I have personally heard a lot more horror stories from American cars than German cars. Have you driven Mercedes or Audi though I wonder? How do they compare to BMW?
From MY personal experience, owning mostly Japanese: Nissan is to avoid, Mazda rusts too fast, Ford is just "clunky", Saab is just like a Volvo, they last a LONG time and built like a tank (we had a really old 9000), Suzuki is cheap but you get what you paid for, and Acura is just great even 15 years in its life. There are a few things that broke throughout the years, and we changed the muffler twice, but that's because my dad's cheap and refuses to get them fixed by proper mechanics... despite all this, it still runs great!
From what I've heard of people owning BMWs and articles/shows talking about them, the part that really counts in a car, the engine, is really well engineered. They do make some horrible decisions in the livability and usability of the cars, like their horrid infotainment system (iDrive) or like you mentioned, some
ALL cars and car manufacturers have their weak points.
Some American cars and manufacturers have really bad press stuck with them since the late 70s and 80s. Those cars were horrible because they didn't have to be good. In fact, the Old 350 diesel engine (gas to diesel conversion) was so bad, it pretty much killed diesel cars in the US for close to two decades. It's only been recent that the smaller American cars have been anything more than very cheap cars because only people on limited budgets tended to buy them...and thus quality suffered on them. That trend has started to change, but I think for the smaller cars, like the Fiat 500, you would be better off with something else.
Toyotas were nice, but then they became soulless boxes designed to move people from point a to point b. Lexus has (had) some nice cars, and both Toyota and Lexus had good quality (which makes sense considering they are the same thing outside North America.) Honda was about good reliable transportation, not much else except for the halo cars like the NSX. They did have a good sporty car (S2000), but it's gone. Mazda I have no experience with outside the RWD/AWD MPV back in the mid/late 80s. Decent cars, had radio issues, lack of power for pulling anything, but did the job.
Italian cars (Fiat, Maserati, etc) are known to look good, spend a lot of time in the shop, and cost you a ton for even minor repairs. They are thought of as the equivalent of a trophy wife or husband. Something nice to look at, show off at parties, but otherwise only capable of costing/spending your money. Impractical and unreliable over the long term. English cars have a rep of looking decent, leaking oil on your driveway, and breaking down 3 miles into your 5 mile trip.
The engine in a BMW is hit or miss. Some have had good luck, and their 6 cylinder is sublime. Their 8 is ok, but the N63 (not the N63tu), had MAJOR issues. It's the first car I've owned since my 72 Thunderbird that burned oil...and I mean a LOT of oil...and they say it's "normal". The direct injectors had significant issues and failures. I had 4 injector failures in 1.5 years...HALF of my injectors failed....It was a known issue that many owners complained of but they refused to fix the issue until the "recall that's not a recall" that occurred within the past year and a half. Since then, it's been ok, but I still don't trust it for long drives. The iDrive is ok. Early ones had a lot more issue, but they have gotten much more user friendly since introduction. That said, MOST car companies that had computer infotainment systems had growing pains, so not unique to BMW.
Other German cars are ok. Audi interiors fall apart quickly (test drove a 1 year old coming off lease, just BAD on the inside), and they are FWD biased. Merc. dealers in this area are bad, so after taking a test drive, we decided that no car is worth dealing with either of those two (only one in my state and only one close by in a neighboring state). Unfortunately, we only get the expensive versions over here. Merc does have some lower priced cars over in Europe, but not here.
Anyway, the point of the thread is not to discuss cars, but more to talk about the 300 series.
I see the 300 as a step up to allow new players a chance to progress their ship, make more money (we need this shipment of {name of expensive but small item} delivered to {neighboring planet/system} in the next 10 hours...we are offering 30,000 UEC.) vs a 5,000 credit shipment of goods from Crusader to Yela that a Mustang or Aurora would be offered. Something a bit more capable, faster, better sensors, or whatever. I would not call it a Luxury vehicle. For that, you are talking Phoenix, 890, etc. If you were playing a traditional level based MMO (say vanilla World of Warcraft) it is the set of armor/weapons a level 20-30 would have vs what a new character would have.
I see SC having only a few types of vehicle lines/comfort: Military (fighters, Idris, or military derivatives like the Carrack), Civilian (Freelancer, Cutlass?, Connie, etc), Industrial (Prospector, Orion, Hull, Reclaimer), Luxury (890, Phoenix, etc). I also see both roles and size as different than lines. So a 315 would be a small, civilian line explorer. A Warden would be a medium military line escort ship. A Freelancer MIS would be a medium civilian line escort ship, etc.
