Buying From a Private Owner Has Advantages.... (archive)

1) Meeting the owner: Is the owner an adult who used it as 2nd car? Or was the owner a kid who raced it on weekends? I also noticed I learned alot just looking at OTHER things the person has and how they maintained things (clean garage, organized tools, etc...)

2) History of maintenance: A private owner that maintains his car should have good records that you can look at and verify.

3) Lower price: The owner has probably already been low balled by the dealer "trade-in" offer, and will be willing to sell you the car directly for not much over that, putting you and the owner in a "win-win" situation.

The main disadvantage is the car may not or be out of the original warranty period. I do know most BMW dealerships will offer an extended warranty IF the car is still under the original warranty. If the car is out of warranty, you still have places like www.warrantydirect.com that give you 3rd party warranty options.

Some people prefer buying from the dealer for the security of a warranty and/or a CPO car. But for me, the additional $3-4,000 didn't make sense. I also have a mechanic who could verify the condition of a car, and you MUST have that person/persons who can check the car mechanically and the body (for accidents or frame damage). Good luck ...

So I go down to a non-full circle CPO dealer and they have a 98 silver/grey M3 with 37k miles. The sticker on the car was $39.5K. The lowest I could get them down to is ~$36K. By the time you add in the doc/smog/license/tax, it's up to $41K.

Looking around on the boards and online selling sites, $36K seems a bit high relative to buying from a 3rd party. However, the dealer says their's comes with a CPO warranty of 6yr/100k and guarantees it has never been in an accident, etc.

Some questions:

1. Is it worth paying more to get the dealership warranty?
2. When buying from a 3rd party, what additional fees are there (in California)? DMV, smog, license, sales tax? If there are no sales taxes required, that could potentially be a $3k swing in price.
3. Kelley Blue Book is the only thing dealers will use whereas Edumund's seems to be a lot lower. What's the best way to get a fair market value of a used M3?

Follow Ups:

Amen 'bro Brouhaha 21:11 2/12/2001 (0)

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