I have a CPO bodywork story. When looking for a 7 I found a BMW dealership in Charlottesville VA that had a car that looked promising. I called and was actually fortunate enough to get the GM on the phone. It was close to closing and he was one of the few left in the office.

I started asking him about the car. He assured me it was a very clean car in great condition and didn't appear to have had any body work or ever been smoked in. It was nice enough in fact that he had been driving it the last few weeks. We negotiated a price and I told him we would be renting a car one way and be up on Saturday to pick it up.

I get there and couldn't have been more disappointed. The paint on the hood looked like it had been sandblasted, the interior was terrible, who ever had steam cleaned the carpets left behind way more soap than they ever should have put down in the first place. The center console wood was cracked. There was a cigarette burn in the seat and to top it all of I opened the RR door and you could see where they had taped off to paint the entire RR quarter panel and Cpost.

When I asked how this was a clean car they just looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. Conveniently the GM just happened to be out of town the day we were coming. When I asked about the issues they said "Well it meets the CPO criteria". We drove home another 4.5 hours in the rental quite pissed off after that.

I later found out through one of the sales people the car wasn't in that shape before the GM decided to make it his demo car. The original owner didn't smoke but, the GM did. The guys who did the CPO inspection swore the car didn't have paint work when it was traded, etc... I reported the GM to BMWNA after receiving a phone call from them regarding something else and they sent me a nice care package with a t-shirt, art car die-cast and a few other trinkets.