I'm a big fan of German engineering. They come up with some innovative, clever, and technologically leading designs. But there are two things they seem to forget. One.....serviceability. Example: Certain model Audi's where you have to disassemble the ENTIRE front end of the car to do the mandatory replacement of the timing belt. And my oldest son is the collision manager for a local BMW dealership. Some of things they have to do to fix BMW's just leaves me shaking my head. Second.....why are some designs so needlessly complex when a simpler solution will work just fine? Called the KISS principle.....Keep It Simple Stupid.
I owned a series of Audis back in the mid 70s-early 90s. Great cars to drive, but the quality of engineering on the individual pieces....!!!
I maintained them rigorously and hardly drove them over the speed limit (to be fair, I think top speed was about 80mph). Over the span of 7 years, my brand new one required alternator, starter, wheel bearings, water pump, fuel injection air duct, water hoses, numerous bulbs, three dash switches, window handles, mirror, gear shift "boot", various pieces of trim, overhead light, air conditioning pump, fan belts, entire exhaust system, front struts, and a new voltage regulator every 10,000 miles. And a bad connection caused the fuel pump circuit to heat up and melt the fuse box, giving intermittent power to the pump. I stopped taking them into the dealer, which really only wanted to service Porsches but charged the same for parts no matter what you drove (one of the dash switches was something like $300 and this was in the 70s). Found a small independent mechanic for the few things I wasn't qualified to fix myself. I really shouldn't have bought a second Audi, but since I already had all the tools and spare parts...
At least everything was accessible for replacement so you didn't have to disassemble the car, but I was nervous about driving them any further than across town. I've put nearly 300K miles on my two Mazdas, and the biggest issue so far has been a couple of dodgy tires which were replaced under warranty.