The problem here is that the troll, who needs to be banned by @cdaquila, is deliberately spreading misinformation that could be harmful to peoples’ cars, and so there needs to be at least some counter-posts until she gets to the office and can handle him.
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Okay. At least You are enough of a realist, that You exclude Yourself from any mechanical work.
Please keep Your advice to Yourself as some poor car owner might actually believe in that garbage coming from Your keyboard
Hi shadowfax, whitey, et al - thanks for the flags. Noted and addressed.
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I hope it wasn’t too out of line when I called the troll a putz 
If we use this definition it could apply to any or all of us!
INFORMAL•NORTH AMERICAN
engage in inconsequential or unproductive activity (Putzing around).
Ummm, it has a more specific definition if one is from New York City. One that I can’t share here because of community guidelines.
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Yes, I know that definition too 
@Mustangman, I’m sure most of the people who spend that kind of money don’t bat an eye at an $1,100 maintenance bill or a $100 tank of gas. The problem we see most here is from people who buy those cars used, getting in over their heads with costs of maintenance and fuel.
The people we see frequently here are the ones who could have spent $10,000-15,000 on a new or slightly used economy car, but spent that money on a 10-year-old luxury car instead, so they end up paying off a car in its 15th year of existence after spending 5 years trying to keep up with the costs of maintenance and repairs after using cheap fuel.
Wasn’t there a troll here not long ago who insisted that buying used luxury cars was a better investment than buying newer economy cars? That guy was funny. If buying used luxury cars is your thing, you don’t need to rationalize it by pretending it saves you money. Likewise, if buying cheap fuel gives you a sense of satisfaction (like it does me), I don’t really care, as long as you’re not feeding cheap fuel to a car that requires high octane gasoline, and more importantly, telling others to do the same.
I figured there was already plenty of that by the time I commented.
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I’m not sure I’d agree with “most.” I wouldn’t want to generalize. We’ve clearly seen more than a few posts here of high-end owners wanting cut rate parts. No way of telling their actual financial status, though.
That said, I have personally known folks who could easily afford the service or parts or fuel for their very expensive cars that acted exactly as I posted. I’ve read marketing studies of service parts buyers whose research showed the single biggest consideration was price irrespective of car brand.
There are folks on the other side of this coin as well. More than wiling to put top quality parts into older, cheaper cars because they intend to keep them.
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That’s true, but they usually give us a good hint, saying things like “I can’t afford to fix my Mercedes at this price.” That’s usually when I ask, “How were you able to afford a Mercedes?”
I’m sure there are also those who get trapped into the situation. They bought the car when they had a good job, and subsequently lost the job, so driving what they have is the sound financial decision rather than trading it in.
I’m one of those “whatever it takes” people. If I have to give up my car and get a retail job within walking/biking/public transportation distance, I’ll do that before I drive a car with no insurance or neglect something important on my car. That’s what sets me apart from people who think they can’t live without a car. I know I can live without a car, like people did a century ago.
There should be a law against putting regular gas in a car that requires premium. I had an older car that required premium or the engine would knock like a marble tournament. When I would go out in the middle of the night with my siphon hose and 5 gallon gas can and get some gasoline from a car that was supposed to use premium and then have my engine knock because the owner put in 87 octane, I got upset. With a law stating that it is illegal to put 87 octane in a car that requires premium, I would be able to take that owner to court if my engine was damaged by the low octane fuel. Wouldn’t this make a great case for Judge Judy’s court?
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Let us not forget that there are people (possibly many people), who mistakenly think that Mercedes vehicles are–somehow–“indestructible”, and that they don’t need many repairs as they age. Although it was a different make of vehicle, this same incredibly-mistaken mindset was displayed a few years ago by a woman who told us that she bought a Land Rover because… they last forever and don’t need to be repaired like other makes … or something to that effect. Of course she shared that “wisdom” in the midst of a post about her latest quandary regarding a major mechanical or electronic problem with her 4 year old breakdown-prone Land Rover.
When we informed her that she was mistaken about the actual reliability/durability of Land Rovers and Range Rovers, she accused us of spreading “fake news”.
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That would be a good one… or how about leaving the U.S., and joining ISIS, watching some beheadings and vowing death to Americans then decide that this isn’t too bad a place and suing to get back in here?
If we had a modern day Bonnie & Clyde, the surviving family members could sue Ford for not having better vehicle protection from machine gun bullets.
I can’t imagine some of the goofy lawsuits that have probably been filed against major car manufacturers.
CSA
@NYBo and @common_sense_answer
A couple of years ago, we had a couple of men that held up a branch bank. The silent alarm was tripped and a policeman was on patrol near the branch bank. He managed to foil the robbery attempt, but in the process shot and wounded one of the stick-up men. On the way to the hospital, the wounded stick-up man complained saying “I was told this would be an easy job”.
Probably sued the department and the officer personally. May even have won. 
Since we’re obviously not trying to make this about cars, I’ll point out that some of those women who are trying to return to the US were dragged into it by their now dead husbands, and they just want to come home to make a life for their children, who had no part in the decision to leave.
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wow, this thread had quite a number of twists 
to make it a little bit back to the original topic, here is a picture of a piston damaged by using low-octane fuel:
as a result of detonation, a piece of aluminum alloy was torn, together with second and third piston rings, engine kept working with one top ring in place, but was flooding one cylinder with oil, which prompted the repair
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That looks like an old flat-top piston, is that piston out of a late model engine with modern spark control?
