2 out of the 3 BMWs I currently own have gone up in value since I’ve bought them, and maintenance has not been the nightmare that others here claim.bubbadog wrote: ↑Wed May 19, 2021 4:47 pmI suspect the BMW or Audi would have depreciated even more.Afty wrote: ↑Wed May 19, 2021 2:32 pm I did the classic thing of buying an entry lux car immediately after finishing grad school. What I did right was that I bought a 3-year old off lease one with a great track record for reliability (an Infiniti G35). I kept if for 8 years and replaced it with a Tesla Model 3. I don’t think buying something cheaper would have made any meaningful difference in our finances.
I do wish I had considered resale value more seriously. My Infiniti depreciated pretty badly, so I might have been better off had I bought a BMW or Audi instead even at a higher initial purchase price.
The key with BMW is that you get them cheap used because they have a reputation for “poor reliability”. Well the truth is that some of their models/engines have extremely poor reliability (v8, turbo 4) but other models/engines have way above average reliability (inline 6 except the n54)
Because many people just hear the horror stories, the resale value of all BMWs is poor, including the good ones which don’t deserve to be.
Take advantage of this, get one of the better models for reliability at bargain basement prices and you’ll drive a more fun, more comfortable, and nearly as reliable car vs a Camry or accord.
My 23 year old e36 M3, e90 328x-drive, and 20 year old e46 330xi have been nearly bulletproof and the few repairs I’ve had have been cheap. My 20 year old M5 has been more needy than the others and more expensive to repair, but it’s also the best all around car out of all of them and has increased in value since I bought it to the point where it’s covered the money I put into repairs.