Decided to keep 1 after lease...two questions

[the1andonly]

I decided to keep the 1 series after my lease ends. The 2 is nice but meh. I have a rare manual 128i, added bmw performance exhaust and its absolutely perfect.

Im at 25,000 miles on my 2012. Two questions:

Im moving from oil changes every 5,000 mikes to every 7,500. I have a short 2-3 mike work commute. Does anybody see any issues with moving over to this longer schedule from now on?

At 30,000...do these cars have maintenance that should be done? Anything beyond what bmw recommends to keep it in perfect shape and get a long life out if the vehicle?

thanks in advance!

[RoundelM3]

My wife's 2011 128i M-Sport convertible with 6MT is coming up on lease-end in March of 2014 and we're also keeping it. It has about 27,500 miles on it. There's still another year of maintenance and warranty, and on the advice of our CA, we're going to purchase a BMW "gold" extended warranty rather than CPO it. The extended warranty is less expensive and provides better coverage.

Did you mean every 15K miles? Changing oil every 5,000 miles with synthetic is just throwing money away. I've been doing 7500-mile changes (paying for the intermediate changes myself) for several years with the 128 and my own F30 335i, plus the 3 other 3-series I've owned, and never had any problems.

The only thing I can think of regarding maintenance above and beyond the 30K mile BMW maintenance would be to change out the transmission and differential oil at around 35K miles - or sooner, if you prefer. I recommend Red Line MTL and 90W differential fluid. Aside from that, if you're not experiencing any other problems, you should be good to go.

[b1aze]

If your oil is not getting up to at an absolute minimum of 160*F you are doing more harm than good to the car. Almost all wear on a motor comes from cold starts and loading the engine up without proper temp fluids.

That being said, the only way to know if you are imposing more wear or damage to the motor is to do a used oil analysis on it through black stone labs. Send in a small sample and they break down exactly what's in your oil and what is likely happening. they will be able to tell coolant, water, soluble and insoluble contents, wear metals and other contaminants that regularly get into oils.

As far as the 30k service, it's nothing more than filters and checking brakes. I think at 45k there is a brake fluid flush, but that may be for a 135i only. There are multiple breakdowns of suggested maintenance on these cars in the maintenance section.

[IEDEI]

Great choice on keeping it! frankly the 2-series is sort of a heavily diluted/mass marketable version of the 1-series and the 228i is a generic automobile compared to the much more classic 128i, IMO.

[bmw1racer]

Originally Posted by the1andonly

I decided to keep the 1 series after my lease ends.

Great decision.

Im moving from oil changes every 5,000 mikes to every 7,500. I have a short 2-3 mike work commute. Does anybody see any issues with moving over to this longer schedule from now on?

I've got a short commute as well, about five miles, but I typically take a longer route just to get everything up to operating temperature... A longer schedule at 7500 miles shouldn't be a problem at all, especially with a synthetic oil.

Best of luck to you.

[gregthegr8]

I actually have a question for those of you buying yours out at the end of your lease. Were you able at the end to negotiate anything off the residual price? I've heard conflicting reports that sometimes BMW will take a lil off and negotiate the buyout since it's cheaper/more efficient for them to say take $1,000 off and sell it to you than to have to process, inspect, recondition the car for sale, and have it sit on a lot for however long if you were to turn it in at the end of the lease.

Not sure if that's a thread-jacking or perhaps just a third question. =)

[the1andonly]

Im curious about this as well...Ive heard from the dealer the residual is set and thats it, BMW doesn't negotiate ever...seems hard to believe...

[Worra]

Everything is negotiable

Pretty sure most dealers would rather not buy your car back at the end of the lease (especially now that the E82 is done). I'm leasing my car as well with a 100% intention of buying it out at the end of the lease. My residual was more than satisfactory, so even if they don't negotiate, its a good price.

[gregthegr8]

Originally Posted by Worra

Everything is negotiable

Pretty sure most dealers would rather not buy your car back at the end of the lease (especially now that the E82 is done). I'm leasing my car as well with a 100% intention of buying it out at the end of the lease. My residual was more than satisfactory, so even if they don't negotiate, its a good price.

Exactly. Only question is, do you wait until the lease end people start contacting you, pretend like you're just going to return it and get something else, saying the residual is kinda high, or proactively call them and discuss?

Obviously there are a ton of variables and not worth doing until the bitter end unless the effective interest rate on your lease is high, but curious to hear anybody's first hand experience on buying it out for less than the residual and the best way of going about it. My sense is the dealer won't be much help, so would be with BMW Financial Services. Heck, I'd make them think my miles were right there at the max under my lease, too so they think it'll have the lowest possible value and perhaps highest reconditioning costs, to the point where they might think they're going to just send it to auction. Suddenly, I reckon they'll want to make that sale on the spot. Bird in the hand so to speak. Sounds like fun and I can't wait to try it in 2.5 years. =)

[Worra]

Originally Posted by gregthegr8

Exactly. Only question is, do you wait until the lease end people start contacting you, pretend like you're just going to return it and get something else, saying the residual is kinda high, or proactively call them and discuss?

Obviously there are a ton of variables and not worth doing until the bitter end unless the effective interest rate on your lease is high, but curious to hear anybody's first hand experience on buying it out for less than the residual and the best way of going about it. My sense is the dealer won't be much help, so would be with BMW Financial Services. Heck, I'd make them think my miles were right there at the max under my lease, too so they think it'll have the lowest possible value and perhaps highest reconditioning costs, to the point where they might think they're going to just send it to auction. Suddenly, I reckon they'll want to make that sale on the spot. Bird in the hand so to speak. Sounds like fun and I can't wait to try it in 2.5 years. =)

Well I don't plan on being coy about it, especially since they knew I really wanted to purchase it initially. That said, if the whole staff has turned over in 3 years that won't matter much. Do they not require that you bring the car in for them to check out? I will certainly be under the 12k miles per year I am allotted.

[gregthegr8]

Originally Posted by Worra

Well I don't plan on being coy about it, especially since they knew I really wanted to purchase it initially. That said, if the whole staff has turned over in 3 years that won't matter much. Do they not require that you bring the car in for them to check out? I will certainly be under the 12k miles per year I am allotted.

Based on my leasing experience the last 10 years, I think it's much more likely that the people you'll be talking to and dealing with are people on the phone at BMW Financial Services, not the people at the dealer, since they are the ones that service the lease. I could be wrong, but not sure the dealer itself has much say or discretion on the matter if what's being discussed is a straight up buyout of a lease. They'll just hand you a 1-800 # and say, here, you can use our phone if you want.

Perhaps the1andonly will be a good test case and we will soon find out. =)

[Kouper]

Originally Posted by gregthegr8

Based on my leasing experience the last 10 years, I think it's much more likely that the people you'll be talking to and dealing with are people on the phone at BMW Financial Services, not the people at the dealer, since they are the ones that service the lease. I could be wrong, but not sure the dealer itself has much say or discretion on the matter if what's being discussed is a straight up buyout of a lease. They'll just hand you a 1-800 # and say, here, you can use our phone if you want.

Perhaps the1andonly will be a good test case and we will soon find out. =)

You generally cannot negotiate the residual per se, as it is set at the amount in your contract (but never say never...). However, you can ask any BMW dealer what they will sell you "your" car for. If it is within 90 days of lease end, any dealer can request *their* buyout price from BMWFS. Their buyout price from BMWFS is typically below your residual, unless current Manheim auction market price is higher (in which case you'll likely know that your residual is favorable to market and just pay the residual to buy out your lease directly). It is then up to the dealer to set a fair price to you. They aren't obligated to share with you what their buyout price is -- or share those savings with you. The better your relationshp with your dealer is, the greater the likelihood they will be open with you about what it's costing them and what kind of profit they need to earn over that on a sale to you.

If you are going to buy "your" car back from the dealer, it may be worth exploring the cost to have them also CPO it, but keep in mind that currently it is usually cheaper to just buy the BMW "gold" or "platinum" extended warranty instead of pay for CPO, and the BMW "gold" warranty actually has greater coverage than the CPO warranty.

It will be interesting to see how the 135is buyouts play out, but we have a couple years before that will happen.