I like Audis , I do collision repair and as far as body and frame are concerned audis are the best . I've onwned 2 a S6 , loved that car very fun to drive and would go through snow with ease. But mpgs were not great (low 20s high teens) and I owned when gas was near $4 agallon so got sick of burning money and I downsized to the A4 . When I sold my S6 it had 260,000 miles on it . Kept my A4 for a while , but I wanted to get even better mpgs than it did also so I sold it with around 175,000 miles on it . I do all my own work and upkeep on my vehicles so labour costs are not a concearn of mine . And now I drive a ford fiesta , great mpgs and I can fit a pinball machine in it .Yeah it is not really fun to drive and is not the most comfortable but with the money I am saving on gas I can put it towards more pinballs so I have that going for me .

Taking the whole front end off an audi is very quick and easy and it gives you complete access to the timing belt .The last audi timing belt I did was on my mother's A4 and it took me about 3 1/2 hours start to finish . Audi recomends ( for the model I was working on )timing belts to be replaced at 80,000 miles so this is not work you'll be doing every year. The only way to get that type of complete access to most japanese cars is to pull the motor out (which is way more work ) and yes they can be done without doing so but it sure is nice to have complete access when doing a timing belt . Specialty tools are needed for most timing belts Audi I needed a crank lock $25 ( this one works on a few different audi motors ) and a cam lock $160 ( this one is specific to one or 2 types of motors ) both tools I purchased from my Mac tools dealer .when I sold my audi that used that cam lock tool I traded that tool back in to theMac dealer and was given $150 credit for it . Lexus and infiniti are fine cars and it is a fact that they hold their value better than audis , and will require less work than an audi , but a used one will cost you thousands more than a comparable used audi . So either you spend the money when you buy the car or later when it needs to be fixed . Since I can do all the work myself used audis are a good choice for me .