lowlander

Hi there,

Has anyone bought a BMW through the approved used scheme run through the BMW dealerships. Obviously you pay a preium for the car but just wanted to get feedback on the level of service, the quality of the car and the warranty provided.

Thanks.

Martin.

SimonD

I bought a 10 month old MCoupe this way back in '99. I discovered several scrapes on the car after I bought it that I hadn't noticed when I originally viewed the car. I also found that kerbing damage to the wheels had been removed by grinding the rim back to bare alloy and not repainting. This only became noticeable when the alloy started to discolour.
The dealership (Ling Aylesford) showed no interested in sorting these things despite my resorting to a written complaint - the car had been owned by BMW from new.

Other problems were handled efficiently under the warranty but this was the original 3 year warranty and nothing to do with their used car scheme. Subsequent mechanical failures were also handled very well by BMW even after the warranty had expired (though the VANOS system failing twice in 25k miles was a worry!!).

You should be ok but check the car over as carefully as you would a private sale and get any issues sorted before you agree a deal. From your point of view, the dealer is just another secondhand car salesman but the support from BMW UK was pretty good.

billythekid

The Mrs just got a 6 month old X3 3.0i Sport (sorry) and I was quite impressed with the service. Not quite as good a Porsche when it comes to follow up calls etc but still quite happy. Also the car was immaculate. Not a single scratch, chip or scuff. We looked at a few X3s and the non approved dealers were selling some fair old tat.

We also managed to get the car reduced by quite a bit. It was up for 27k and we got it for 24.9k and a fairly good trade in. So although you can get a decent deal sometimes as we could not find the same spec anywhere for that price.

sti-04!!

I bought an 05 plate 535d from the BMW dealer & it was about 6 months old when i purchased, the car is immaculate.

I am also heading ove today too look at a couple of convertibles & these will be used also, hopefully going to pick one up with a few months old

john banks

I bought a 16 month old M3 in November with 6900 miles fully loaded, I was quite particular about the price, spec and condition I wanted. It was about the tenth I'd looked at at dealers and the first one that I could say was immaculate, some were right dogs which is why in the end I looked at only stuff under 10000 miles, I agreed to two others over the phone with a deposit as they were distant, but they were nothing like as described and I wasted a lot of time and miles looking. One I waited 5 or 6 weeks for whilst they messed up the previous keeper's private plate and then on the day of collection I found that the service book (which had not been available before but I had asked if the service had been done on time as there is only 500 miles grace) showed the 1200 mile service had been done at 2500 which makes the warranty invalid and they can't sell it as an AUC! V5 was already in my name, insurance running etc, a right mess, but they compensated. With the one I got, the only problems have been rattles that my local dealer said they couldn't hear which I ended up sorting myself with foam and sound deadening which took many hours of assembling and disassembling/riding in the boot etc!

Beware that M examples over 60000 miles and three years old will now be about £1800 pa to warranty, plus servicing at BMW (£150-200 minor, £700-850 major), AND there is a £250 excess per claim, AND they exclude a lot of things they didn't before. For many they have decided they don't want to run an older M car now - it was about £750 with no excess until now and you could keep the car warrantied indefinitely if there were no breaks.

Moonloops

I got a 2003 330 coupe from dealer. It was only one of two cars in the UK with the right spec. Managed to haggle down price by £1000 and it was perfect - just like new..