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I'm worried I'll end up there too. With a perfectly fine car but it's just meh to me.
Almost every modern car I sit in I just feel let down by the maker. In the Mercedes I see a car put together with love by people who knew what they were doing. In modern car I see the end result of a trend report and a fuckload of excel-sheets.
kboy-
Might be well off your radar, but I got the same W124-shaped sense of taking pride in designing and building a car in the Jaguar XE. I'd imagine the bigger (and older) XF might be worth a look.
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I understand your dilemma. When I moved back to Aus we needed a sensible family car.
Bought a 2011 Audi A3 1.8 TFSI. 7 speed DSG is all good (it's the 6 speed ones that go). shifts well, cruises well. pop it into sport mode and it'll redline every gear with chirpies. The paddles respond instantly too. The 1.8 turbo is quite robust... oil use is highish and fuel usage is high if you boot it everywhere but very economical if you don't. Handling is good but it's numb. Anyway, VAG products of that era seem OK. BUT - here's the thing - I'm pretty bored driving the car and while it's "nice" I still spend every night trawling carsales.com and probably will buy a cheap fun car.
On the plus side the interior is great, still feels new and is designed well and the cars paint is fantastic, never seen such well finished paint on a factory car!
So buy an e39 530i...
bq
TRA
Never buy a car with your head. That's how I ended up with a Porsche.
Admittedly, my head can have an odd notion of 'sensible'.