Originally Posted by
Jdunk54nl
Those were just examples mainly because people know they are "expensive" to begin with and think of them as "elite" vehicles, so it was more of an attention grabber. But, all vehicles follow the same pattern. A 4runner follows it as they are usually about 65% of the new cost after 2-3years ($40,000+ new and about $28,000 used with 30,000 miles on carmax) The mercedes/BMW is about 50% so it is definitely more on the extreme side of that, but my 2014 F150 was $25,000 with 70,000 miles on it when I bought it and the sticker MSRP was $55,495.
The whole point was, with $30,000 budget for a used vehicle, he can pretty much get whatever he wants.
If you are surprised by service costs on vehicles, then you haven't done your research and bought it solely for the name. You should expect the foreign/"upper scale" vehicles to cost a little more on maintenance as there are less mom and pop mechanics to work on it. So supply and demand there.