EuroCarFan

I only got it about a month ago and have not had to use it yet...knock on wood. Mine's a June 2006 built car. No major problems yet, again, knock on wood. Only thing was iDrive went black on me a few times so they recently upgraded the software.

jfischetti

Bought an 06 with 47K on on it about 6 months ago. 9/06 build, smg has no issues at all. Bought a Fidelity warranty, 3/36K miles form a bmw dealer. Warranty was 4500, but covers smg issues, high end electronics, basically same as cpo warranty minus the maintenence items.

jfischetti

I am on long island, bought the warranty from Hassel BMW in Freeport. They gave the car an inspection prior to selling me the warranty though, looked for pre-existing probs.

Aviator

All be damned. didn't realize this was a widespread buy back issue. I'm looking at an 06 that was a lemon law buy back right now due to smg failure. Supposedly BMW repaired the issue, and there's a warranty on the transmission. Should I run away from this car though? It's just over 50k miles, and just over $30k

EuroCarFan

If this was a few years ago when this car was newer, I would say don't buy it cause it'll affect your ability to resell the car down the line. But now that it's towards the end of it's life cycle and being so relatively cheap, I don't think resell value is of any concern to you right? If it's not, I'd buy it in a heart beat. Great price and like you said, there's a warranty on the transmission.

Aartsy19

I agree with ECF.. if the transmission is covered there really isnt anything to worry about.

Shezmon

Dude i called rallyee bmw this morning and they told me that they would sell fidelity warranty for 7k and it does not cover smg issues.. i was shocked.. Man how can i find out what serivce has been performed on this vehicle? Rallyee's did all the services to it.. but they wouldn't tell me anything since i haven't purchased it yet?.. how can i find out whether Smg was fixed before or not? And also where can i get it checked out before buying? and any other issues i should know about an 06 M5?

VTGT

$7k for a warranty that will not cover SMG is highway Robbery!

I myself would never by an M5 knowing it had transmission issues in the past.

And the Note about resale value, does everyone think these cars will hold their value steadily in the low to mid 20's for the quite some time (3+ years) assuming mileage is fairly low i.e. under 60,000

EuroCarFan

I agree that price is outrageous.

Shezmon, I don't see any reasons why they wouldn't give you the service history of that car. See if you can get the VIN and call another BMW dealer or maybe post a thread here to see if someone has connections at a dealer that can run the service history for you.

VTGT, I'm fairly confident these cars will hold their value in that low price range or possibly even gain some especially because this is probably the last normally aspirated M engine; and a V10 at that.

BluedMan

Yea, I recently went to Perillo BMW in Chicago because they had 3 '06s priced in the mid $30k's.. All lemon buy backs from California. The salesman told me in CA they have legislation protecting the consumer, more than federal laws. The manufacturer has to buy the car back if it has like 3 problems or something like that (didn't really give me a straight answer). I was assuming they were recalls due to SMG problems, but none of them were, according to the dealer. One was a problem with the diff, another had an engine mount harness problem (or something similarly sounding), the third had been sold already. None are eligible for the CPO, for obvious reasons. I could imagine aftermarket warranties take this into consideration as well, and price the warranty even higher.

After I found out about these lemon buy backs, it makes sense why some '06s listed are soo cheap on the web.