2011 B7 Alpina

[eighball2958]

Please excuse the naivete. I haven't been in the market for a used BMW for very long. I've found myself seriously considering one of these, and wondering why I keep bumping into examples of B7s from around 2011, with fairly low mileage (<40k), seem to be in excellent condition, and offered for what looks like a reasonable price? Anyone shopping for a car these days knows that combination of factors alone makes it a unicorn, and therefore has me skeptical of it crossing into "too good to be true" territory.

I've seen it enough times now though to wonder if these cars are just old enough now to have depreciated that much, are just horribly expensive to own & maintain, and folks are ditching it before major work is required..or there's some other reason I don't ever see Alpina B7s from this period with 90k+ for sale? . I'm aware that a car like this will of course be more expensive to own than a much newer, more practical vehicle like a Toyota Camry, but I don't have to explain why my interest leans toward the B7 in that comparison. Anyway, I of course plan on adding a bumper-to-bumper warranty, but assuming that makes sense economically, am I missing something here? Anyone able to educate me some on this market, and if for some reason this model is truly immune to the insanity affecting other used cars these days?

Thanks in advance for any insights.

[toomann]

I just purchased a 2013 750li Xdrive and did a lot of searching. Like you I came across more than a few Alpina B7's for sale. What I found was most were not B7's but a regular 7 with a few Alpina bits installed, so you need to do your research and be positive it's actually a B7. Next, the 2009-2012 turbo charged engine of that era had a lot of reliability problems. Cooling was one of the biggest. The turbos sit in the valley between the heads and get very hot. The coolant line that feed the turbo's have a habit of leaking because of BMW's use of plastic connectors. The newer design of that engine released in 2013 has improved on this problem. There are others but I suspect the answer to your question is a combination of both. The car is either not a legitimate B7 or it has engine problems above what the owner is willing to put out the money to fix. The cooling system problems alone can easily set you back many thousands of dollars unless you do the work yourself.