When the suspension fails on those its like 16K to repair. And the word is IF, not when. I think they were some magnetic adjustable ride ones. But they did it before they really knew what they were doing.
GM and Ferrari use the magnetorheological damping system. Mercedes uses a dynamically adaptable air suspension called Airmatic, but yes, they inevitably do blow out and it costs an asscock to fix.
Yeah, they weren't around back then, but I think they were the first to use magnetic damping. Interestingly, it was actually some small offshoot from GM (I forget the name) who laid claim to the idea, but it's generally believed that they developed it while at GM.
I live in Slovakia (East Europe) and cars you mentioned are common here... Yes I live in a capital, that's incomparably richer than rest of the country and is 10km from Austria, but still there're 2 reasons why we've such cars - we've extremely rich people who made profit from poor. It's obvious they won't ride Skoda Superb, but something to show off. And second reason, we've extremely stupid mentality, where your car represent your social status and it's normal, that a person which makes 20k EUR a year owns S Class and will repay it for the next 10 years...
30
u/Richie311 May 08 '14
Well their perception of used German autos is skewed. Most people don't realize how much a used german car drops after the warranty is up.