My trans-am is well over 130,000 without any repairs I would consider "major"... The 3 worst mechanical parts I've had go bad were a leaky diff (subject of a recall and repaired under warranty), a power window motor that quit (common problem with camaro and firebird but not too expensive to fix) and a water pump that started leaking at 132,000 miles. None of those repairs were too expensive. For electrics, I had an ABS module go out that was replaced under warranty, a traction control module that got killed by a high pressure car wash (not under warranty) and the radio has a known defect that makes the display unreadable sometimes. The most expensive of those to fix was the traction control module but I saved a few hundred by finding the part myself. A dealer or GM sponsored mechanic must do the part install because it requires a computer reset by their proprietary computer gadget, but that's not unique to GM.
Not bad for 10 years of owning a car that consumer reports consistently called a reliability nightmare... My only problem with the car right now is that it won't die so I have no excuse to replace it other than putting a car seat in the back makes the front passenger seat unusable, but the resale price is maybe $6000 so replacing it with ANY other car is essentially paying tens of thousands of dollars for a larger back seat. Heck, the car still gives me 18mpg around town and 28mpg on the highway so it's not even all that bad of a gas hog.
I hope you have good luck with your beemer
They sure are nice cars and like I said, a nice 3-series has been super high on my list of cars I might buy if my firebird ever dies. I just think that considering the kid and the fact that I want more power than the 328i offers, I'd have to spend an awful lot of money to get a BMW with the interior room and power of the G8 so I'll just have to make do with another pontiac that will hopefully also last at least 10 years and 130k+ miles.
Of course, my firebird has to die first and it's not showing any signs of that.
