Quote:
Originally Posted by LeMansX5
Nice catch. Curious how much you paid for it.
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I have been shopping X5 4.8's since around 2008. I had driven my 3.0 for four years by then and I loved it. I just wanted more power. Prices then for CPO cars were in the 50's. I just couldn't pay more for the 4.8 replacement than I had for my 3.0. I looked, but I never called.
I called on my first 4.8 in 2009. I remember it was a CPO 2006 with 32K miles. They wanted $41K for it. I offered $37K and they told me to walk. I did. Since then, I found various other examples: $35K for 16K miles in Jan 2011, $36K for 23k miles in December 2010, $38K for 29K miles in the summer of 2009. Either no one would deal or the cars were already sold. By the time my recent milestone birthday arrived, I resigned myself to give up the blue color I wanted. I would be happy with any X5 with low miles and under $35K.
So, as I was prone to do, I simply typed X5 4.8is in the Google Chrome browser. A familiar site arrived. My Minnesota and Denver offerings weren't listed any more. But what's this? 11K miles? With a VIN and a City/State? I found that it was at a BMW dealer, but it wasn't actually listed on their site. In fact, when I browsed to the link, the X5 I sought didn't show up. A Google cached page showed that at least 24 hours before, the site had listed the X5 I sought. The links for "I'm interested" worked. I submitted my information late on (this) Sunday night.
Impatient, I called the dealer first thing on Monday morning. The Internet sales specialist was impressed at my offer to give her a VIN for her search. She had been away for the week prior and had not yet seen the car. She confirmed it was in stock, the price, and that she would have a sales associate call me back with the details and to do the deal.
The sales associate confirmed again that it was there and the price. I asked for a better deal to cover the airfare. He offered me a price I feel is VERY fair based on my years of search and research. While placing a deposit, I SMS'ed a friend and fellow BMW nut who frequently does business in this city though he lives a few hours away. By the time my deposit was down, my sales associate and my friend had each other's contact information and a scheduled visit on Thursday before his afternoon meeting.
I generally don't like to talk about details until the deal is done, but I will say that the deal is the lowest price I have ever seen on a 4.8is under 35K miles. It is also the lowest miles I have ever seen on any 4.8 since I have been searching. Having said that, the car is NOT CPO. It is sold AS IS. I have some risk. I will drive it and see if I have the reverse gear delay, the hard downshift, and I will check the oil filler cap for sludge. It's not as good of a deal if I am looking at a huge repair bill very soon.
I will fly to pick it up on Saturday. I will have my DSLR in hand. I may even bring dental floss and a small tube of polish to remove the badges right then and there. I made edits to the pictures and cannot WAIT to take off the badges! See below. I will keep you posted.
02-08-2011, 10:29 AM
This may seem like a lot, but starting this process and remaining true to it has kept my 98K mile X5 3.0 looking like new. In fact, I got it inspected last year and the lady handed the sheet back saying I'd brought the wrong paper. This is a 2010, she said. 
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