> How about the difference in long-term cost of ownership, serviceability, and overall reliability?
Long-term owner of a 2004 Mercedes W211 E320 CDI in Europe, with 420k kilometers on the clock.
The inline 6-cylinder engine and the 5-speed auto transmission still work buttery smooth and the car pulls like a train without ever smoking. No interventions have ever been done to the engine and trans, apart from changing consumables on-time. The car still has a very solid feel to it, without any interior rattles and squeaks, with very few wear-and-tear signs on the interior. The original paint is still gleaming. The thickness of the paint and the metal is easily noticeable. A Honda of the same age and miles would probably still run, but will feel sub-par in most of these respects.
The car has a lot of electronic systems controlled by dedicated electronic units, the most notable of which is the brake-by-wire SBC system. It had been causing problems in early production, but the issue was fixed and that unit was replaced under warranty on almost all cars. It was a big reputation hit for Mercedes, though. That system was very innovative in the sense that it provides a common architecture for implementing traction control, ABS, brake-hold, etc.
So far, none of these systems have failed on my car, apart from the need to replace a few failed sensors for which I got warnings on the dashboard and were diagnosed easily while in the repair shop.