I'm a hobbyist but in my experience the Germans and Japanese have a clue about automotive design while American stuff is just a crapshoot. American engines are

I'm a hobbyist but in my experience the Germans and Japanese have a clue about automotive design while American stuff is just a crapshoot. American engines are really not at all bad but the cars they are in were definitely not designed around the drivetrain. GM has some absolutely incredibad ideas on how to make a car serviceable that floors me everytime I pull one apart. Same thing with Ford if we are talking about vans with a transversely mounted engine. Even something as simple as changing plugs is an involved job. Let me put it this way... you might as well just drop the engine a bit in order to get some clearance. Why should you need to do this? I don't know fuck it just buy a new van. Rants aside, this thing just doesn't happen very often with imports. VW does a halfway decent job making sure you can repair your car in a driveway with hand tools. They always make sure you have clearance and doing swaps is really not awful, you just have to be careful because newer German cars have a fetish for plastic on parts that honestly have no business being plastic. Also make sure to get triple squares and hex sockets because they get a kick out of throwing them in for good measure. In addition, a lot of interior trim is overdesigned for no reason. I have no idea who they pay to do that. Modern BMWs and mercs are a shitfest and should be avoided if possible. Older BMWs and mercs were very nicely built though. I especially loved the W124s. Beautiful cars that ran forever and weren't overly complex. I've never actually worked on korean cars so I don't have an opinion on em. Toyotas are fucking excellent to work on. I think out of all the manufacturers they care the most about designing reliable and serviceable machines. Brand new models are unfortunately doing some silly shit, but that's mostly body work related. Honda's a close second followed by Nissan. For closing remarks if I had to pick cars to work on it'd be toyotas, mercedes and hondas but hey sometimes I can't pick what a friend of a friend brings to me you know what I mean?