First, I love this car. I've had a Nissan 300ZX and an RX-7 (for 14 years, driven every day) and this car continues a great experience with sports cars. I drive it nearly every day to/from work for about 30 miles round trip, generally at highway speeds of 70-75 mph. 127 mph was my personal fastest - just getting old and nervous. As I pass 52,000 miles, here's a summary of significant maintenance events:

1. Heated seat controller failed and, in turn, caused the failure of both seat heating elements ($807). I'm most unhappy with this issue as the failure of the heating elements is simply due to very poor design. Who designs an electrical system that doesn't fail open?

2. RH front wheel bearing replaced ($169). Given the super soft Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 tires, the bad bearing led to a misalignment that rapidly wore the tire, leading me to change to Pilot Sport AS Plus.

3. Speaking of tires, I got nearly 36K on the first set of PS2's and only 16K on the second set.

4. About three weeks ago, I started hearing some sort of electric motor or pump run for about 15 seconds when I locked the car or opened the door after driving any distance. Quickly found out that the rear hatch would not lock (neither would the gas cap access door). Removal of the cargo area interior panels showed the air or vacuum tubing that is part of the locking system had abraded on part of the unibody and was leaking. The shop removed the damaged section and spliced it back together to avoid replacing the integrated tubing/wire harness ($5000 in their estimate). Total repair cost was $300.

Again, I really like this car and enjoy it every day. I do think it suffers from some poorly designed features. As an aerosapce engineering executive with 30 years of experience, I know a bit about good design. Hope this report helps a few of our higher mileage friends anticipate future events.