only pointless (like the X6), but also worse than the…

Oh oui, mon amour! I am so clever! I’m gonna get charmed by a weedy frenchman, that’s an original idea that’s never been done before! I’m un peu, how you say, more sophisticated then my fellow Americaines. More euh, internationale. We will buy an apartement in the best arrondisement in Paris (Paree) and summer with…

Momma always said, basic is as basic does. The American lady falling for a suave Frenchman’s moves is as basic as basic gets. Don’t trust this woman for real estate advice, is what I’m saying here.

I mean, it would have been fine if it was front-wheel drive and handled well. There are front-wheel drive cars that we all love. But they just made an expensive, worse Opel Zafira and called it a day.

This must be that German sense of humor I’ve heard so much about.

Buddy, I said it precipitated it. You see? It wasn’t the direct cause. It’s just the result of Germany, the pudgy, over-achieving nerd of Europe, running wild again. We should have heeded the lessons of Hulkamania.

Well if Thatcher’s wishes were granted, it never would have been united, but I think that West Germany would have remained a shadow of its current self. I doubt it would have been dominating European affairs to that extent. Also I hope you know that I just made an offhand comment and not a scholarly work.

This car company should have lasted a thousand years!

Buddy, that ship already sailed when they released 2 series “active tourer” (or maybe the 5GT)

I have a theory as to what precipitated it: the re-unification of Germany. When Germany was divided, they were kept humble and contained, forced to get by on more limited resources. The VW beetle’s eastern counterpart, the Trabant, never strayed from it’s super-simple, people’s car roots, up until the very end. Once…

Ahahaha, well now this really puts the cherry on the shit sundae. Hey Amanada, maybe uh, you should consider that you have terrible judgment and whenever you get the urge to do something, do the opposite of that thing?

Guys, can we please do better? I know we can cope with having a relationship with a person our own age, who’s lived long enough to see through our brand of bullshit. It’s fulfilling! Maybe we can start moving away from roping in children who don’t know any better into our dumb lives, just so we don’t have to face our…

I’ve had the nav display on my e39 stop working, which I replaced for $250 off of ebay. But this is late ‘90s technology we’re talking about, those kind of displays were very unusual even in 2001 when the car was made. I would think that the quality of manufacturing improved along with the display itself. Nowdays, we…

Oh I’m with you all the way on that. I was just joking at the lengths car enthousiasts go to justify a car they know will be more of a headache than a safer, more boring choice. Of course knowing the quirks and defects of a certain car is key to having a good experience and saving money if you’re going the route of…

Oh yeah that reminds me. I should probably get that recall taken care of... Shoot. I’ll try to drive extra carefully till I get an appointment.

Saab had it too on their old 9-5s. I don’t think Mercs had this problem though? I’m not too sure. I wonder if the new fully digital instrument panels will be worse or better long term. I’m wary that if they break, then they’ll just conk out and need to be replaced completely for many thousands of dollars, but then…

Interetsting. They decided to stick with that same pixel display arrangement on the MFD that resulted in a class-action lawsuit against BMW cause they kept burning out (not to be confused with failing lighting due to malfunctioning optics in the gauge cluster cause back-lighting has to be so damn complicated).

Terrible name though. Why didn’t they hyper-focus group it to be some kind of half word that’s not quite a word and isn’t a horrible swear in any known human language and implies luxuriousness through the interaction of the syllables or some shit?