Extended Warranty on Prior Rental Car

[mythicsnarf]

I have a 2014 328i that is a few hundred miles away from running out of its 50k warranty. I searched the forums and saw a lot of questions about this with varying answers .. my reason for asking separately is I know for a fact this car was a rental in Chicago prior to me purchasing it. I guess I am just a little paranoid that people put regular fuel in it and shoddy maintenance was done and I'm in for a lot of surprises over the next couple of years.

Since I bought the car March of last year, I've put a little over 8000 miles on it so I would imagine ~7000 a year is a pretty reasonable estimate of how much I'll drive it per year. I have identified a local mechanic that works exclusively on german cars that I feel I can trust.

So given this information ... do you all think that it makes sense for me to buy the extended warranty for the car or take my chances?

[Pelican Parts]

In my opinion, it really depends how long you're going to be keeping the car for. If this is a long term investment, then I would definitely get the warranty and address any issues early on. I agree with you that since it was a rental car, it may have been 'abused' a bit more than another pre-owned car. Was it just a rental or a loaner car from a dealership? If from a dealership, I would feel a bit better knowing that it was at least serviced by a BMW tech. Just my 2 cents...Best of luck!

[tex2670]

I have a 2014 328i that is a few hundred miles away from running out of its 50k warranty. I searched the forums and saw a lot of questions about this with varying answers .. my reason for asking separately is I know for a fact this car was a rental in Chicago prior to me purchasing it. I guess I am just a little paranoid that people put regular fuel in it and shoddy maintenance was done and I'm in for a lot of surprises over the next couple of years.

Since I bought the car March of last year, I've put a little over 8000 miles on it so I would imagine ~7000 a year is a pretty reasonable estimate of how much I'll drive it per year. I have identified a local mechanic that works exclusively on german cars that I feel I can trust.

So given this information ... do you all think that it makes sense for me to buy the extended warranty for the car or take my chances?

A rental or a loaner? If this was a commercial rental at a Hertz or an Avis, I can't imagine you could get a regular extended warranty. If it was a dealer loaner, dealers usually only keep them in the loaner fleet 5,000 or maybe 10,000 miles. I bought a CPO former loaner; I've had virtually no problems for the past 26,000 mi.

[mythicsnarf]

A rental or a loaner? If this was a commercial rental at a Hertz or an Avis, I can't imagine you could get a regular extended warranty. If it was a dealer loaner, dealers usually only keep them in the loaner fleet 5,000 or maybe 10,000 miles. I bought a CPO former loaner; I've had virtually no problems for the past 26,000 mi.

I bought it from a non-bmw dealer with 41k miles on it. My local BMW dealership couldn't find any maintenance records for it, so they thought it was a commercial rental. However, they did offer to extend the warranty for me ... so I guess that's a bit confusing given your comments.

I could go back to where I bought it and ask for another copy of the carfax on it. I didn't keep it after I bought it.

[Pelican Parts]

I would definitely grab the carfax; you'll get a much better sense of what was replaced and the intervals.

[marvinstockman]

Unless you were going straight up the Rocky Mountains, towing a trailer, and standing on the accelerator, regular gas shouldn't be a problem. Most of the time, the car rental companies do their own maintenance, which doesn't show up on the Carfax. They also know that if they don't play by the rules, they won't be able to sell their cars at the auction.

Whether you buy a warranty or not, make sure you buy a BMW warranty, and remember to shop around. If you live in CA, you can buy one in NYC!