I went to some shady car dealers for fun today to look and hopefully get a cheap deal on an E38 or E39 and was unpleasantly surprised at the prices this guy wanted.
He wanted 15k for a Red 740i Sport package & one of the sun shades was completely broken off, and needed new side mirrors, it was a texas car & had like 100k miles, but even still I think it's barely worth even 8k. "Also said only around 50 were imported to the USA" I'm almost positive that is BS, right? I know that the red is rare since you had to buy sport package with it, but I mean I thought I read that they made like 2,000 or so of these ones?
Also wanted 7k for a silver 530i w/ sport & sunshades, but it had awful tints & needed some work for sure w/ around 130k miles.
It's like these people don't even want to sell the cars on their lot.
The e38 imola red, even in pristine condition is about $8k
An e39 530 with 130k is about $3.5k in excellent condition
Those are CA prices, generally higher than most other areas of the country. I usually look at KBB pricing and start from there when negotiating. There are some specialty cars, like the imola and DINAN that separate themselves from the crowd, but still you cannot go too far. These cars are not rare yet. You can find imola reds for about $6k in decent condition anywhere in the country, have it shipped to you for $800, spend $2-3 in fixing up minor problems, and you can have your pristine imola.
02 e39 540i Sport (Son), 01 DINAN 7 (Me), 12 e70 X5 x35i (Mrs), 95 e34 525i (Daughter 2), 01 e46 325Ci vert (Daughter 1)
Yup, also pretty funny that after the guy said 7k for the 530, we left and we we're like well guess we're back to Craigslist and then we saw the same fricken 530i on there for $4950 and the dude was willing to do $4,500 even. Like wtf.
Sadly I didn't find the Imola red 740i sport on Craigslist as that car looks so nice.
Hard to find a good, Honest car dealer anymore; it's already a given you're going to pay through the nose when buying from one. Sorry dealers, I'm not the one that has trashed your reputation.
- - - Updated - - -
Anything is worth the asking price, if you can find a person willing to pay it. They're out there, but thankfully harder to find.
Prisine would be higher, but I agree with this. But not just in California.
KBB is crap for '01 Sports, at half the actual transaction prices in the real world.Those are CA prices, generally higher than most other areas of the country. I usually look at KBB pricing and start from there when negotiating. There are some specialty cars, like the imola and DINAN that separate themselves from the crowd, but still you cannot go too far. These cars are not rare yet. You can find imola reds for about $6k in decent condition anywhere in the country, have it shipped to you for $800, spend $2-3 in fixing up minor problems, and you can have your pristine imola.
Here are 3 Imolas near me, the first being a really good deal on one with a lot of work done.
Imola everywhere:
https://annapolis.craigslist.org/cto...590342442.html
And these two are back on there:
https://newyork.craigslist.org/stn/c...588333388.html
https://newyork.craigslist.org/lgi/c...582876381.html
But my own Anthracite one I wouldn't let go for under $7k and it has almost 180k miles on it (but again, it had a lot of work done to it when I bought it). Anyone starting with KBB can pound sand as far as I'm concerned. The '01 Sports are definitely classics that can still get a lot of compliments and people longing for those days of BMW design. $15k is high for one with broken bits, but I've seen quite nice ones going for $10-12k all day long. And at 17 years old now, they've hit the bottom of their depreciation curve and are starting to go back up for clean examples with all services done.
Bookmarks