(potential) second car

[inlinesix]

alright, this is basically gonna be a massive complaint thread but here's my situation.

I've been dailying a 2001 AU Falcon XR6 for around 3 years now, which is fun as hell, but has a FEW drawbacks, as I quite literally drive this thing 6 - 7 days a week and have no time fix stuff. it's a 20+ year old car, so there are some mechanical issues which I don't have time to fix, the big one is the transmission, it needs to come out and get serviced, I can't do that in a day. another one is lifter tick, which I could theoretically do that in a day if I knew what I was doing, but I Don't. The car also needs its bodywork repaired and its paint resprayed which I obviously can't get done in a day.

the car also has a massive torque-y 4.0 litre i6, which is not the greatest on fuel (660km per tank, mostly highway).

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so for the past few months I've been thinking about getting a second car as a daily, so I can spend more time on my car. ofc if this car is a daily, I want it to be something nice, and I want it to be something that is a little cool (ish). another rule is that, it can't be a sedan (already have one), it can't be a coupe (too expensive), and preferably can't be FWD (so no hatches). I also don't mind having an automatic, my current car is a manual.

this means I've just been looking at wagons for the past few months, mainly European ones, as getting anything Japanese that meets this criteria + price is impossible. my current lineup of options right now is:

1. '03 - '07 Volvo V70R
   • I would absolutely love one of these as a daily, they're fairly reliable, look easy to work on, and sound amazing and have plenty of power (AWD i5 powered). I have also heard they get half-decent economy but I'm not sure.
   • the problems however are that, only 25 of these made it to Australia, so I have to look at importing them from Japan, which is going to be hard, as they're under 25 years old, and were officially released in Australia, which makes them difficult to get onto our SEV (Specialist and Enthusiast Vehicles) register for importing. there are some workaround for this however
2. BMW E91 3-Series Touring
   • these would also be a good option, despite not being as quick, or sounding as cool, they're nicer than the V70R, which is good for a daily. They're also way easier to find here and have better/more responsive automatic transmissions in them. my friend has a BMW X1, which is based on the same platform, he's got the i4 diesel, and gets TWICE my fuel econ, which is partly the reason why I wouldn't mind an i4 diesel if I were to get an E91.
   • problems are maintenance and repairability, it's a BMW, they're not fun to work on yourself. I've watched videos on the maintenance and read about it. it doesn't look any harder than what I've already done, it just looks more time consuming and annoying.
3. BMW E39 5-series Touring
   • this was the first car I considered, it's regarded as the best 5-series BMW ever made, and is said to be one of the more "repairable" beamers that exist.
   • however, it's an old 5-series, they did make these until around 2004, but its European so it'll probs be less reliable than my 2002 Australian built car
4. '97 - '04 Saab 9-5 Estate
   • super underrated and gorgeous looking wagon, it does break the FWD rule but it's such a weird cult-car that I wouldn't mind it. it's also got the least interesting engine out of the 4.
   • problems are that they're hard to find here, and when you do find them, they've been neglected and look awful. most people that take care of them understand that they're an obscure cult-car and don't want to sell them.

anyways, all of this would preferably come after paying to get the bodywork/paint on my car done. out of the 4 though, the E91 is a more realistic car to get, but I honestly can't ignore the V70R, and have properly looked into importing them, production numbers of these are crazy low (~3,500 I think?), and they're still affordable. an import shop in Australia would probably charge me total 10k - 12k AUD to get one over here. but if I'm importing one, it's definitely something for next year.

but yeah, I want to hear what you all think, feel free to tell me I'm an idiot for wanting to get a second car that will potentially be harder to maintain lmao.