135i lemon title?

[hahmyong]

Hi
Currently i'm in the market for decent 135i, and i found pretty fully loaded 2012 135i, with lemon, buy back car.

Dealer said the issue was engine. He states, the engine shuts off while driving and now bmw has fixed it with updating software. also warranty is still valid till 2015.

should i buy it or just forget about it and let go?

[Bama335]

A car with a branded title will certainly take a hit in resale value - however, if you can negotiate a super deal with that dealer, it's under warranty and your are willing to keep it a while (and then take a lower resale value later on), it could be an opportunity.

For reference purposes, this guy does alot of BMW buy-back re-selling - he has a couple 135i E88 on the lot now that are buy-backs - you could compare to other prices to get an idea of what the diminished values really are.

http://www.donohooauto.com/

[Tiny Chainsaw]

Originally Posted by hahmyong

Hi
Currently i'm in the market for decent 135i, and i found pretty fully loaded 2012 135i, with lemon, buy back car.

Dealer said the issue was engine. He states, the engine shuts off while driving and now bmw has fixed it with updating software. also warranty is still valid till 2015.

should i buy it or just forget about it and let go?

No find another one.

[TheSt|G]

Not for engine issues, I wouldn't take that burden. If it was a rattle or something along those lines, sure.

[Mark16q]

if it was just software, can't imagine why it'd have to be a buyback. For a lease if you were going to give it back, not a big deal, but for a purchase I'd stay away.

[neglectedX5]

There no really upside to a branded title car but the price. If its substantially lower than a comparable model then sometimes its worth a thought. As mentioned resale value down the road will be greatly reduced, how much depends on the market at that time. Also trade in value will also be reduced. We went through this when making a trade on the wifes car. The sales rep said they lowball the shit outa people with a branded title car. If it really is fixed and the price is right and you plan on keeping it then It may be okay.

[Andrewcoja]

If you ever try to sell it, imagine telling the person "Well, it was a lemon buyback, BUT WAIT!" Aside from the big hit in resale price, there's a big caveat attached to it forever.

[Dackelone]

AND... check your state's Lemon Laws.... often times the used car purchaser does not have the same "Lemon rights" afforded to - a new car purchaser.

[brusk]

Not sure if this helps but I've got a llttle experience at least researching and looking at several buyback models. It seems some states CA especially had some no hassle kind of buyback where a 3rd party company would just take the cars off BMW's hand and resale them to other dealerships. Not sure if it were all models but the ones I've seen were the turbo models N54, N55 and diesels. I was in the market last month for a 335d but most of the cars I was interested in that I found in my state were buybacks. They had certificates and full records from BMWNA stating what the problem was and stating it had been properly fixed. Looking at the records it seemed a few shitty attempts to cheaply fix the problem and then one huge repair after the buyback replacing injectors, computer, fuel pump, gaskets and anything else that's a major problem. Several dealerships I saw had buybacks, one in particular had over a dozen. There was very little discount due to the buyback. I know sales buy tend to lie but he strongly assured me that most of the buybacks he's gotten were truly fixed and trouble free. I tend to believe that as two dealerships acted the same way and they made no effort to pressure sales anything, I actually wanted to haggle on the price to make a deal and one sales man got offended and refused to sell the car. But I'm with some of the others if your not getting enough incentive to take that resale risk it might not be worth it. I figured I would need to own the car a minimum of 3 years to give the next buyer enough trust with what would hopefully be a good maintenance record to not take a major hit in resale, but if I had to sell it within 12-18 months for some reason I figured I'd probably have to lie my ass off or take a decent hit. Since it was just a second car for me I went the trouble free route on a new econo car with crazy incentives.