Real luxury would have them come pick up my car rather than taking time out of my day twice.
Has anyone tried Lincoln’s valet service?
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I recently brought my Volvo in for the 10k service. I noted that the breaks were a little squeaky and felt some slight vibration when breaking at high speeds. They replaced pads and rotors under warranty. So I agree, especially when your maintenance is included, always good to go to dealership for maintenance. Also, although I was at the dealership for 3 plus hours with no offer of loaner, I was fine with it because there was no resistance in replacing the brakes.
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I had a crosstrek limited. I test drove an x1, X3 and 330, plus my brother in law has an x5
Of those, the only one close to a Subaru in ride and quality was the x1. Not in a good way. Comment from my wife was “if this was the only choice, we’d get another Subaru”
I got the 330. Only thing I miss is the wagon-ish part. I do not miss the lack of quickness I do not miss the CVT at all.
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A lot of them don’t, at least across tristate BMW, MB and Audi dealers.
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Changing oil at official dealer and paying their rate never occured to me.
That would be too much oil on my skin for my taste.
These cars lease horribly. FWIW, you are probably going to be paying in the $800-$1000/month range + fees and first month at signing for a 36/10k mile a year lease.
DISCLAIMER: These numbers are based on what some folks have shared in the past. Your monthly will vary based on the MSRP of the car, sale price, your tax rate, your mileage requirements, and your credit score amongst other things.
I use an extractor, but use nitrile gloves for the filter cap portion, while the extractor is sucking away, all from above, so the Brioni I don’t wear stays clean.
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This is nothing new and is becoming more and more of a standard within premium brands (slowly but surely) and I am personally glad to see more brands catching up. Volvo has been offering their Volvo Valet service for a while now given that one lives within proper distances of their dealer.
No, they don’t. My local MB service station used to always give loaners and then stopped automatically giving them out when service was expected to take < 1 day. You can ask for one, but you are not guaranteed one.
Back to the topic… I’m not even sure what the point of this thread is? OP, if you don’t want to waste $ on a luxury car that you seem sure to not like then… just don’t get a luxury car? Why do you need someone to convince to spend more of your own money?
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I get it. When everyone around you raves over how great something is but you struggle to see the appeal, you start questioning whether you are missing something obvious. OP did say he was content with the perspectives he had gotten (and 90 posts later, I have also learned a whole lot more about luxury cars…)
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Yeah, this would be a gist of it.
Maybe count yourself lucky if you can be happy without paying premium prices for premium cars. This is coming from someone who puts together spreadsheets with vehicle attributes and spends too much time crunching numbers. In the end though, I’ve learned to trust what I call “smile factor.” Does anticipating driving that car make me smile? Or in your case, smile more for a luxury brand versus a regular brand? (PS - Korean brands are underrated, in my opinion. Kia Telluride, K5, and new Sorento are all nice.)
Using this metric, Mini should be cleaning house, then.
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Depends on the driver. For some sporty and quick makes them smile. For others, quiet and comfortable, for others…
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I think most people view cars as a necessary evil to get them from point A to point B. So “smile factor” isn’t even a concept that registers with them in regards to automobiles.
My unsolicited $0.02 on the topic is this:
The more knowledgeable you are about luxury things, and the more sensitive you are to various upgrades, surfaces, materials, etc, the more you’re going to appreciate the refinements. Much like flying coach versus premium cabins – some people value the upgrades and experiences (even “early boarding” as a perk) and others do not. Both will get you from A to B.
Some of it is also just the feeling you get driving the car – many are intangibles. If you haven’t developed an appreciation for those finer things and really don’t feel any different driving one car over another, then none of this matters and you’re the exact audience that Subaru is marketing towards. Nothin wrong with that.
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Interesting that you brought up flying as an example. For example, flying to europe in business vs economy gives you something which is impossible to miss - personal flat bed in business vs crammed chairs in economy.
For domestic first class, though, you just get a slightly bigger chair, which doesn’t even recline noticeably better than economy. Yes, you board first (valuable for people who want to maximize their time in the said chair, I am not one of them).
I think, with lux cars I expected trans-Atlantic business, but experienced domestic first.
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Which brand is this? BMW gives me a loaner for anything and everything. I don’t even think they have a shuttle.
I don’t know if I agree w/ any of that. There was a time when even base MBs (b/c that’s all that was available) clearly blew away virtually every other brand when chassis rigidity, ride/handling balance, fit and finish (even if the overall look was very spartan), and being engineered to be driven at high speeds in comfort (right down to excellent outward visibility and syrup-y steering, the single arm windshield wiper that really did cover way more of the glass area that do conventional double arm designs, and purposely designing a lot of understeer at the limit [for a RWD car]). It was not simply about applying fake or real leather to every touch point and having whore-house lighting.
Outside of safety advances, the gap btw MB and everyone else has narrowed in so many ways as to be largely insignificant (aside from surface-level BS that some of us [me] think mainly appeal to those who don’t remember that the “real” finer things were, back in the day).
So it’s not even about not having an appreciation for the “finer” things. It’s perhaps about valuing other things entirely.
::shrug::
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