Wold you buy an exec loaner car?

[madoka]

I was asked by a woman whether she should buy a BMW 3 series. It was 2 years old and had 9,000. It was an exec loaner car and was untitled.

I suspect that it has a lot of hard miles on it and told her to skip it, because a new one would only be about $4K more.

What say you folk?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

$4k less than new? Meh. overpriced for a used car, regardless of mileage.

What do you mean by "untitled?" Shenanigans with car titles immediately set my hair on end.

 

[madoka]

I dunno. She just said it was never titled because it was given to some executive to drive around in New Jersey. She lives in another state.

 

[nk215]

BMW does this. Basically the car is used but the buyer will be the first official owner. $4k is too small a discount to take it.

 

[Engineer]

I was asked by a woman whether she should buy a BMW 3 series. It was 2 years old and had 9,000. It was an exec loaner car and was untitled.

I suspect that it has a lot of hard miles on it and told her to skip it, because a new one would only be about $4K more.

What say you folk?

No, for the same reason you thought...hard miles. I had a dealer tell me that they could offer a 'spectacular' price on a 328i Xdrive model (2015) with 5k miles. I bought the new one (not sure if the spectacular price would have been 4k lower though).

If she wants a new BMW 3 series and can live with a 2015 model, look around. BMW overproduced them and is giving pretty big discounts, IMO, to clear the remainder of them off the lots.

 

[hans007]

totally depends. i'd ask for a few grand more off.

but since its untitled they will give the full warranty length (so 4 years and another 41k miles).

if you can save say $5-6k off a 320i or a 328i thats a pretty big chunk of the cost of it, and depending on how long you plan to keep it, its basically free money for a car that will still be titled as new.

i suppose my point is, if say she was going to lease the car, and they give her the discount and the lease is in the warranty period then take the discount.

even if she plans to keep it for say 5 years, and drives it just over the warranty, its likely even if there were "hard miles" on it it probably still wont matter

bmw's north american headquarters is in NJ and it was probably just some car for visiting execs to drive when they were in town. even the dealer loaner cars, i'd wager most people who are sane don't drive them particularly hard. not everyone is some car enthusiast hoon. i've had tons of loaner cars and really its not like they are loaning out M5's for loaner cars, if you already own a bmw you probably aren't driving a 320i loaner in some absurd fashion.

 

[Midwayman]

$4k off a 2 year old car seems really low. I mean depreciation is pretty harsh those first couple years. Seems like they are trying to price it as a 'new' car. You can probably do much better with a CPO car.

 

[exar333]

$4k off a 2 year old car seems really low. I mean depreciation is pretty harsh those first couple years. Seems like they are trying to price it as a 'new' car. You can probably do much better with a CPO car.

This.

4K off for a CPO often means a better warranty than new. I would want 8-10k off for this vehicle.

 

[JulesMaximus]

BMW does this. Basically the car is used but the buyer will be the first official owner. $4k is too small a discount to take it.

Agreed. Because no matter how few miles it has on it the moment she signs the paperwork she owns a 2 year old used car.

Check KBB and NADA to see what similar cars are valued at to get an idea of what this car is really worth.

 

[JulesMaximus]

For reference, I found a 2014 BMW 328i for sale at a local BMW dealer with 3,500 miles on it and they're asking $30,995 for it.

 

[Stopsignhank]

When we were car shopping in October we looked at BMW. The dealer said he had a used car coming in, I think it was a CPO exec loaner. Not exactly sure. However he said that the price was 40K, but the person who drove it put 3.5K worth of damage on it so the price to us would be 43.5K. There was no way I was going to pay for damage that someone else put on the car.

He told us that there was one time a car needed a new engine so they had to increase the price 23K. Sure seemed like a stupid way to do business, the new owner had to pay for the damage someone else did to the car.

 

[PricklyPete]

I was asked by a woman whether she should buy a BMW 3 series. It was 2 years old and had 9,000. It was an exec loaner car and was untitled.

I suspect that it has a lot of hard miles on it and told her to skip it, because a new one would only be about $4K more.

What say you folk?

Sounds essentially like a dealer demo. I love getting one of these for a good deal. Bought a 2013 4Runner (in 2013) for nearly 10k off the price (11k miles). 4K does not sound good for a 2 year old model. Not at all.

 

[JulesMaximus]

When we were car shopping in October we looked at BMW. The dealer said he had a used car coming in, I think it was a CPO exec loaner. Not exactly sure. However he said that the price was 40K, but the person who drove it put 3.5K worth of damage on it so the price to us would be 43.5K. There was no way I was going to pay for damage that someone else put on the car.

He told us that there was one time a car needed a new engine so they had to increase the price 23K. Sure seemed like a stupid way to do business, the new owner had to pay for the damage someone else did to the car.

Who, in their right mind, would agree to something like that? It's not as if BMWs are rare. There are literally thousands of them around here for sale.

I just checked Autotrader.com and within 100 mile radius of me there are over 1,000 BMW 3 series for sale between model year 2013 and 2015.

 

[Stopsignhank]

JM,

I agree, Even the salesman was shaking his head on that one.

 

[Torn Mind]

Perhaps some rich dude bought it anyway...because BMW.

They wouldn't be doing it if it didn't work. All you need is one sucker. lol

 

[HeXen]

Hard miles or soft miles, if the car isn't broke down when you buy it, then it's perfectly fine. Does it start? Does it run smooth? Motors can take a lot of shit, otherwise it's usually quite noticeable if theres a problem. At least with hard miles, you know there's not a lot of carbon buildup in it. Usually the rest of a car will fall apart long before the motor gives out providing it has oil and is changed somewhat regularly. Even folks that frequent the dragstrip replace other parts far more often than they rebuild their motors.

 

[Engineer]

For reference, I found a 2014 BMW 328i for sale at a local BMW dealer with 3,500 miles on it and they're asking $30,995 for it.

and you can probably get that quite a bit cheaper than asking price.

A few weeks ago, I picked up a new 2015 328i XDrive model with winter package, premium package and a few other bells and whistles for $35,750 (nearly $10k off sticker). Had 17 miles on it.