My mum has had a BMW 5 series for as long as I can remember. She only just bought a new one, but she had her old one for over five years. Apart from normal servicing, she has replaced one set of tyres, and one stop lamp globe. Her previous 5 series (an early E39) gave her exactly the same service in 8 years (right down to the stop lamp globe). My uncle is a car tragic, and has a collection of vintage cars (including an old Ferrari) but his daily driver is a BMW M5. He also has just bought a the new one (with over 500bhp) but he had the E39 M5 for a number of years. He goes through tyres and disc pads a lot, (he drives fast just about everywhere,) but has had no reliability problems with 5 litre V10 which revs to over 8,000 rpm. BMW do not suffer the same reputation in Europe that they seem to do in the USA.
And the same may be said of Porsche, Mercedes, VW or Audi.
But while I agree with the OP that Germany does indeed produce the best cars to be had, that is a matter of subjective personal opinion. There is in fact no such animal as the best car in the world, just as there is no best country in the world.
Much depends upon the standards by which you judge a motor car (or a society, for that matter). Some people will judge a car by how many people, or how much stuff, it can carry. Others will have fuel economy as the principle value by which they judge a vehicle. Others will only consider how cheap it is, while others will only consider how hard it accelerates from rest. Some will only consider reliability and ease of servicing, while yet others will only consider the popular 'image' a vehicle projects in their particular society.
In my opinion, Europe in general, and Germany in particular, produces vehicles with the best balance of performance, comfort, fuel economy, roadholding, braking and ease of handling at close to the maximum speed of which the vehicle is capable. Americans, are used to using large, rather crude and poorly built vehicles, which nonetheless have impressive straight line performance, and capacious interiors, on wide open multi-lane roads with few sharp bends. Most are unlikely to appreciate the subtleties of small-engined, economical, modestly dimensioned, European cars with high levels of roadholding, braking, and ease of handling.
Just as few people used to European cars are unlikely to overlook the dynamic deficiencies of American home-market vehicles used under European conditions, sufficiently to appreciate the relaxed performance afforded by the large, lazy, and unstressed engines and transmissions of your average American car. But both types have their own appeal. It is just that both are built for very different operating conditions.
But my final analysis gives the nod to the European car, as it will handle American road conditions better than its American counterpart will handle European operating conditions. If you could have a peep into the garage of very wealthy Americans, you will more often than not see a German, British or Italian thoroughbred nestling there. You will not see the American counterpart in the garage opf any but the most eccentric of European plutocrats.
