Walk away, he's asking top whack for a car with no service history, that should be several thousand BELOW top price.Think about a price you WOULD buy it for,make him an offer, then go back a month after he refuses it and offer it again ( he'll still have it for sale).You may get lucky. it'd be a god buy, but only with a low price.
4 years between oil change... would you buy it???
- Thread starter cooots
- Start date
Whilst it's true that there is little or nothing actually done during an inspection or minor oil service that will affect a car long term, it will always affect value. AND cars with missed services usually have a backlog of small bugs and advisories that will need doing, or worse that intermittent, developing or hard to diagnose fault that the vendor is running away from.
I resent OTT stealership prices but a full up-to-date BMW dealer history means problems will have been sorted or at least advised and can be checked with a dealer. They record details of unresolved problems, parts supplied and issues like crash damage that would not come up on a HPI history check.
I resent OTT stealership prices but a full up-to-date BMW dealer history means problems will have been sorted or at least advised and can be checked with a dealer. They record details of unresolved problems, parts supplied and issues like crash damage that would not come up on a HPI history check.
cooots said:
Absolutely yes. With synthetic oil, that's pretty much the last thing I'd worry about. He hasn't missed the km service - just late on the time stamp. For me, the biggest issue would be accident damage ... in particular, frame damage. If you have the car checked, and it is free of that ... and the condition is great ... I'd snap it up. There are probably only about two or three Z4 coupe's for sale in the whole of NSW ... they are that rare ... and for me, choosing a 20000km car is vastly preferable to what's next available .. which probably has the more usual 50000km on the clock ... just think of all the little accidents and wear that happen each 1000 km.
As for price: $52000 (in Aus) is pretty good for just 20k on the clock. Think of it this way: the guy paid about $100,000 for it ... and you are picking up an almost new car ... just 20k on the clock which is tiny ... for basically half price. That's an enormous saving for a car that will perform almost identically to new ... in fact, probably better than new ... they take about 5000km to warm up. As you say, a dealer will charge 9 grand more for the same thing. You can try your luck making a big issue about an oil service ... but if I was selling it, I'd just lol and refuse to budge on the price.
So why do they provide a time based service interval IF the mileage isn't exceeded?
For fun?
If BMW could say every 15,000 or 10yrs, whichever comes sooner, they would.
Synthetic oils are better than organic oils, no doubt, but remember organics were changed every 6k miles and 6 months to a year tops. 2 years for synthetic is still a long time to degrade, get water in there via condensation etc etc...
It might be fine, I don't know, I'm not an engineer, nor are the people at BMW service
Dave
For fun?
If BMW could say every 15,000 or 10yrs, whichever comes sooner, they would.
Synthetic oils are better than organic oils, no doubt, but remember organics were changed every 6k miles and 6 months to a year tops. 2 years for synthetic is still a long time to degrade, get water in there via condensation etc etc...
It might be fine, I don't know, I'm not an engineer, nor are the people at BMW service
Dave
The 2 year time frame is rather arbitrary.
It doesn't say 2 years from when it was built: it says 2 years from when you purchase it. But your purchase date might be 6 months or 9 months after the build date, depending on how long the dealer takes to sell it ... so now we are up to 2 years and 9 months ... all under official BMW recommendations. Do you think something goes 'clankety clank' just as your car turns 2? Such a nice round number.
It doesn't say 2 years from when it was built: it says 2 years from when you purchase it. But your purchase date might be 6 months or 9 months after the build date, depending on how long the dealer takes to sell it ... so now we are up to 2 years and 9 months ... all under official BMW recommendations. Do you think something goes 'clankety clank' just as your car turns 2? Such a nice round number.
The 2 year time frame probably comes from the oil manufacturer/provider...
I'm easy either way. If you can get it for a cheap enough value to put your mind at rest to cover possible issues later on, then fine
If not, then avoid it.
Also consider that come resale, a great deal of your potential buyers will be doing what you are now, worrying about it.
Dave
I'm easy either way. If you can get it for a cheap enough value to put your mind at rest to cover possible issues later on, then fine
If not, then avoid it.
Also consider that come resale, a great deal of your potential buyers will be doing what you are now, worrying about it.
Dave
Mr Whippy said:
Come re-sale? If you think you can protect your re-sale value by having a perfect service book, you are sadly mistaken. In 3 or 4 years time ... the value will probably be half of what it is now ... and there is nothing you can do to stop that ... just the march of time. The roadsters will keep on falling, and the coupés might stabilise at some point, and maybe even start increasing because there are so few of them (coupes are about 10 times rarer than the roadsters).
Having low kms and a perfect service book might make it easier to sell ... but sadly it doesn't affect the price you get very much. On the scale of importance, a late time service will be a total non-issue -- most people will be more concerned about any bird guano on the bonnet.
PetKiller said:
X2
Mr Whippy said:
Ha. I think if the car and price are right then buying like this isn't an issue as the lower purchase price will be passed on. But yes, someone somewhere has to lose the money so don't be the one to stop the servicing routine!
Dave, I don't think you could bring yourself to not service the car even if you wanted too :wink:
Liverpool
Of course the 2 year time frame is arbitrary, but it's a time frame that you have to accept if you want to maintain a full service history.krusty said:
There's no proof that not doing more than 15,000 miles between an oil service/inspection as per the service indicator will instantly cause your car to blow up either, but I bet you'd be more cautious buying a car that had not been serviced every 15,000 miles.
PawnSacrifice said:
Exactly.
The balance of risk is why values drop if the servicing isn't perfect. It aims to cover the difference if something does go wrong.
It's the same with a CAT D car, or CAT C. Technically it's no worse than a good original car, but the stigma will always be with the car, making it harder to sell and always worth a proportion less vs a clean model.
I looked at a Z4 in exactly this situation. It had gone almost 3yrs and 5,000 miles iirc. It was the bosses wife's car. Even BMW, when asked, said it was ok till the mileage ticked over to 30,000 miles for it's INSP 1... madness imo. If a book states 2yrs/15k miles, it's really mental to assume it doesn't count because it's synthetic oil... as if BMW didn't spot that when writing the servicing schedule...
Dave
4 pages and 54 posts on the subject later, did you buy the bloody car after all?? 
There is a real design mistake here in the way BMW display that it is time for a service.
* If you have exceeded the km limit: the display is clear. No problem
* But if you have only done say 10,000km after 2 years, but the 2 years has passed, the display still shows that you have 14,000km left until service ... and it puts up a tiny clock (which is meant to mean that it is due for a service based on time ... but it could mean anything). What you do notice when you switch on the car is the 14,000km left ... and that figure is just misleading ... If it is time for a service, then it should show 0 ... "Service now" ... not 14,000km left.
Bad user-interface design.
* If you have exceeded the km limit: the display is clear. No problem
* But if you have only done say 10,000km after 2 years, but the 2 years has passed, the display still shows that you have 14,000km left until service ... and it puts up a tiny clock (which is meant to mean that it is due for a service based on time ... but it could mean anything). What you do notice when you switch on the car is the 14,000km left ... and that figure is just misleading ... If it is time for a service, then it should show 0 ... "Service now" ... not 14,000km left.
Bad user-interface design.
powerontap said:4 pages and 54 posts on the subject later, did you buy the bloody car after all??
nah mate, the price of these things is going to plummet in the next 6 months, so I think I'm going to sit tight till then.
Regarding the oil issue, however, I'm still undecided as to whether or not its a deal breaker. The thing is, every single low mileage car I come across has the same issue - not serviced for 3+ years. Unbelievable.
cooots said:
That's quite interesting. I had a titanium silver Z4 C (in Sydney)... with very low km's ... about 9,000km after 3 years ... It got its first service just before 3 years (before warranty expired - lol). Alas, one year later, someone went through a red light, smashed the front of me ... and although I could have repaired it, I decided to start from fresh ... which meant finding another low km version ... which was really really difficult. To most people, 13000km or 25000km doesn't make difference (1 year of travel) ... but for me, it is like losing 3 years.
Last month ... found one with 13,000km on the clock ... it also had its first service just before 3 years (in fact, 2 years 7 months after delivery ... or about 3 years and 3 months if you measure from build date). I paid much more than redbook for it ...but redbook works on the average car with 40,000 to 70,000km on the clock ... and that's not what I was looking for ... if I didn't buy it, and someone else snapped it up, I was stuck. Totally stuck. I didn't want any other car/brand. It was the only car available in Australia with low kms like my original. I even looked in NZ and the UK -- basically nothing available in low kms.
So what you say is true .... all the low km versions seem to get serviced after 3 years
It's because of the BMW display system..
