Just as the title says, I'm looking at purchasing a certified one owner 2012 BMW X5 M that's about 2 hours away from. This is not my first BMW and it's also not my first ///M vehicle (had a 2009 M6 that I purchased a few years ago that turned out to be a nightmare but that's another story). I'm pretty familiar with this particular car after pulling up the build sheet. It has almost every option except for the "cold weather" package...though it does have the headlight washers. I guess the original owner decided to go "a la carte" on that because it doesn't have the heated rear seats nor the heated steering wheel. Luckily, because of this site, I was able to track down everything I would need to add a heated steering wheel because that was almost a deal breaker. The heated steering wheel in my M6 spoiled me. The other thing he chose (and chose wrong in my opinion) is to go with the piano black trim instead of the carbon fiber. The CF trim from BMW is about 2k bucks! But I refuse to do a wrap and the CF interior trim is very well done and helps distinguish the inside from a normal X5. So by my tally, I am looking at spending 3k bucks on this car before I ever own it...minus what I get back from selling the original parts. Okay sorry I'm getting off topic here...
Basically the salesperson that I'm dealing with knows nothing about the car, not that he's incompetent, he just can't answer some of my questions. Such as, I saw in one of the picture the little triangle next to the Park symbol is on. And I know (thanks to my headache of a M6) that this could mean that the traction control is not working properly. So I asked him is there something wrong with the TC or was the car just not started when they took the picture? To which he replied that he honestly didn't know but the car was inspected and everything worked fine. The other anomaly I saw was that the wheels were black. Now, like I said, I've been around BMW's for a while and I have never seen one come from the factory with black wheels (not to say that they can't, I've just never seen it). I mean the wheels look OEM but I know they are quite a few companies out there that make knockoffs. And thankfully, once again, thanks to this forum I know how to make sure they are legit. What I'm thinking is that the original owner just chose to get them painted black like the paint job, and the seats, and the interior trim. But more than anything I just want to make sure they're OEM
To make a long story not quite so long, I'm just trying to see what advice you guys can give me before I go and make another 50k dollar mistake. In a perfect world I'd be able to just take it to BMW and let them do a courtesy inspection but I was informed last time that they will not do a courtesy inspection if I do not own the vehicle yet. I may just ask them if they would be willing to have it inspected by a certified BMW dealership to give me a little peace of mind. Never hurts to ask I guess. Anyway, thanks in advance for all you guys help. If there's anything else I should definitely look for please let me know.
05-11-2016, 11:47 PM
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