Re: need advice on a used E38 (archive)

Well, my story is interesting. I bought mine at a standard used car dealership that has mostly luxury cars and was listed in the Autotrader (autotrader.com). After running a Carfax report I bought a 1995 740il with 72K miles on it for $23K. Not bad. After about 3 days I noticed that the air-conditioning needed recharging and I took it to my local dealer. I was fully prepared to take the bad news, as I purchased the car "as-is" and have dealt with shoddy service at BMW in the past. Now for the good news.

My service advisor typed in my VIN and informed me that my car is under a 7 year, 100,000 mile warranty and proceeded to fix a LAUNRY LIST of stuff for FREE after I did a stage 2 inspection (which a I was going to do anyway). Free. Let me type it again for you. FREE. Did you catch that? FREE. Needless to say I was surprised as hell to learn that the amount of money that warranty saved me totaled about $3800. Not bad at all. My advisor also told me that this warranty is fully transferable from owner to owner and follows the car. I have since added Eibach Pro-Kit springs and Breyton 19" Inspiration tires. I'm having my headlight upgrade (& the rest of the lights) done next week & will be posting pics here. I'm also having the lower half painted the same color as the body. So although my powerplant won't be the same I'll be riding a car that's physically identical to a 2001 740il for less than 30K.

So, my point is this - look for say, a 1996 7-series with an extended warranty on it (mine is up in November of this year on my '95). The dealer will inform you if the car is covered before you buy it by entering in the VIN, even if you don't purchase it from them. Then you don't have to worry too much about "as-is" and can move on with your modifications of choice. Good luck!

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