I'm always looking for a "gotcha" as a price negotiation tactic.
The i3 I'm looking at is at a "chain store" BMW dealership that does fixed pricing / no negotiation, somewhat like the Car Max or Auto Nation model. Of course, everything is negotiable.
This particular car is loaded lease return, 20K miles on it, but upon return at a different local BMW dealership, it was sent to auction. I hold that dealership in higher regard and as a little more reputable, only because it's a smaller, non-affiliated dealership.
The only potential item of concern I can come up with is that the car was leased in September of 2017, and didn't log a dealership service visit until August of 2019, when it was turned in. I believe that BMW requires their CPOs to have all services on record, and this car seems to have missed its 12 month service.
So I verified with the current dealership that they're offering this as a BMW CPO, not an in-house warranty. But on the CPO checklist, where there's a section for notating previous services, it's been left blank.
I did talk to a random salesman at the originating dealership, and he speculated that the i3 is a low margin car, and told me, "we would rather just return them to BMW." He said the car is probably fine -- just buy it! But looking at his website, they're offering a handful of i3 cars for sale, and none are as well-equipped as this one. I'm puzzled.
Also, there's a dime-sized gouge in the passenger side door that I pointed out and they're willing to repair, and the rear tires are down to 3mm according to their CPO inspection checklist, and are marked as "OK." The fronts were measured at 2mm, notated "BELOW," and must have been replaced.
Their asking price is actually reasonable, but part of me is being cautious about buying a potential problem, and the other part of me thinks there's $2k in there that I can knock off.
The i3 I'm looking at is at a "chain store" BMW dealership that does fixed pricing / no negotiation, somewhat like the Car Max or Auto Nation model. Of course, everything is negotiable.
This particular car is loaded lease return, 20K miles on it, but upon return at a different local BMW dealership, it was sent to auction. I hold that dealership in higher regard and as a little more reputable, only because it's a smaller, non-affiliated dealership.
The only potential item of concern I can come up with is that the car was leased in September of 2017, and didn't log a dealership service visit until August of 2019, when it was turned in. I believe that BMW requires their CPOs to have all services on record, and this car seems to have missed its 12 month service.
So I verified with the current dealership that they're offering this as a BMW CPO, not an in-house warranty. But on the CPO checklist, where there's a section for notating previous services, it's been left blank.
I did talk to a random salesman at the originating dealership, and he speculated that the i3 is a low margin car, and told me, "we would rather just return them to BMW." He said the car is probably fine -- just buy it! But looking at his website, they're offering a handful of i3 cars for sale, and none are as well-equipped as this one. I'm puzzled.
Also, there's a dime-sized gouge in the passenger side door that I pointed out and they're willing to repair, and the rear tires are down to 3mm according to their CPO inspection checklist, and are marked as "OK." The fronts were measured at 2mm, notated "BELOW," and must have been replaced.
Their asking price is actually reasonable, but part of me is being cautious about buying a potential problem, and the other part of me thinks there's $2k in there that I can knock off.
