Originally Posted by ndabunka

The good news: The reality is that newer cars don't typically need much maintenance. Oil changes & bulb replacements might be the ONLY things needed on the majority of late model US-owned vehicles. On top of that, ALL BMW's INCLUDE dealer maintenance FOR FREE for the first 50K miles so if you are buying a late model BMW (less than 4 years old), the owner would have (most likely) had ALL their service done for free.

The bad news: Wrecked or salvaged cars are often sold overseas & such vehicles USUALLY are nightmares that have NOTHING to do with the WAY their prior owners maintained them. Rather, the problems those vehicles experience is often due to a poor repair job or do not "qualify" for resale here in the United States (e.g. Lemon, flooded, catastrophic mechanical failure, etc). Often, unscrupulous dealers buy such cars here for literally pennies on the dollar and then export them into other countries that do not have a restrictive conditions on resale. This leaves the buyers will the (FALSE) impression that US cars are damaged goods because in some case, that is what they are being sold.

Bottom line: You must work with a reputable importer to your country. Often, that means that they are not the "cheapest" so you may end up thinking that you paid more than someone else may have but in reality, you would get a reliable car. The importer is more important than the actual car.

PS - As others have stated, where the car is imported from is not material. It is VERY common for sellers to buy a car in Georgia & sell it in California. The one thing you WOULD want to stay away from for the mext 6-12 months would be ANY vehicles that were previously registered in the area of this country that was hit by the hurricane called Sandy in the upper NorthEast. A Carfax or even a basic registration check will show if it was from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania or other areas but it won't (yet) show that it might have been totaled by insurance do to having been submerged under 20 feet of water for several month. A LOT of those vehicles are being "dumped" in foreign countries. Some of them can even "appear" to be relatively new cars. I know of one guy who only drove his new car 40 miles & then parked it in his underground garage and then learned that the garage was flooded 30 feet so his vehicle was totaled by his insurance and he got a new one. Unfortunately for someone else, that car will probably end up in some foreign country with no details of such flooding. It may have electrical problems for YEARS that BMW will not help repair. Then again, it may be perfectly fine mechanically but could smell like mildew for years do to the interior being saturated with water for 6 days.