Ray,,, you're a lucky man & geography counts... (archive)

I believe you, and you are more fortunate than many owners of these cars. In addition, you have one other thing working in your favor. It appear you live in the UK. I presume from all the posts I have seen, that you must keep your cars up to a high standard of tune and maintenance to even keep them on the road. So, what you say may be true for cars that are still registered in your country. By the same token, it appears there are more BMW's in boneyards in Europe because they no longer qualify to be on the road.

Here in the states, in many places we have no inspections, no DEQ requirements, NADA! Consequently we can drive these cars in any state of tune, or roadability condition, and often do.

If I am correct in my assumptions, it is not reasonable to tell someone in the US that they should pay top dollar and expect the cars to give trouble free service.

In fact, because some personal emotion is involved in buying these cars, it is really none of our business what the buyer decides to pay for the car, or what he eventually ends up with for repair cost, except for the fact that he asked for our advice. My advice was reasonable, and so was yours.

This is not meant to be inflammatory, but I think there are some geographical and regulatory issues here that do actually muddy the waters when buying these cars. In fact, I will go so far as to say this:

I think I would rather buy a car that had been maintained under the rigorous european standards of maintenance, than a car driven for years in 75% of the US. Either due to, or perhaps without, these standards, I think europeans probably maintain their cars much better than we do in the US, as a whole.

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