Trade in's at BMW

I traded my 325Ci sport in for a 2.5 se just before Christmas - i usually try to sell privately, but just made speculative call to a BMW dealer - held out for a long time though and after about 5 calls from him we eventually agreed on a deal. Agree about the ''we buy any car'' lot - they must have a right old laugh :rofl:
 
Why should you get the same from a dealer as you'd get privately?. Surely there is going to be a cost for the sheer convenience of trading in.Lots of people don't want the hassle of getting idiots coming round the house to view with all the inherant risks involved etc, so they'll spend a bit more and trade in.Drive in , drive out transaction.
 
So do the dealerships tend to go by Glass's guide? I put my details into the link on the first page and it came out at just over £16K. Is this a fair price for the following spec Z4:

- 2008 (08) 2.0i Sport
- 1 previous owner (the BMW dealership)
- Montego blue
- Pearl grey oregon leather
- 8,000 miles
- MFSW
- Ipod interface
- Heated seats
- Park distance control

Any advice greatly appreciated :thumbsup:

Scott
 
Cap and Glasses have a retail value - what you'll pay at a dealer for a car and a trade price. The trade price is also given as Good, average, poor. Most dealers will use Average unless the car is particularly poor. The retail price you'd pay privately is somewhere between the 2, not close to my glass's guide at the moment, but check to see if £16k is the trade or retail value, sounds to me like the trade value
 
BMW trade in is a joke. I am coming to the end of my finance deal and was considering trading in my Z4 against a 1 series - pretty gutting I know but it is my wife's daily car and my weekend toy. My car is an immaculate BMW Z4 3.0 Si Sports Coupe, Dec 2006, 19.5k miles pretty much all extras bar the Sat Nav and upgraded stereo. I really dont want to sell the car to be honest but in reality it is not a great run around for my wife and the newborn but have to say I was even more gutted when they told me the car was worth £12.5k!!!!! The select finance deal has £13.5k left on it so they are saying that I should feel very happy that I have gone down that route otherwise I would be short £1k!!!!!!!. I nearly laughed out loud and basically told them that I was never ever letting them take that car for so little and that one of the reasons I have had 5 BMW's in a row was due to their residual value! I told them that basically they are telling their customers that their cars are going to be worth Jack in a few years time and that it is all down to the recession and that their previous settlement figures were too high. I then told the dealer I was going to Audi as it was quite clear either their residuals are much better or their discounts on sale were bigger. Naturally he told me that BMW residuals were the highest in their class and that I was right and Audi are giving bigger discounts - not sure he really had any other option other than saying that!!

£12.5 K - Aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I reckon I am going to advertise it a £16,995 and reckon it is ok value at that.
 
Part-exchange Price:
Excellent condition: £17200
Average condition: £15300
Below average condition: £13600

They are definitely taking the wee wee. What were you expecting, £15/16k?
 
3.0 Si Anderson said:
The select finance deal has £13.5k left on it so they are saying that I should feel very happy that I have gone down that route otherwise I would be short £1k!!!!!!!. I nearly laughed out loud and basically told them that I was never ever letting them take that car for so little and that one of the reasons I have had 5 BMW's in a row was due to their residual value!

Although all cars have been hit hard depreciation wise thanks to the recession - residuals on everything have performed much more poorly than expected - Glasses does suggest they are offering you lower than even 'bottom book' for your car. I would always go in armed with this information so when they try the 'that's all it's worth' line you can fight back. I've had something similar / worse before!

06 '56' 3.0Si Coupe & 20,000 miles

Part-exchange Price:
Excellent condition: £17200
Average condition: £15300
Below average condition: £13600

I don't think a dealer shouldn't make a profit on a deal, but I do think the above is a perfect example of when they are just being bloody rude.

EDIT: beaten to Glasses :)
 
Yep rude was about the best way to describe it and to be honest my response last time I spoke to them was to let rip a bit telling them that I was pretty unhappy about the whole thing. The one thing that it made me question was that under the select finance they had given me a guaranteed future value on the car of £13.6k with 36k miles on it. When I took the car to them it had about 19k miles and they said it was worth less but the guaranteed value bit meant it was ok and I was lucky and blah blah all the rest....... But when I questioned them on what the future value "actually" was, I came away feeling that in the end of the day to them (BMW), it is actually the future value of the car based on what they want that future value to be and has very little bearing on what the "real or actual" value of the car is (hope that all makes sense). It does not take into consideration anything like Glasses guide etc.... and they can in essence make it up as they go along and as the customer there is no right of redress nor any independent review. I certainly will not be using that method of finance again as I feel that they to an extent (and all within the legal boundarys no doubt) happily mislead people into believing that there may be equity in your car.

In my own case with the car being pretty much immaculate and with 17K fewer miles on the clock than they had allowed for and given AUC prices etc I was hoping for somewhere in the region of 16 - 16.5k and a bit of a deal on a replacement car otherwise I would have pushed for 17k. Not sure I got either really (good trade in def no and the deal for the new car didnt exactly make up for a crap trade in offer) and they never even had the decency to e-mail me the package and offer I had inquired about on the 1 series. Clearly their business is booming at the moment and I will happily not darken their doors again. :thumbsdown:
 
My BMW dealer bought my Z4 bang on book price by the look of it. However it was really well spec'ed and a good colour and they knew the car really well (mostly because they had to keep fixing the !£"£"! thing). Still miss it a bit
 
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