Is Certified Pre-Owned the way to go?

CPO is the way to go when buying BMW for the long term.

CPO with an extended warranty for either BMW or MB, I wouldn't consider a used one otherwise.

+1 or get ready for large repair bills if something goes wrong.. Had a minor fender bender in mine and the passenger side headlight assembly was $1,200 for the parts alone..

That said, I've been driving BMW for over 10 years and am very pleased with the quality, although I tend to trade in around 50,000 miles so cannot speak for the used ones.. If it were me, I'd do CPO all the way..

+ CPO

Needed a new transmission at 98000. miles on a 3 series. Cost me 50.00 to cover the deductible. A no-brainer.

a few years ago i bought a 2001 MBZ E320, got it CPO and with extended warranty. i would highly recommend it. i've paid very little for repairs and it still runs extremely well just shy of 100k.

CPO is nationwide at all authorized dealerships and the best route to go with owning any used car.

Six year CPO with BMW begins at the in service date for the car, not the sales date and stays with the car regardless of locale and transfers with ownership.

+1 on CPO

I have nothing but good things to say about my BMW. However, when something does need to be repaired, it is very costly. Any savings from buying a non-CPO luxury car will be quickly eaten up by a single repair not covered by the warranty.

I'm going to disagree with essentially everyone in this thread, but I think CPO is a joke.

The reason you see so many attractive leases on BMWs and Mercedes Benzes (and other luxury lines) is that they take these things back with moderate mileage (30-40k), they do absolutely nothing to them besides a quick detail, and then sell them again at 80% (or more) of retail, having already collected 40% of the car's value from the lease payments. You don't necessarily get the full warranty, and there's not any guarantee that the car hasn't been in an accident. CPO is a huge money-maker for dealers... which is reason enough to see why it isn't a great deal for customers.

This thread is relevant to my interests.


This makes sense, but it still seems like a reasonable way to go about leasing one of these cars. Your other options are non-CPO used vehicles, or new. I would assume the former is significantly riskier, and the former is a lot more money. Would you agree?

Not sure if Douglas agrees, but I agree. It's all about risk, and whether or not the risk you avoid with the CPO car makes up for the higher margin relative to the non-CPO car. The fact that the dealer makes money on a CPO car means nothing to me, since they make money on their new cars as well, as they should, they aren't in this for charity or benevolence. Look at a comparable, non-CPO car and see what the price differential is. If it's significant, and you have the cash, buy the non-CPO and sock the difference away in a CD. If you ever need to make repairs, you'll have the cash available to do so, and if the dealer prices the CPO car right, you should be better off 9 times out of 10, buying the non-CPO car. However, this is where risk comes in. Are you willing to risk that your car is the one in 10 where the dealer would lose money on the CPO car, meaning you will pay more than you socked away?

Obviously, yes, this is all about risk. But I'm just not convinced that the deal you get from a CPO program is all that safe. I haven't looked at what's on offer lately, but it always seemed to me that you ended up with only a mildly extended warranty (~1 year) unless you paid for more, which brought the relative pricing even closer. I wasn't so sure, last I looked at it, that you wouldn't be better off in a private sale with a 1-owner car that you really took a close look at. And there are aftermarket extended warranties you can buy, too, to mitigate your risks.

I chose to lease my car (BMW 3-series coupe) with the intention of buying it. Because they were running a lease promotion, I pay 40% of the value of the vehicle at 0 interest, and when my lease term is up (end of this year) I've got plenty socked away in the meantime to buy the car out. In the meantime, I've coasted 3 years without any paying any maintenance costs, and I could even finance the rest of it, albeit probably not at some 2.9%ish teaser rate like I might have been able to otherwise.

I guess I just haven't felt like, at the price delta between new and CPO, that the dealer was accepting enough risk for my tastes, but that's a decision you have to make on your own, I guess. I'm a bit colored by the fact that my GF bought a CPO Volvo that hasn't run right since day 1 and between her not getting shitty enough and the dealer being a scumbag, she's gotten royally screwed, having paid 80% of retail for a car nobody in their right mind will ever buy because the suspension and steering are fucked.