I hope this thread will be somewhere for me to document my journey, experiences and also little mods and changes I do along the way.
To kick off I will cover what went before which was a 2008 Mercedes ML320 Edition 10 which was great to be fair, couple of the regular problems they seem to suffer with but day to day living with the car and as a family load lugger it was ideal. My only gripes were it was one of the plastic generation Mercedes with no tactile finish to the interior whatsoever and I didn't chose a car which had heated seats but thats my fault.
That had to go and whilst deciding what to buy next I chose to run around in a 2009 Abarth 500 Essesse which was very different from the Merc but so much fun its unreal!!!! Like a race from Mario Kart everytime I went out in it!
Then I saw what I thought was my ideal spec X5 advertised through BMW, I was quite specific about colour more than anything - I didn't want silver exterior or grey really and definitely didn't want black leather as I felt with the anthracite roof lining, black dash, carpets etc. it was all a bit gloomy which is something the Merc suffered with to a huge extent.
The car I saw was a 2010 30d M Sport in Carbon Black with Camel leather interior, a colour I hadn't seen before but was the perfect contrast to the exterior colour and gave a real nice ambience whilst inside. It had a few nice options on it as you can see from my signature, and obviously came with the AUC warranty, recovery etc. The car was on the outer limits of qualifying for the AUC scheme however I was reassured that this was due to to its cosmetic condition and mechanical excellence.
I should probably point out that due to hospitalisation I was prohibited from long periods of driving/concentration which meant this purchase was to be done from home without seeing the car until it was paid for and on my driveway. The process of trying to buy the car was most frustrating and the dealers appeared dis-interested in returning my phonically, providing very simple information about the car or general keeping any promises they made to me on the phone.
Alas I persevered as the car was the only one i could find through AUC that had a desirable (to me) colour combination and the added bonus of some nice extras.
On some occasions the only way to get a phonecall/email reply from the dealership was to Tweet BMW UK who then contacted someone to instigate a phonecall/email. Dozens of empty promises about information that would be provided, people that would ring me it was just a long drawn out and totally frustrating process.
That being the case you would expect that the delivery, prep and presentation of the car would be spot on - sadly not! Delivery driver was supposed to arrive between 11.30-12.30, eventually arriving at 14.30 and messing up the collection of my daughter from school and gymnastics run.
Numberplates were absent which had been promised.
Car not valeted - food in armrest and front thigh bolsters, sticky marks on dash/iDrive controller.
Wheels poorly refurbished with one in particular having a large bubble/blister under the paint ready to burst and allow the weather in to ruin the rest of the paint.
Old corroded centre caps and no 'M' badges on the wheels.
Heavily marked aluminium dash/door trims, not just a 'couple of marks' as described in the salesmans video we are talking about dozens of tiny chunks out of the surface.
White paint on the steering wheel.
The whole thing was a farse, I quickly made contact with the dealer to address these issues and some they accepted had 'fallen short' of BMW's exacting standards and badges, roundels would be sent out in the post however they felt the marked interior trim was acceptable given age/mileage of the car. No flexibility or compromise on this initially and at one stage they were collecting the car back from me for a full refund, however common sense stepped in and they realised there was a cost implication regarding collection, resale, prep etc.
Eventually they agreed an allowance for me to purchase a full set of trims from a BMW breakers to replace the ruined ones n the car, these turned up yesterday and some of you may have seen that I am busy stockpiling advice and YouTube videos about the process. The dealer and I have finally nearly concluded out business and once the payment drops into my account from them for trims and wheels, the other items arrived earlier this week, that will be the end of my dealings with them.
Lessons learnt that's for sure and my advice to anyone else considering an AUC is to inspect every inch of it and don't just take salesmans word for it or 3 minute video. My situation dictated I couldn't travel to the dealership to view but felt comfortable it was a large main dealer and very minimal risk. If you don't have to buy a car blind don't - make every effort to see it in person.
So it’s a 2010 semi LCI 30d M Sport, when I say ‘semi’ it has the newer sat nav and iDrive control but not 8 speed box, bumpers etc. It’s as mentioned Carbon Black which I am a big fan of particularly when clean and in the sun, it has a very marmite interior of Camel leather. I particularly like the exterior colour and interior colour to contrast and this was no exception, hard to capture the colour but not beige, not cream more a caramel I guess. Externally it’s fitted with shadowline extrior pack, privacy glass, roof rails and that’s about the lot although underneath it does have Dynamic Drive.
Interior is currently brushed aluminium but soon to be changed out for piano black which I am looking forward to! It has head up display, heated seats, high beam assist, some upgrade of audio although not HK or Logic 7, dubious ‘ambient lighting’ package, electric memory seats, cruise, mfsw and that’s about the lot.
Problems with purchase and post purchase aside I am really happy with the car, it’s roomy quiet and comfortable which is what I wanted from our main family car and picks up where the ML left off. It feels planted when on the move and motorway cruising is a pleasure, effortless as my wife described it after a recent trip to Plymouth. Always been a BMW fan but prior to this purchase considered the usual suspects -
2010 Range Rover Sport - love these but couldn’t afford one through LR Dealer with warranty so non-starter.
VW Touareg - couldn’t afford an R Line and in lower trim wasn’t a fan of styling.
Merc ML350 CDI - owned a 320 and other than some mild styling changes it felt like sitting in the same car.
Disco 4 - Bit too agricultural for me and also similar issue to RRS above.
Audi Q7 - far too big and budget only reached early models with 100k +.
So after trying a few I settled on the X5 and so far it seems a good choice, comfort of AUC warranty for 12 months which is good, MPG I seem to hover around the 27mpg mark no matter how or where I drive it which to be fair for such a big car I am pretty pleased with.
So a few pics from the weekend when I gave it a good clean, it’s in need of a good machine polish to be fair but hand application of some chosen CG products yielded some good results -
Never anthropomorphise computers. They hate that.