vafinest25

Whats up 60 Family,

I have a big delima for you guys. Most everyone on this site has done some type of mods to there 5-Series, but this is mainly for guys who dont drive 550's, or M5's, but anyone can answer. The question is 2 parts, 1st is i want to order the Mtech front bumper and side skirts, and either 166's or M6 rims in 19 for my 5 series. Which ones do you guys reccomend, seeing how my color is not a popular color?
2nd part of the question is this. For those of you that have made mods to your cars that dont come with the M5 parts, or rims whats the trade in or resale like. For isnstance I take my 5 Series in to trade up for a 7 in say 2 years and they look at my car and say this is a 525 with a M5 bumper and ect. How does this effect the trade in value? You know what i mean. Its like are you guys planning to keep your cars or what is the deal? I understand everyone is different just trying to get some thoughts on this. Do you guys keep your old bumpers etc, and all then put them back on so that the car is stock or what . Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Ghostteck

well the mtec kit is nice with 166 wheels it'd be more sportier with m6 its still sporty but more elegance... and on the resale it helps somewhat becuase an mtech kit vs no mtec will help the dealers still out faster... i did this recently and my car was traded in to a used car dealer and he wanted the kit on the car more and offered me more for it but bmw itself will tell you if the paint is not orginal then it drops price i got alot! from the used car dealer ship and when a BMW "rep" qouted my car with all my mods and everything like how you see in the sig he gave me only 11g =( stupid BMW lol good luck.. modding is for yourself not trade in if your going to trade in then might as well keep your car stock than putting more money into the car imo.

providenceleaf

If you have room save all of your stock parts and sell your MODS when you are ready to trade the car in.

That's what I did recently and it worked out very well. All the parts I sold here on the forum paid for about half of my new wheels/tires on my X5.

pjinca

+1000 I completely agree with Ghostcheck. I mod my car for me, and i it does end up affecting trade-in value then I will just sell it privately. You have a unique color for your car, so you would probably get more out of trade-in than, say, I would (my color is far too common). If you want to keep the trade-in value up, stick with OEM only - but that will cost you significantly more. OEM M-Tech painted and installed is about $2k - $2500, ditto wheels. So modding is up to the owner.

mnmike

A general rule is 99% of aftermarket parts never improve resale value. Maybe if your car was missing something common - say heated seats in MN, and you added that, it will actually help bring you to what the other cars are at.

You'll certainly never get your money back on mods and often they will actually hurt your resale. If you put a nice factory M-tech kit on with new wheels sure it looks great to the right person, but chances are you won't get that person. If you're trading the car in they certainly won't value it. The reason for both is mainly, why were things changed on the car? Was your car smashed up and so you replaced all this stuff? And more importantly, even if it's appealing, most people will not value it higher than another stock car.

Do what makes you happy - but if your concerned about resale either take the parts off at the end and sell them or don't expect to get a dime back on your investment.

pjinca

If you are truly concerned about resale value then much better advice is to stay out of accidents - they will hurt resale WAAAAAAAY more than mods will (other than mods that can hurt the longterm reliability, i.e. superchargers, turbo kits, nitrous, etc)

TexaZ3

Mods have no resale value, unless you find a buyer that wants or likes exactly what you do.
M-Tech kit is more of a universal mod, but wheels are not. Though, both M tech and 166 should be fine by almost any potential E60 buyer.

flyingpuck

Don't listen to this guy, he doesn't even DRIVE an E60!!

jm545i

I agree with that. My experience from past BMW's is that a very lightly modded car (in my case Dinan exhaust and chip(s), V1 hardwire, iPod connection in an E34 535i, and a full Dinan package - suspension, cam gears, chip on an E34 M5) were a boon to re-sale. They got the best response from BMWCCA members to whom those generally proven mods for those models appealed. These are folks who will *generally* also pay top dollar for a well-kept example.

I think for a more modern vehicle like the E60 there are fewer of those clear value-added modding opportunities, and the broader market looking for an E60 is looking generally for a more sedate experience than the folks on this forum. Anything that dramatically alters the appearance isn't going to be a big help, and relatively slim performance gains are really available on the power side (except perhaps on the intake and exhaust from RPI). That said, I think the Mtech kit and a nice set of BMW motorsport wheels are going to be a plus. Anything else and I'd take off and sell separately.

mnmike

^that is a good point, and I've found some light factory mods seem to help get a car sold quicker.