[quote=temeculaguy]Slightly off topic question for you flu, since you know more about bmw’s than anyone I know. I’m car shopping and bmw is one of 5 vehicle on my short list. It’s not for my daily driver, so milege and maintenance isn’t a huge consideration, but the cost of maintenance on bmw’s scare the crap out of me. I had a mercedes in the past and it had the same problem, everything cost 2-3x what it would on another car. I couldn’t get a $40 costco battery, I had to pay $120, headlights, same delio.
Is there a cheaper way around this, are certain mechanics and dealers just jacking up the price or do the parts cost that much more? I was talking to one salesman who was clearly trying to steer me into a 5 series, instead of a 6 or 7 and he alledged the maint cost on the 7 and especially the 6 was almost double that of the 3 and 5. Does that make any sense to you or was he full of crap?
I’m a big dude, 6ft, 200, the c class and 3 series are just uncomfortable. I like ragtops, the 6 convertible circa 2004/5 at about 30k is my #1 choice. MBZ clk ragtop is a little smallish but still has a reasonable backseat. The mbz cls is also a beauty, I’d go hardtop for a cls, cause it looks like a 6 but has 4 doors. The smart 30k would go certified pre-owned on a lexus or infiniti and the absolute smartest for me would be an acura TL because they actually have an acura dealership in town, but I don’t want to be smart.
Warranties are a bit of a waste for me because I put 5k mi a year on a car and I keep them a while. I still need 4 seats. What would you do, would you buy a 5 y.o BMW with say, 50k miles on it, what are your thoughts on the 6 series? I saw a great 6 convert for less that 25k that had a 100k miles on it, so tempting but scary at the same time, i really dont like spending thousands at the shop for stuff that would cost a few hundred on any other car.[/quote]
TG, I need to run off to work right now, and drop by kid off. But I’ll reply later.
In short, if you are going to buy preowned,
1)I’d avoid 6 and 7 series because the cost of of maintanance is expensive if you are not a DIY kid of guy. Also, the bigger issue is dealing with electrical gremlins in this flagship products.
Conincidentally, if you must buy preowned, Porsches are actually one of the most reliable car.
2)I’d avoid any thing that is turbocharged, because you don’t know if the previous owner abused the hell out of it.
3)I’d avoid engines that are direct injected if possible, until they figure out out to get rid of the carbon gunk… This one is going to be a tough one because most cars from europe have some shape or form of direct injection. You can eliminate anything audi/vw that says “FSI” on it. Automakers are pretty quite about these direct injection engine these days too.
