Kind of new here. Am considering a 2014 and 2015 X5. Have always bought CPO and intend to this time. I have always had good luck with three year old, off-lease and CPO'd, so I have learned over time. What is throwing me a curve is the pricing for these three year old cars. If I consider that a nicely equipped 2014 x5 original MSRP was in the neighborhood of $68K and the residual at that time was right at 60%, this puts the car price at return date of $40,800 residual value, yet most if not all of the ones I find are priced from $43,000 at the low point to upwards of $46K. Most of the time the dealer buys the off-lease car from BMW financial at a price well below residual (my experience has been $4K-$6K below residual) which means that on average they are $10K or more spread between asking and own price. I spend a lot of time finding just the right car and always recognize that the dealer has to make a profit, but what has been your experience on negotiating price from these inflated prices?

BTW-I know that they say they put between $2K-$3K into these cars to CPO them, but from real experience I can tell you that they are beginning to squeeze their minimum standards very tight. I always ask for the actual mechanics paperwork that did the CPO inspections so that I can see what the tread wear is on the tires, what's left of the brake pads, did the AC reach acceptable cooling levels, etc. and have found that even if a tire is one mm within range, they don't change them. Same with brakes. So many people assume that they put new brake pads on automatically and they don't. I have also seen very low mileage CPO's that needed nothing, yet they tagged the extra CPO charges onto the price.

SO, anyone willing to share their negotiating experience working from the asking price of these cars? Thanks in advance.