The easiest eay to drive German is to lease and get pre-paid maintenance (BMW is included). Or finance but ditch it when the warranty is up. Certified pre-owned is nice, too. If you can do your own maintenance and/or have a trusted independent shop/technician, it can make the experience much less painful if you choose to keep the car out of warranty.

I just bought a 2003 Audi RS 6 and I'm nervous every day I drive the car (just because I didn't pay the $86,000 original MSRP doesn't make it not an $86k car when it breaks!) but I'm friends with a Porsche/Audi master tech who charges $50/hr, and I rent a garage with two master techs for other makes. And I have the BRZ if the car breaks and has to be out of service for a while. And I have money in the bank for when stuff does break. Regular folks who would just take their car to the dealer are the ones who really feel the pain. Smart folks find a trusted independent shop or do the work themselves!

this nutty friend of mine wants to buy an upcoming 2 series beemer to track it. Is his warranty going to be honored if something breaks from tracking? I try to talk him into a wrx and tell him the wrx might be more durable for track use but he thinks as long as he's under warranty he's okay... opinions, experiences?

Non-competitive track events should be covered under warranty. And between Subaru and BMW I'd probably take BMW if I was concerned about warranty work due to abuse, run over to the Issues thread on this forum and there are members with cars that have never seen a track being denied warranty. It really comes down to the dealership, small dealership, enthusiast owned who wants to have long term satisfied customers will be great, high volume low margin dealerships don't want to waste their time fixing a clutch you burned up at a track day last weekend.

A WRX will NOT be more durable! A WRX STi ought to be, but there is a BIG difference between the two.

I've owned a '04 GTI VR6 with all the bells and whistles, it was a CPO with only 22k. Really fun car for the 2.5 years I owned it - except for the maintenance. Interior was outstanding and with the VR6 & 6 speed it was more fun than expected... but... as I said, maintenance was getting a bit out of hand. Towards the end of my time with the car the total on receipts was about $2200/incl labor within the last 4 months - for some sort of fuel-vapor return (was throwing the infamous VW CEL), and replacing a lower A-Arm (bushing went out). The car only had about 65-70k miles when I sold it for only about $2k less than what I originally paid (had full service records from the dealer since new).

I know you're not looking to get a Porsche, but I've had a few friends with Boxster's and they've been pretty reliable, as long as you keep them maintained. I've had a few friends with various 3-series (e36, e46, & e92) and they've not had the same luck...

Can you enlighten me?

5 speed transmission; made out of glass and cotton candy, secured by Elmer's glue, encased in aluminum foil. Also, the brakes kinda suck. And the differentials aren't as good.