Hi all,

I just came back from an auction preview and would appreciate some much needed feedback. I saw 2 06 M5's with around 10K miles with a lemon law buy back warning. Is this something you guys would avoid like the plauge? I currently have a 95 M3 and looking for a 4 door replacement. I was told by a rep that it had transmission issues that was fixed by BMW.

Would BMW still provide the "free" 4 year service with a lemon law buy back? He also mentioned what do you guys think is the fair value of a lemon law vehicle?

Thanks
Jerome

So you would buy something that BMW and the law has already determined is a certified POS? If the price is right and you have money to burn, go for it, just don't think you're gonna drive off into the sunset with 500 horses that easy. As long as you know that there is a good chance that you'll have to spend some big bucks on an already big buck car, do it.

Call BMW North America and ask them what they will do...better yet, get it in writing. It is really up to you on this one though. It is a risk but if the price is right it could be worthwhile.

As long as the flaw has been repaired, i say go for it.

The real question is whether or not bmw still warrantee's vehicles that they consider to be a lemon.

The new owner could have been REALLY picky and pushed the law on it.

Call BMW North America and ask them what they will do...better yet, get it in writing. It is really up to you on this one though. It is a risk but if the price is right it could be worthwhile.

-That and whatever you do, keep it stock. That way if the transmission gets fucked up and they don't follow through with anything they said they were going to do, and you decide to sue, they won't be able to say that you modified the car in some way to mess up the way it's supposed to be/operate. Now i probably shouldn't be posting in a thread where I have no idea what i'm talking about because I have never heard anything about a lemon law before but I do know the judicial system well and can see this going to court so I will tell you, if you can handle it...(I couldn't:eyecrazy ) keep the vehicle completely stock. All the way down to the tires. Are they having problems with a manual trannys? I know that that's reletivly new so that could be it. My final advice is if you can pick up a new one, not a lemon, for ~80k and you can get this sour one for 50k and say you need to replace the whole tranny and componets, I wouldn't think it would cost 30k to replace, I guess it would be worth it right?:buttrock -mike

I would call BMW NA directly to inquire what are the consquenence of lemon car. I think with a 2006 the owner obiviously pull the trigger on that one. The owner probably purchased and started having problems with the SMG tranny, and most likely didn't wait the suggested break-in period which totally screwed up the tranny. Nevertheless, I sure the owner was high profile client who pushed their local dealer against the wall on this one. Due to the price, and relative new technology that came with the m5 they probably weren't able to straighten out all the bugs for this person, and decided it was best to give him another one and write the loss off to avoid further litigation. They probably were able to clear out the all the bugs, but owner probably refuse to car and wanted a new one. Just be careful my friend. My good freind of mine purchase a Mercedes sl500 that was lemon law for dirt cheap, however mercedes only provided a warranty for electrics, no power-tran or drive tran-so with a rare {for which most mechanics will have no are very small knowledge of how to repair} and super expensive car with no warranty you will be looking at a depleted checking account in a matter of months. You have been warned my freind. Good luck

it was a freakin lemon from the get go ! Walk away !

It takes a lot to give a car back under the lemon law. Doubt it had minor issues. I'd heed the advice "if it sound too good to be true, it probably is." Unless your a great wrench, stay away.

As long as the flaw has been repaired, i say go for it.

The real question is whether or not bmw still warrantee's vehicles that they consider to be a lemon.

The new owner could have been REALLY picky and pushed the law on it.

Call BMW North America and ask them what they will do...better yet, get it in writing. It is really up to you on this one though. It is a risk but if the price is right it could be worthwhile.

I would call BMW NA directly to inquire what are the consquenence of lemon car. I think with a 2006 the owner obiviously pull the trigger on that one. The owner probably purchased and started having problems with the SMG tranny, and most likely didn't wait the suggested break-in period which totally screwed up the tranny. Nevertheless, I sure the owner was high profile client who pushed their local dealer against the wall on this one. Due to the price, and relative new technology that came with the m5 they probably weren't able to straighten out all the bugs for this person, and decided it was best to give him another one and write the loss off to avoid further litigation. They probably were able to clear out the all the bugs, but owner probably refuse to car and wanted a new one. Just be careful my friend. My good freind of mine purchase a Mercedes sl500 that was lemon law for dirt cheap, however mercedes only provided a warranty for electrics, no power-tran or drive tran-so with a rare {for which most mechanics will have no are very small knowledge of how to repair} and super expensive car with no warranty you will be looking at a depleted checking account in a matter of months. You have been warned my freind. Good luck

+1 on the above, especially the highlighted parts.

Dealers sometimes take cars back for minor problems to keep a high value customer happy as opposed to badmouthing them and BMW in the Country Club locker room.

You will have NO RESALE VALUE with this car, rare as it is. There will always be another one for sale somewhere in the country that isn't a Lemon buyback and people will ship a car like this 2000 miles before they buy a lemon.

It's possible the car is fine and maybe you can get it cheap. IF you plan to keep it until the warranty is up and IF BMW will honor the warranty (maybe even give you an extended warranty?), it MAY be worth it. Then again, even with a warranty, it may spend too much time in the dealership to be worth the trouble. You will not be greeted well in the service department once they learn that it is a lemon buyback, and every successive trip will be more and more troublesome.

I'd try to talk to the dealer who sold it, and the previous owner to get both sides of the issue. That's not going to be easy, but if you can inspect the books that come with the car, they often have the dealer and buyers' names.

Tough call, but if you can get assurances from BMW that they will honor the warranty, or even extend it AND satisfy yourself that the problem is either fixed or liveable, it may be worth 25% of retail price.

Good luck. Hope this helps.

I can give a little input on this.....

The dealer may not have had a choice on taking the car back. I've seen a car (Porsche) go back for problems with the navigation system and they tried a number of times to get it fixed. After I think the third time the owner started the process of returning the car under the lemon law. When everything was done it was determined it was a bad disk...... I wouldn't be afraid of owning that car. I would however be afraid of resale of said car in the future, simply because it had a sketchy past. If you were looking to keep the car for a very long time then the reduced value shouldn't be that big a deal. But it will be worth less when you go to sell it, just as it's worth less now when you buy it.

Not all dealer buy backs are big issues.

Does it have a branded title?

Also, I doubt this car is running "open" those are usually closed units offered to franchise BMW dealers only.

Figure a 30% hit.

Thanks for the inputs guys. 3 local BMW dealers outbidded each other until the $45 K mark last wednesday. I was hoping that the car would sell for around $30K. I also lost on a bid for 06 M3 Convertible (20,000 miles). The end price was $35K and my max bid was $34K. The auction was only open to licensed dealer agents.

I called BMW NA and asked about lemon buy back warranty but the agent could not give me a definite answer. My agent told me that the BMW dealers hogged all the leased BMW return vehicles. He did not stand a chance because of the dealers unlimited capital!!!

regards
Jerome

As long as the flaw has been repaired, i say go for it.
Easier said than done. The dealer probably claimed "the flaw has been repaired" every last time the first owner took it in to be fixed...and that was obviously wrong since it kept having ot go back.

I would however be afraid of resale of said car in the future, simply because it had a sketchy past. If you were looking to keep the car for a very long time then the reduced value shouldn't be that big a deal. But it will be worth less when you go to sell it, just as it's worth less now when you buy it.
I agree. It's important to know what issue brought it back to the shop over and over. I'd call my dealer and have them run the VIN to see if they could pull up the service history.

As far as resell though, if you keep a car for 5+ years, then the lemon thing is going to be a very minor issue when you sell. I mean if one person could own it for that much time, a persepective buyer can be more sure that the problem was finally fixed.