Audi SQ8

The engine is both the reason and the cost. The two turbochargers sit in the vee of the block, in the hottest place, with a known factory problem in the oil gallery strainers. Replacing those as soon as the car lands costs incomparably less than two failed turbochargers -- and they fail together.

The gearbox is the strengthened eight-speed ZF. As on the other S and SQ cars it is not the weak link, which means everything expensive here is somewhere else.

The front bumper hides a whole cooling system: extra oil coolers, intercoolers and ducting specific to the V8. After a frontal impact not one of them is in the yards here. They are bought new by part number, and they are what makes the bill, not the panels.

The brakes are huge as standard. If the car carries the optional carbon-ceramic discs, one cooked or cracked disc costs what a small used city car costs -- and that is a single disc.

Most American cars come with the Advanced Suspension package: rear-wheel steering, a sport rear differential with active torque vectoring, and active anti-roll bars on their own 48-volt system. They are why a vehicle this heavy does not lean. But after a side impact on a wheel, the bars' electric motors and the specific arms cost out of all proportion to everything else.