XSeries-forum

After 13 years of owning X5s in a couple of guises E53 4.4 V8, then the E70-FL 4.0D MSport it's a farewell to X5 for us.

The 4.4 will be remembered for never putting a foot wrong, the E70 has being a welcome upgrade but plagued by corroding alloys, electrical gremlins and the odd oil problem.

Mrs S takes delivery a new Macan GTS in a couple of weeks, it could easily have been an new X5M, were it not for the interesting "sales" techniques of BMW dealerships. The topper being "...we can arrange a test drive of X5M and it will be £250, if you buy it then we will refund you the fee..." - definitely a first for us.

Still, fond memories of X driving for long time. I'm sure we will be back to X5 in future, for now it's time to move on. Enjoy all your X Driving Folks !

Novel approach for test drives!  Almost as if you have to hire it.  All I can think is they need to cover massive dealer insurance?  I would have laughed and walked away....and it sounds like you did too.

I do have to admit, an £80k, extremely high performance car, with boy-racer looks - must attract a extremely high amount of tyre-kickers/joyriders who will never ever actually own the car. The amount of yobs this car will likely attract probably means that the dealer is taking extreme measures to prevent this.

Still, they shouldn't be charging for test drives, they simply should find a way to solve the problem, and they went the easy way unfortunately.

The only way is charging for test drive (x5m)...100% agree with BMW.

How do the Macan's compare to the X5 in terms of cabin space? The RRP is quite different to the X5M so was wondering if they are actually more comparable to the X3 in terms of size.

I took a brand new X5M out in November when I bought the M5 - wasn't a problem for my BMW Dealer, in fact they couldn't do enough. Being brand new though, the monthly payments were more than double that of the M5 purely because of depreciation. I could afford the payment, but couldn't justify it.

All the best with the new motor!


Turks. 

[quote="kkx5"]
The only way is charging for test drive (x5m)...100% agree with BMW.
[/quote]

I think there are other ways. I can afford an X5M, but the conversation on whether I would buy one would stop if I was told I had to pay for a Test Drive. They would lose a sale with me.

This is how I think they could deal with it better:

1. Full Demo of the car in the showroom, going through features etc and discussing the options.

2. Test Drive of an X5 (not the X5M) to get a feeling for the cabin, the elevated position, the size of the vehicle, and the general 'feel'.

3. If still interested, Numbers. Go through the basic numbers on deposits, monthly payments, finance rates etc.

4. If still interested, then a Drive in the X5M but perhaps being driven by the salesman... then whilst out on Test, the salesman gauges how it is going and whether this is just a tyre kicker, and makes a judgement on whether you can drive it or not.

5. If still interested but didn't get to drive, then its time to book an appointment on another day.

6. If still interested after appointment / test drive, then refine numbers based on Options and realistic deposits... and continue with sales process...


All the above is a lot of chew for a tyre kicker, but if serious, I wouldn't mind going through it to make sure it was the right car.


Turks.

The tyre kickers is easily solved by qualifying your buyer and we have had a few bmws from them as well as all our servicing. Think this it's poor form imv.

Other marques manage it and largely why we went the Porsche route in the end. Size wasn't a consideration, we'd looked at both cayenne as well as Macan and just preferred the more up to date looks and options of the Macan

It's very difficult to refuse a demo in a car at a main dealer. I used to work for VW and then Audi, and we regularly got hauled over the coals for trying to weed out the numptys, they just always got straight on to management or head office, then you were ordered to carry out he demo, and invariably the "customer" knew they had you over a barrel and would suddenly want to try various other models.

Thank goodness I got out, I wouldn't last 2 minutes in a showroom now.