XSeries-forum

The 7 seater has an uprated rear suspension designed to carry a greater load, as well as increased towing capacity.  Rear tyres are rated 111 and fronts 107 to carry the additional weight.  All part of the design I guess that no doubt BMW engineers worked out is necessary!

[quote="ugene425"]
what does a vch mean?
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VHC is vehicle health check
It is hard to find 7 seater with good options. For me comfort seats were a must 4.0d was preferred but not essential. Mine is se on 18" and I find it quite wobbly on B roads so will look into fitting new shock absorbers and posibly suspension arms, in hindsight I would like to test drive one with adaptive suspension. Sunroof I got but would have preferred one without but it is desirable option to have when it comes to selling it.

That’s what I am finding >:( I would rather no seven seats but have more options! I thought comfort seats come as standard with an M sport LCI (2010-11)? So a VHC is like paying The AA £300 to go and inspect the car? I have decided to continue the search as the car we came very close to buying had beige leather interior. As much as I like this colour, my wife and I agreed it would not be practical for our family (wear and tear, marks from kids etc) so we are now focusing on black leather interior. Regarding wheels, I am looking at the 20’s or maybe 19's. The ride will be harsher on the 20's but aesthetically I love the look of them! For me, the budget can stretch up to approx. £18k and the three key parameters are 1) FSH and 2) 2-3 former owners max 3) as low mileage as possible (sweet spot would be between 40-50k) Seven seats is not a must, but given we shall be a family of four very soon, it may be helpful for future purposes! I would feel more comfortable buying from a garage (for peace of mind and getting some kind of warranty on the car when purchased). That said if the right car came up through a private sale I guess I would have to pay the AA for a ‘health check’?

Regarding the debate of the 3.0D over the 4.0D. The latter obviously being faster, more responsive, more fun to drive etc. However if the former engine came up with a good spec then I might be inclined to go with that as it is still responsive enough I think?

Comfort seats are not so common as they should be, they have split backrest and they have 11 control buttons. In real world situations I drove my 535, 28 hours non stop to Serbia and had no discomfort what so ever. Engine wise it's a big difference from 245 to 306 bhp and 4.0d will hold value better.
AA does pre purchase inspection but VCH is don by Bmw and I paid only £28 at Wollaston Northampton so not quite same, like I said they replaced my propshaft for free even tough it wasn't  a recall on their system.
As for interior even though I'm a mechanic I went for cream but got black mats.

Right I see. Not sure if I have ever come across them before as an extra! Wow, that is an insanely long drive – hat off to you! Nice engine the 535    I like the beige or even oyster coloured leather. However being a father, it would be destroyed by the kids which would make me most upset! Hence black leather I think it needs to be! How come you paid so little for BMW to do a VHC? I would have thought they would be even more expensive than AA!

If you can get hold of the last 7 characters of a VIN then you can use bmwvin dot com to check the actual build spec as carried out by the factory.

One of the problems with BMW is that very little is actually ‘standard’ as they offer such a range of mix & match options - for a suitably scary price - because of things like company car tax in the UK.  Bluetooth used to be an option and was rarely added.  Comfort Seats were about £1,000 extra on my X6 even though at the time the 40d was the top trim.

VHC from Bmw doesn't take that long and it purpose is to identify faults and generate work. I got advised for 4 tyres, number plate and brakes all round which if I authorised would have cost more than £2k so it's very much worth it for them to get customer in trough the door and up sell. I know my car need all that doing but its not urgent and I can do it over next few months when I'm not to busy.