So, I ignored everyones advice....

[yhelothar]

Wow, that's kinda crazy.

Lots of people here (Germany) drive VW Passats, lots of older ones too. It's been one of the most common cars here for decades. I've never heard of a 15 year old one (which usually go for 1500€-4000€) costing as much in repairs as a M3 (which would be somewhere around 8000-15000€/year, depending on your down payment, extras and predicted mileage) nor have I ever heard anybody talking about a Passat driving "like a dream" (typical comment would be along the lines of "well yeah, it drives").

Are you sure we're talking about the same car? The comments sound more typical of people who bought an early 2000's Maserati Coupe, but a freakin Passat?

3 series can mean 325i as well, which ran about $350/mo back when he had the car.
He spent that much on repairs over a couple of months before he got rid of it.

 

[Plugers]

Just replaced the steering rack, $300 with core from RockAuto, and the regulator/brushes $27 shipped from partsgeek.

Not really so bad for maintenance for the last few years. Although I'll say the alternator was a pain to drop, took 3 hours until I was back up and running. I could probably do it in an hour next time though.

 

[halik]

No trans issues yet?