JBDinTX

Resale IS my biggest concern with the LR. My S5 is the longest I have ever owned a vehicle. 3.5 years. It is out of warranty and I am scared to own anything out of warranty.

idale

I had my Passat Wagon for 8 years and the only reason I sold it was because we wanted a larger vehicle for baby reasons (now that we're done with the "tons of baby crap" phase I'm trying to get the heck out of the Odyssey). My wife's had her Golf TDI for 9 years and we plan on keeping it a whole lot longer.

Sure, you're responsible for fixed after warranty periods, but there's extended warranties you can get and really we haven't had much in the way of trouble in our vehicles (other than some electrical gremlins in the Golf and the requisite sunroof drain lines clogging). Overall it's been much cheaper to continue owning than replacing.

At the same time, there's a lot of people who just like "something new" all the time. It's more expensive since you get to pay for the largest chunk of depreciation, but if you can afford it then that's your choice.

Eventually you'll probably get more comfortable with keeping vehicles longer, and at least in my very limited experience VAG's a decent contender for long-term use since you get good quality and good reliability. Not necessarily the best, but it's not like you get good driving and it's always in the shop, or is cheap to maintain but boring as hell. I think it's a good value proposition, personally, though everyone's got their own opinions, of course.

Q5 Bob

C&D recently did a comparo (it's probably on their web site) that included the Q5, X3 and Evoque. Other than styling, the Evoque didn't fare too well vs. the other two CUV's. JBD, it might be worth a look to get some insight into the test results.

NABS4

A '12. Great looking cars, but they pale in comparison to the Q5 and X3.

JBD, of the ones you list you'd probably be most happy with the VW, but really the SQ5 trumps all.