M5M6

I'm looking to buy this '06 M5 which is apparently "fully loaded" and has ~17k miles. Anything I should know/ask the dealer about the car since it's an '06? One of my friends lemon lawed his '06 because of SMG failure twice. The car looks great and I love the black wheels and it's ripe for modding!

Here's the car: http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.jsp?car_...amp;cardist=633

Is this a good deal? The dealer is unwilling to negotiate but I am not sure how to check if the car has any issues, despite the 'clean' carfax report.

Any help/advice is appreciated.

li-m5

yeah it sounds like a pretty good deal to me !! im sure if you put some pressure on him he'll give you a better deal..also ask to see the service records !!

just want to make sure that this isnt one of those smg headache cars or worse a buyback !!

1600

Just remember that for a few thousand more you could have a brand new 550i sport decked as you want it with two more years of warranrty.

JamesInLV

You should be able to take the VIN to your local dealer or just call a local dealer (or ask a boardmember here or on M5board.com who works at a dealership) and have them look at all of the service history on the car.

The car looks pretty good, but some of the description leads me to wonder how much the seller really knows. "Jet black metallic" = Sapphire Black. "Merino leather"...well...the pictures don't show the upper area of the seats, but I believe this car is missing one of the most expensive upgrades, the "full perforated merino leather," which was also a requirement to get ventilated seats. At $65k it's probably about average assuming it is, indeed missing the full leather option. We've seen some early '06 production cars come in at/under $60k now, but they usually had much more mileage than this car.

EuroCarFan

That car is most likely a lemon-law buyback. I've seen several ads from Diamond Remarketing Group in the past their prices had been among the lowest online. I think the three cars I called about from them were all lemon-law buyback. Just ask them. They have to disclose that info. If it's not a lemon then it looks like a great deal.

One problem I do see is why they have 16K miles in the header but in the description, it says "only 14,165 actual miles"? Did it start out with 14K miles and the dealer guys have been driving it around?

mrfva

Just checked it, it is a lemon-buy-back... 2 owners at 17k miles??

I'll post the findings later tonight. I'd skip it, or offer the guy $1.00

DrLev99

I always wondered what happens to lemoned cars, and how they can legally be sold (and to whom) and still considered safe..... I guess as long as it's disclosed, everything has a price.

EuroCarFan

I don't think it's that bad. You can lemon a car if the dealer can't fix the problem after so many attempts but once they buy it back, I was told BMW would essentially take the engine apart and completely replace whatever needed fixing and it's supposed to be good as new.

Or maybe I'm just gullible and believe in the tooth fairy.

xexyus

Huge negative and im sure you already knew that even if 10 people said go for it. Theres a thousand more M5's around the same price for better quality without black 166's

JamesInLV

DrLev99, remember that a lemon is not the same as a SALVAGE car. There is nothing not "safe" about a lemon'ed car. In a lemon issue such as this, the dealership/BMW-NA would end up taking the car back, working through all of the issues extensively until the car is completely fine, and then selling it as a used vehicle. In fact, BMW NA has been buying back cars from owners BEFORE people go through the lemon law process just to make sure they can resell the car without an afflicted title. Without at least some research (even just a VIN service report from a BMW dealership) you would never know it was a lemon. Also remember that sometimes the buy-back is simply because of time. BMW takes the car in for a problem, works on it, can't get it fixed within 30 days or so, and at a certain point the customer may just be so frustrated that he starts pushing for a "bigger" solution, which could easily be a buy-back since the customer may be fully within his rights to lemon-law the car and force a buy-back. BMW may even just offer a buy-back as soon as they have hit the point where the lemon law could be enforced, to make the customer happy. If they worked more than 30 days and determined that it was going to take a much larger amount of work, they might not want to push things with the customer for another 30 days and risk a bigger problem. Besides, in those cases BMW often ends up picking up a month or two worth of loan/lease payments, while the person also has a lowly loaner (anything less than an M5/M6 is "lowly") or a rental car.