Hi Guys,

I have been following this forum for some time and finally found a 535xi that's 2008 in the dark blue that looks kind of black and gray leather interior. It has the Premium and Cold Weather package.

Currently car has 52K miles on it and supposedly the seller took over the lease from his brother and after the lease was over he decided to buy it.

I got him to agree to selling the car to me for $19K, everything is stock. What do you all think? Should I pull the trigger and buy the car? If I do buy it I will have to fly out to his state and drive the car back. Any input will help.

 

Have you run the VIN through Carfax and checked to see if all service records are available?

You're sticking your neck out a bit if you haven't driven the car and are solely relying on what the seller is telling you. You're also investing time and money to fly to his location. This vehicle seems like it would be a good buy if you found it locally, but on the other hand, it's not THAT exceptional where you probably couldn't find a similar deal more local to you. If it were something more rare (like an E61 manual for instance), I might be more inclined to go for it, but in this case, I'd bide my time and wait for something closer.

 

I would not buy the car without
1. Test driving it, esp at a speed and RPM high enough to rule out engine issues
2. Taking it to a dealer to run the history and error codes if any
3. Carfaxing it.

52k is not too much on this car, but there can be a bunch of issues that you won't just pick up unless you know the car enough, like worn bearings, worn rubber seals etc.

 

thank you for the input guys, I did check the history and it all passes. Called the dealer to pull the vin and looks like all recalls and maintanence is up to date. He just did the 45K mile tune.

The thing is the flight will be free because I will be flying with Southwest using my points. I'm purchasing the car for $18,900 and right now i'm looking at just flying out there to check the car out and hand him the check. From there i'm thinking about spending $450 to have the car shipped back to me so I don't put all the miles on it.

Also I will be getting a loan with Credit Union so I can purchase the route 66 extended warranty.

 

So it sounds like you're set on this car. It appears that you've at least done your due diligence, so all I can say is good luck!

 

Ask about the HPFP, check the lights to see they sit correctly without any misalignment. Check the body panels to make sure they have the VIN numbers.

Is it a manual? If it isn't, it sounds like a lot of trouble for car that isn't that rare or hard to find.

 

Why ask about the HPFP? It does't matter if it has or has not been replaced as long as its working. The warranty has been extended 10yr / 110K for this part. Maybe curiosity would be the only reason. I help a future BMW owner out a while back, and he was set on knowing if this pump was replaced. From the umteem thousand VINs we looked at some cars had it replaced once where there was one that had it replaced six times. I am under the impression that this car was probably getting the old unmodified pump that was prone to fail. So in the end there was really no trend that would detect if the pump would fail again. I'm actually on my third pump. The last pump has lasted the longest so I am thinking I might have the improved version of it.

 

once you know about the normal problems and maintenance of the 535xi then you should be ok.

 

So Naiza, give us an update... Did you fly out and look at the car? Did you end up buying it?

 

I flew out to Dallas last Wednesday night and looked and drove the car around Thursday morning then dropped it back off with the seller so the shipping company can pick it up.

Still waiting right now since Dallas has been hit with some severe icy storms... I've been back here in Denver waiting and just dreaming about it everyday hahha.