That depends on yourself, are you someone who loves the drive feel or are you a badge whore?

If you love the drive I would suggest you consider BMW as well, A3 I recall uses VW dry DSG Gearbox which is notoriously problematic.

Merc has better reliability of the 3 brands that said, but this is heng xuay.

I love a good drivers car so I got a 335, needless to say relatives come and quiz me why didn't I get a 5 series lol, I cannot be bothered to explain the drive, power, balance, size.

These days I only tell people who actually appreciate driving what I drive.

Even a 316 is a good car very good balance and control, hope you find something suitable.

Nowadays it is easy to buy brand new cars. Many young couples can afford. These couples get to buy very cheap BTO flats and they can easily pay their mortgage using their CPF and thus has lots of spare cash to buy a new car. Many also flip their BTO flat and make big profits and can even pay for their new cars in full. Now is a good time to buy new cars. Japanese and Korean brands are selling some of their popular models for less than $100k. This won't last long as the COE are expected to bounce back. Go to car showrooms today and you will see many people booking their confirmed COE cars before the first March 2015 COE bidding.

I am very worried that government will start the clawback from May quota release, do you think they will do it? I have a 9 year old car, my friends telling me to wait till next year which might drop to $30k COE but I am getting second thoughts after hearing the advise from this forum, any experts whether I should change to a new ride before the government implement anything drastic?

What's your budget for a new car?

25 going on 26.
Civil servant making 60k per annum. No property yet, no loans.

43 & 45, middle class family, total household income $170k pa.
Home is a condo now worth $1.5m, paid up.
We own a car worth $80k, paid up.
Other assets (CPF funds + stocks + cash), $800k.
Total net worth, $2.38m.

You're not a middle class family but in the top 5% of Singaporean families. Why? Because you own a fully paid condo, a fully paid car and your combined net worth is more than $2m. That puts you on the top 5%.

What does fully paid condo mean?
you financed thru bank? paid back all the loan using cash and cpf?
do you have to pay back the used cpf amount as well in order to be considered "Fully paid" ?

just saw the 6:30pm chinese news.. reports about people rushing in to buy new cars to avoid the CEVS price up... Looks like COE is going to have a strong rebound. and People will have to top up their rides to secure the bid. Just pray hard that government don't implement the clawback, if not, you have just missed the lowest point of COE in recent years!

Did you go to the car showrooms? I'm sure there are many families booking for their confirmed COE new car. Yes, COE prices will bounce back for sure in this coming March 2015 COE bidding. Better to book your new car now as this temporary low COE prices is temporary indeed.