German cars self-destruct at 10 years/100K miles. All of the plastic and rubber parts (including seals).
I have a '99 VW Passat here that youngest daughter bought several years ago for $600. I asked, "What's wrong with it?"
She replied, "It needs a thermostat." No problem, right?
Wrong. The entire front end of the car needs to be removed to access the thermostat housing. Of course, while in there, I replaced the water pump, timing belt, idlers, tensioner, etc.
A couple of months later, it developed the mother of all oil leaks. There are only about 37 different places it could be leaking from, but all, of course, require the car to be disassembled for access. Dual overhead cam 30-valve V6. Ten times more complicated than it needs to be. Some German mechanical engineering student's wet dream.
We retired the car due to the oil leak. It was leaving oil trails all over town and I was concerned it was going to burst into flame.
German engineering. Bah. (And I come from a family of German engineers).