Lexus

I remember a Sixty Minutes segment, years ago. They traveled to Germany to document the building of BMW automobiles. Very interesting piece.
At one point, the interviewer asked a couple of their engineers what they drove.................Toyota and Lexus were the answers.

Ive owned a few. Audi hands down, second would be a Jag.

MB and BMW are JUNK. JUNK. JUNK. JUNK. JUNK. JUNK. JUNK.

Ask me how I know.

I had a BMW 528 Sport for 150,000 miles. Absolutely loved the car. It was, however, expensive to own. Brakes were, if memory is correct, about $400 per wheel. High performance tires were good for 30,000 miles at best. It had a few problems, but not too many. Again, it was a wonderful car. Had to sell it and buy my Tundra. Nothing goes wrong with it. Inexpensive to own. Rock solid. It cost me so little that I felt like I got a raise. I was never at the Toyota dealership for problems. I will buy another one if this one will ever die, but I might die before it gives up.

Got the wife a Lexus RX350. It’s on year 4. No issues. Nothing at all. Smooth and quiet. 24 mpg average in our driving pattern. Original brakes. Second set of tires.

So, if you want to go fast and absolutely love your car, and you have money, get a BMW. And it’s advisable to live not too far from the dealership. I was there a good bit. They had, by far, the best coffee machine, and the hottest women. If I didn’t need a truck, I’d have another BMW.

My brother and his wife just took a tour of the Rockies in a rented BMW. He sent an email and said “Now I see why you loved that BMW so much”.

A ford chevy toyota etc. Im not going to pay more for an emblem.

I’ve owned 2 infinities and they are great cars, I did a lot of research on the luxury sports before I bought the Q50 and it was between Infiniti and Lexus. There are so many horror stories online from the other brands. Not as many with Audi as there were with MB and BMW.

I had been looking for a used Raptor to upgrade my old one, I found one completely optioned our and for about 4K less that everywhere else. I went and looked at it and it ended up being at MB of McKinney.

Was the worst car buying experience I’ve ever had. Had the truck not been exactly what I was looking for and it had some extra options that were added by the previous owner that I’m guessing they didn’t know what they were but added up to around 8k dollars. I would have walked.

I’ll never grace another MB dealership ever.

Agree with what is stated above. Infiniti or Lexus are the only two I'd consider.

Have owned MB and it was an absolute piece of junk from a reliability stand point. I will say the vehicle held together very well in a bad accident though.

Have owned BMW and same thing. There was always some small thing wrong with it.

We've now owned 2 Infiniti QX80s for a total of about 150K miles and 8 years or so and I can only remember one of them going to the shop one time, and some that was some small recall.

I would put Cadillac and Lincoln well above the German brands.

If you're hell bent on the German ones, buy a CPO. They come with an extended warranty. You're going to need it.

One family member has had several Mercedes and eventually swore them off switching to BMW which they've been driving for a few years now with no problems. Another family member has had few problems with their Audis, having owned many through the course of probably two decades.

After the warranty is expired, BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Jaguar will $500 and $1000 you to death, similar to the nickel & dime saying but in larger denominations.

I'd stay away from any brand Tata motors India owns.


Lexus, by a wide margin.
Acura
I dislike GM products, Cadillac.

Reasons; longevity, reliability, safety, reasonable maintenance & repair costs, dealership network.

Even Genesis, over any entry level / mid range MB, Audi or Jag.

Just funny to me that it was two posts in a row. Goes to show that car opinions are pretty worthless, but I do like the R8's.

Very nice cars, did they ever fix the frame crack issue?

I'll never have any, so my opinion ain't worth much.

In your budget

Genesis G70, G80 , Tons more car for the money, Great longevity. At least go look at them before you buy, humor me. G70 is a hot rod in sheeps clothing


Of your picks your gonna get base models for $50,000 re; A5

$50,000 wont get much these days

Toyota, but she would probably trade it for a Ford or Chevy.

We have had a handful of BMW 3series and 5 series. My wife has always had great luck with them. They are crazy expensive to have anything done to them and it is really had to do anything yourself. They get very expensive in repairs after 100K miles. We have only had one past 100K miles and it is a money pit. The repair guy even said to dump it at or before 100K miles.

I know you don't care about Lexus or Infinity. We have had those too. The Lexus only had a few issues. Try putting an alternator on one yourself. $1000 for an alternator. Infinity has the worst fake leather in the world. The color wears off of it. Never buy an infinity.

We've had 2 AMG's, exceptional cars.

For $50k you could get a fully loaded Honda Accord and have several thousand dollars left over.

Honda Accord.


Edit:
It's just a pleasure to drive. It has a great ride, and good pickup. Something about the cruise control algorithm is the best I've driven too, it doesn't stress you out by following the car in front in any weird way like the Toyota or many others. Also the brake hold feature is really nice in stop and go traffic or drive-throughs, when you're done with brake hold, just turn it off. I would get the EX-L or Touring models though for the upgraded stereo.

Expensive cars are nice, and I 100% understand the sentiment of wanting to treat your wife; but for me it has to be a second car. I would not want my wife to be a target of weird nosey people, too fancy a car and people will chat her up at gas stations and parking lots, and some of them will be weirdos. Also jealous drivers will do weird stuff in traffic, it's barely worth it unless you are sticking to an upscale are like Frisco or Southlake where her car blends in. Just my opinion.

Edit 2:
But if it were a secondary low miles going out to dinner car for my wife on your list, without a doubt it would be a Mercedes 2019+ E450 or E53 Cabriolet. It's a gorgeous car.

Makes me think of lots of questions, realizing I answered SUV’s when you asked for sedan:
1) what’s SHE want?
2) driving habits?
3) how long do you plan on keeping it?

I can’t disagree with any of them, as long as they’re covered under warranty/extended warranty, My wife’s Evoque had a turbo go out recently. Thank GAWD we got the extended warranty. $5,000 repair.

If you plan on keeping for a long while, I say Japanese as well.

Toyota Camry HSE V-6. 301 HP
Kia K5 with its 290HP motor due out in November
Nissan Maxima 301HP

only drawback , front wheel drive.........no drifting

Lexus RX350L...the L gives you a third row seat that you'll never use, but it increases the wheelbase and makes it a much better ride.

My spousal unit wants one of these

BMW story...I was cruising down the 610 North in Houston. It was late and I had the lights on. Started to rain, so I turned the wiper on. The radio shut off. Turned the wipers off and the radio came back on. Weird. Long story short, I had a problem that BMW couldn’t find, so they threw parts at it. Warranty work, thank goodness. But the problem continued, so back I went to the service department, again and again. Finally I bought a dozen donuts and showed up early one morning before they officially opened. They let me in due to the donuts. I asked all the service guys to join me and brainstorm my problem. Finally somebody said the voltage regulator was failing. And that was the problem. When voltage was borderline, the car’s computer would shut down non-critical items, like the radio.

I loved that car, but it was like having a gorgeous high living and high maintenance girlfriend - always something going on, and all of it expensive. But such fun to uuuuhh, you know....

Now that I think of it, don’t get her a BMW if she’s as sweet as you say she is. It’ll turn her into an evil, selfish jerk that acts like she owns the road.

EOY always seems like that car that just pizzed me off was a BMW. No offense 603