I am thinking of the above trade-in. My M5 has 76,000 miles and is in excellent condition. What is it really worth? And what kind of discount should I expect from dealer on new car. Is it worth selling M5 privately? It would cost me about $1,000 in additional taxes if i do so. Thanks for input
A few things to consider Nearly any M-car is going to be much more expensive to maintain than its garden-variety non-M counterparts. Servicing these rare and specialized cars often requires special skills and tools from service centers maintaining these cars. $4,500 to $6,000 just on Inspection II maintenance is neither unreasonable nor unheard of. For this reason, a prospective M-buyer paying top dollar for an M-car is almost certainly going to insist on seeing completely up to date service documentation and records, all keys, original brochures and manuals, as well as all accessories. Hope you're prepared for requests to see those. The classified section of the Roundel is a good place to look for a ballpark figure, assuming your car is comparable to the ones listed. kbb.com (Kelly Blue Book) and edmunds.com (Edmund's) are also places to look for when calculating a car's' private resale value. There is a $1,000 Membership Reward on the 5-series, but other than that, I'm not aware of any specific incentives on BMW's. Premium European manufacturers such as Mercedes and BMW's tend to not participate in the incentives game, and certainly nowhere near that American and Japanese automakers do. Incentives are even less likely on a 2011 5-series, considering that BMW has already completely sold out of the VERY popular new-for-2010 model and is now taking orders for 2011 models. It's nearly always more difficult to get incentives on a new model, particularly one as popular as the F10 has been for BMW. But all is not lost. On the BMWUSA website, there is a link on the bottom center for getting an internet quote. I doubt it's going to be the fire-sale price you were hoping for, but it's probably still going to be a better deal than paying MSRP and the second "dealer-ripoff" sticker (you know, that second sticker that wants to charge you extra $$ for the rustproofing the car came with from the factory). Good luck!
I wouldn't call the F10 popular as described. BMW "sold out" to their dealers, but there is a large supply of cars in dealer's hands, and deals are easily made at least at my two local dealers. There isn't some mad rush to buy these cars as some think. Secondly, doing an Insp I or II on an E39 M5 isn't ANYWHERE near that expensive, and in fact is only slightly more expensive than same on a 540i (i.e. two air filters instead of one, spark plugs changed at Insp II rather than 100k miles). I can do an Insp I on an E39 M5 in less than an hour (there really isn't much involved), so even though I've never worked on cars for a living, if you can send me idiots, er people, that will pay $4500 for an Insp I, I will only charge them $4000 and make them happy. (all this said from the standpoint of owning an E39 M5 now for many years, up to 56k miles now, much more reliable car than some think). OP: It all depends on the condition of your car. If the car has always been garaged, has had anything it ever needed fixed, has had intra-interval oil changes (i.e. ~7500miles), etc, then it probably makes sense to sell it yourself. With that mileage, a 2001 M5 will have a market value somewhere between $18k on the low end to as much as $23-24k or so on the high end for a primo car (i.e. everything works, new thrust bushings, new MAFs, new fuel filter, always garaged day and night, never driven in bad weather, pristine paint condition, etc). A dealer won't value a primo car hardly anymore than a daily beater version, so if the car is average at best, then checking on trade-in values likely makes sense. Check out the M5board.com site.
Thanks for feedback Sold my car privately for $20k. It was in primo state and I am sure that the buyer (a very nice guy) will take good care of my baby. Just picked up the new 550ix. Whew....it's a totally different car. Using a sports analogy, if my summer car (a 997 c4s) is lithe like a dancer, my M5 was athletic like a soccer player and the new 550ix is brawny like a football tackle. But more luxurious and certainly more intelligent!
