Best Smoker Barges 1-5 large [Vol 7]

[cat220]

Well happy to say I'm now the owner of a w210 e55 estate. Great day yesterday, arrived into Heathrow, the seller picked me up and off we went to look at the car. All as described, my biggest concern was rust but the body work and underneath are in good condition, everything else checked out so went a ahead and bought it. The chap selling it was a true gent, within 5mins of meeting him and before I'd seen the car I had a good feeling about the whole thing. Might sound a bit strange I know.

The drive home, the first thing to note is the noise! Lovely deep v8 burble. Came back via the M40>M42>M6(toll)>M6>M74. Couldn't believe how busy the M40 was, makes me realise how fortunate we are in the north with how empty in comparison our roads are. Traffic was moving well though and the lane discipline is far better than it is up here. Didn't hang about but kept it sensible (most of the time) had a few encounters and I can only imagine the conversations in the other car about "that old Merc" (Its debadged only the amg exhaust gives a hint) The mid range is fantastic, it really does shift. I only stopped at the services outside Carlisle for 10mins, so says it all about how comfortable I was. Average fuel consumption for the whole run was 26.7mpg which I thought was brilliant considering.

The car needs a good clean and yesterday added about a million dead insects to the front of it. But feeling very happy about my purchase!...

[derin100]

cat220 said:

Well happy to say I'm now the owner of a w210 e55 estate. Great day yesterday, arrived into Heathrow, the seller picked me up and off we went to look at the car. All as described, my biggest concern was rust but the body work and underneath are in good condition, everything else checked out so went a ahead and bought it. The chap selling it was a true gent, within 5mins of meeting him and before I'd seen the car I had a good feeling about the whole thing. Might sound a bit strange I know.

The drive home, the first thing to note is the noise! Lovely deep v8 burble. Came back via the M40>M42>M6(toll)>M6>M74. Couldn't believe how busy the M40 was, makes me realise how fortunate we are in the north with how empty in comparison our roads are. Traffic was moving well though and the lane discipline is far better than it is up here. Didn't hang about but kept it sensible (most of the time) had a few encounters and I can only imagine the conversations in the other car about "that old Merc" (Its debadged only the amg exhaust gives a hint) The mid range is fantastic, it really does shift. I only stopped at the services outside Carlisle for 10mins, so says it all about how comfortable I was. Average fuel consumption for the whole run was 26.7mpg which I thought was brilliant considering.

The car needs a good clean and yesterday added about a million dead insects to the front of it. But feeling very happy about my purchase!...

Congrats!

[flatso]

cat220 said:

Well happy to say I'm now the owner of a w210 e55 estate. Great day yesterday, arrived into Heathrow, the seller picked me up and off we went to look at the car. All as described, my biggest concern was rust but the body work and underneath are in good condition, everything else checked out so went a ahead and bought it. The chap selling it was a true gent, within 5mins of meeting him and before I'd seen the car I had a good feeling about the whole thing. Might sound a bit strange I know.

The drive home, the first thing to note is the noise! Lovely deep v8 burble. Came back via the M40>M42>M6(toll)>M6>M74. Couldn't believe how busy the M40 was, makes me realise how fortunate we are in the north with how empty in comparison our roads are. Traffic was moving well though and the lane discipline is far better than it is up here. Didn't hang about but kept it sensible (most of the time) had a few encounters and I can only imagine the conversations in the other car about "that old Merc" (Its debadged only the amg exhaust gives a hint) The mid range is fantastic, it really does shift. I only stopped at the services outside Carlisle for 10mins, so says it all about how comfortable I was. Average fuel consumption for the whole run was 26.7mpg which I thought was brilliant considering.

The car needs a good clean and yesterday added about a million dead insects to the front of it. But feeling very happy about my purchase!...

Sehr schön!

[SuperHangOn]

Congrats, chuffed for you its a goodun' after my scaremongering!

Question for the BMW beards. I'm assembling parts for my E39 cooling refurb (no problems as yet, just noticed seepage on the rad so the whole lot will be done). I vaguely remember reading there is a coolant hose which often bursts, what is it called? Car has an M62 V8 - thankfully an Alusil engine

Edited by SuperHangOn on Monday 25th August 11:23

[judas]

JoshyS said:

I think the point being made is that they are difficult to shift full stop, let alone with fairly scary sounding issues and fairly strong money.

Perhaps, but if that was the point it was very poorly made and I stand by my comment that what a trader will pay has no relevance. Maybe the price is strong, but it's at the lower/middle point of what few 750s are available at the moment, and how many of them will have rotting fuel tanks? It's a fundamentally good car and I see little point going straight in at my lowest possible price.

As for scary sounding, not really, but maybe I'm being too honest. After all just about every 750 for sale will be the same so perhaps I should just keep quiet? However, I've always found that honesty ultimately pays dividends. I've advertised every car I've ever sold the same way: I don't have potential buyers turning up, making excuses and disappearing after a cursory look at the car. Sales have been without fuss and resulted in happy new owners. How many threads have there been on PH about people going to see misrepresented cars and having their time wasted? You only need to sell the car to one person; the trick is to ensure that's the first person to enquire, rather than an endless stream of people whose expectations are seriously out of alignment.

Anyway, we're getting off topic so perhaps best close this off here.

Edited by judas on Monday 25th August 12:14

[dbdb]

cat220 said:

Well happy to say I'm now the owner of a w210 e55 estate. Great day yesterday, arrived into Heathrow, the seller picked me up and off we went to look at the car. All as described, my biggest concern was rust but the body work and underneath are in good condition, everything else checked out so went a ahead and bought it. The chap selling it was a true gent, within 5mins of meeting him and before I'd seen the car I had a good feeling about the whole thing. Might sound a bit strange I know.

The drive home, the first thing to note is the noise! Lovely deep v8 burble. Came back via the M40>M42>M6(toll)>M6>M74. Couldn't believe how busy the M40 was, makes me realise how fortunate we are in the north with how empty in comparison our roads are. Traffic was moving well though and the lane discipline is far better than it is up here. Didn't hang about but kept it sensible (most of the time) had a few encounters and I can only imagine the conversations in the other car about "that old Merc" (Its debadged only the amg exhaust gives a hint) The mid range is fantastic, it really does shift. I only stopped at the services outside Carlisle for 10mins, so says it all about how comfortable I was. Average fuel consumption for the whole run was 26.7mpg which I thought was brilliant considering.

The car needs a good clean and yesterday added about a million dead insects to the front of it. But feeling very happy about my purchase!...

Well done - I'm glad it is a good car!

[dbdb]

PlayersNo6 said:

0a said:

Utterly wrong, of course. Yet it's hard to not want to have a go in it - "Big 7.5 Litre V8". http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1972-Lincoln-Continental...

Pretty sure that's the same model year that 'Frog One' imported into NY in 'The French Connection' - dope hidden in the rocker panels.

'Frog one' had a Lincoln Continental Mark III, whereas this is the following model, the Continental Mark IV (as driven by Frank Cannon).

Both beautiful, charismatic cars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Continental_M...

[E65Ross]

judas said:

Perhaps, but if that was the point it was very poorly made and I stand by my comment that what a trader will pay has no relevance. Maybe the price is strong, but it's at the lower/middle point of what few 750s are available at the moment, and how many of them will have rotting fuel tanks? It's a fundamentally good car and I see little point going straight in at my lowest possible price.

As for scary sounding, not really, but maybe I'm being too honest. After all just about every 750 for sale will be the same so perhaps I should just keep quiet? However, I've always found that honesty ultimately pays dividends. I've advertised every car I've ever sold the same way: I don't have potential buyers turning up, making excuses and disappearing after a cursory look at the car. Sales have been without fuss and resulted in happy new owners. How many threads have there been on PH about people going to see misrepresented cars and having their time wasted? You only need to sell the car to one person; the trick is to ensure that's the first person to enquire, rather than an endless stream of people whose expectations are seriously out of alignment.

Anyway, we're getting off topic so perhaps best close this off here.

Edited by judas on Monday 25th August 12:14

I'm with judas on this one. I'm not sure what they're worth but it's refreshing to see an honest advert and I do wish more adverts were the same. I'd like to think I was similar with the E38. It had a few faults I was aware of and I made the seller aware of them before selling. Just makes life easier for everyone. Saves you so much hassle when people come round and start haggling you serious money because of faults you've not mentioned.

[r129sl]

cat220 said:

Well happy to say I'm now the owner of a w210 e55 estate. Great day yesterday, arrived into Heathrow, the seller picked me up and off we went to look at the car. All as described, my biggest concern was rust but the body work and underneath are in good condition, everything else checked out so went a ahead and bought it. The chap selling it was a true gent, within 5mins of meeting him and before I'd seen the car I had a good feeling about the whole thing. Might sound a bit strange I know.

The drive home, the first thing to note is the noise! Lovely deep v8 burble. Came back via the M40>M42>M6(toll)>M6>M74. Couldn't believe how busy the M40 was, makes me realise how fortunate we are in the north with how empty in comparison our roads are. Traffic was moving well though and the lane discipline is far better than it is up here. Didn't hang about but kept it sensible (most of the time) had a few encounters and I can only imagine the conversations in the other car about "that old Merc" (Its debadged only the amg exhaust gives a hint) The mid range is fantastic, it really does shift. I only stopped at the services outside Carlisle for 10mins, so says it all about how comfortable I was. Average fuel consumption for the whole run was 26.7mpg which I thought was brilliant considering.

The car needs a good clean and yesterday added about a million dead insects to the front of it. But feeling very happy about my purchase!...

Kudos. Good car and good to hear the purchasing gamble paid off in style.

[Zwolf]

judas said:

nct001 said:

Balmoral said:

V12 anyone?

I know this car, it's good.



http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/b...

Oh come on it's a crock

I sold one which I took in px against a 760Li from a Lord no less!!! which we had serviced and maintained for five years as an independent BMW specialist... tried at £2995 plenty of brain dead questions but no viewers, at £1995 it found a home, PS all the other 750i examples for strong money are still for sale three months later.

Just as well it was valued correctly at a grand, we fixed the central locking with an ECU £200 ouch, otherwise mechanically a1l good even new rear suspension bushes for mot and full geo.

bks, quite frankly. WTF has trade price got to do with private sales, or the fact that you bought a car from a Lord?

A car is worth whatever someone will pay for it. There's a lot of ropey old E38s out there with leaking petrol tanks - I know, I looked at most of them before I bought this one.

It's a fair price for the described condition IMO and I've spent years looking at examples of E38 V12s, best to worst and bought and sold a couple of E32 V12s, currently running an E38 of similar age/mileage condition and will be advertising it for a bit as I'm perpetually torn between them and E39 M5s and with values of the latter rising, think now is a good time to bag one whilst they're still conspicuous value.

Yes they have their well known issues, the fuel tank and V12-standard EDC suspension mostly, plus the usual ravages of being nearly 20 years old and 100k+ miles. As each of those things can quickly swallow four figure sums to rectify, paying £3-4k for one with no issues in those areas can and to me (as an actual buyer of them) makes more sense than taking a punt on the £1-2k examples that are generally in less well loved condition in other areas too.

They do take time to sell unless - like anything else - you're prepared to give it away. If you're prepared to wait, people do eventually buy them for good amounts. The pool of buyers is very small and they are very particular. Being open and honest about any issues quells most of their trepidation. Mine's a right stter - the electric rear blind doesn't work and the driver's mirror doesn't fold in electronically, plus she could use a pair of front tyres. All described to me by the seller when I bought it, she came with a fresh MoT and rear tyres - after we'd agreed a price, as well as a reconditioned alternator and freshened up suspension bushes etc.

[derin100]

Zwolf said:

judas said:

nct001 said:

Balmoral said:

V12 anyone?

I know this car, it's good.



http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/b...

Oh come on it's a crock

I sold one which I took in px against a 760Li from a Lord no less!!! which we had serviced and maintained for five years as an independent BMW specialist... tried at £2995 plenty of brain dead questions but no viewers, at £1995 it found a home, PS all the other 750i examples for strong money are still for sale three months later.

Just as well it was valued correctly at a grand, we fixed the central locking with an ECU £200 ouch, otherwise mechanically a1l good even new rear suspension bushes for mot and full geo.

bks, quite frankly. WTF has trade price got to do with private sales, or the fact that you bought a car from a Lord?

A car is worth whatever someone will pay for it. There's a lot of ropey old E38s out there with leaking petrol tanks - I know, I looked at most of them before I bought this one.

It's a fair price for the described condition IMO and I've spent years looking at examples of E38 V12s, best to worst and bought and sold a couple of E32 V12s, currently running an E38 of similar age/mileage condition and will be advertising it for a bit as I'm perpetually torn between them and E39 M5s and with values of the latter rising, think now is a good time to bag one whilst they're still conspicuous value.

Yes they have their well known issues, the fuel tank and V12-standard EDC suspension mostly, plus the usual ravages of being nearly 20 years old and 100k+ miles. As each of those things can quickly swallow four figure sums to rectify, paying £3-4k for one with no issues in those areas can and to me (as an actual buyer of them) makes more sense than taking a punt on the £1-2k examples that are generally in less well loved condition in other areas too.

They do take time to sell unless - like anything else - you're prepared to give it away. If you're prepared to wait, people do eventually buy them for good amounts. The pool of buyers is very small and they are very particular. Being open and honest about any issues quells most of their trepidation. Mine's a right stter - the electric rear blind doesn't work and the driver's mirror doesn't fold in electronically, plus she could use a pair of front tyres. All described to me by the seller when I bought it, she came with a fresh MoT and rear tyres - after we'd agreed a price, as well as a reconditioned alternator and freshened up suspension bushes etc.

I agree with all of the above. I think that's a very fair price.

The pool of potential buyers is small...but so is the pool of decent E38s. In fact, having looked recently, the pool seems to have dried-up dramatically of late.

I'd stick to your guns. What traders say in this niche market has little or no relevance. When I was selling my E34 540i a couple of years ago I had some "trader" openly slag me off on an internet forum over the price. He tried to convince me (but more annoyingly everyone else on the forum...which wasn't exactly helpful or gentlemanly) that my car was worth 500-quid because he'd bought one just as good for that amount ("groan"). I sold it for £8500.

That shows that his knowledge and opinion was worth...erm, er, let me think a sec....

Well, exactly minus £8000 by my reckoning!

[Baryonyx]

r129sl said:

Kudos. Good car and good to hear the purchasing gamble paid off in style.

I have just booked a ticket to go and buy Cat220's XJ this Saturday. I hope I am too am afforded some good luck on another barge thread purchase. The journey up there doesn't sound too arduous. Train to Newcastle in the morning, then one East Coast Rail to Edinburgh, then a transfer to Glasgow Queen Street shortly afterwards. About three hours all in. All being well, drive back should be a serene shuffle down the A74 and A69 to home.

Then, hopefully, I can stop moaning at the wife about having to drive her to car to work!

EDIT: Just one quick question regarding insurance, but what is the best way to go about arranging it for the day? In the past when I've been intending on buying a car, I usually ring my insurer and they put the prospective car onto my policy for a month and keep my current car insurer, then the next month I typically switch the policy to cover the new car as the primary insured vehicle and keep my old car on as a second vehicle until it sells.

Is there a cheaper way to sort the insurance short of just changing outright on the day? As confident as I am when I go to look at cars I expect to end up buying, it would be a costly mistake to change the policy outright before a test drive, only to not end up buying the car and having to change it back. Costs in these cases have typically been around £30 for a month of insuring both cars, and the last time I did it was when I had my A8 and my Impreza. Day insurance is typically more expensive.

Edited by Baryonyx on Monday 25th August 15:42

[TopGear7]

Guys, opinions on this:

|http://thumbsnap.com/0CfwYQLc[/url]

It's the 320 petrol variant.

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2014...

May call and go look at it tomorrow. I usually overlook cars like these with after market wheels however the Contintental tyres and full dealership history has somewhat reassured that this hasn't fallen in the wrong hands.

What shall I be looking out for? Opinions on the price?[url]

Edited by TopGear7 on Monday 25th August 18:23

[nct001]

derin100 said:

I agree with all of the above. I think that's a very fair price.

The pool of potential buyers is small...but so is the pool of decent E38s. In fact, having looked recently, the pool seems to have dried-up dramatically of late.

I'd stick to your guns. What traders say in this niche market has little or no relevance. When I was selling my E34 540i a couple of years ago I had some "trader" openly slag me off on an internet forum over the price. He tried to convince me (but more annoyingly everyone else on the forum...which wasn't exactly helpful or gentlemanly) that my car was worth 500-quid because he'd bought one just as good for that amount ("groan"). I sold it for £8500.

That shows that his knowledge and opinion was worth...erm, er, let me think a sec....

Well, exactly minus £8000 by my reckoning!

That's all well and good, but the harsh reality is if it requires rear shock absorbers along with front suspension work, from memory the rear shocks are something like £400 each and its a very big job to do the work. So all of a sudden its a £5k BMW 750 and there are more appealing colour combinations out there, plus this is and pre facelift car and has none of the desirable m extras such as polished parallel alloys.

I have had some beautiful e38s that have come in px, sold an early 740iL for £1100 I know its worth more than that but it wouldn't go! Last 750iL we had was a 1999 done 154k, mechanically no faults and a new mot. let it go for £1995... it was the right thing to do as there were two similar cars in stock at another dealer and three months later they were still for sale.

Reason why I commented on your car is you stated it was a good buy for someone, well it may be but with faulty electronic rear dampers are priced at retail money it is not.

People that will buy a car like yours will either be some ageing gangster who is now on the dole and will only buy if its a bargain or at the other end some institutionalised chap, imagine a polytechnic lecturer in advanced woodwork. Or an Eastern European who speaks no English, so your advert is lost on them, who will test drive the car then open the coolant bottle and think your car has a head issue as the coolant explodes out of the tank. They will be mental fussy and its because of these people that we buy any car exists. Finding someone sensible who understands what they are buying is difficult.

I never said you car had a particular trade price, I just mentioned what I paid for the last one in px... if you can sell that car for more than £2500 in the next three weeks you will have done better than anyonelse with a 750 for sale all things considered.

[Zwolf]

nct001 said:

People that will buy a car like yours will either be some ageing gangster who is now on the dole and will only buy if its a bargain or at the other end some institutionalised chap, imagine a polytechnic lecturer in advanced woodwork. Or an Eastern European who speaks no English...

Just checked and neither I, nor any of the people I've bought 750s from or sold them to have been such - they've been enthusiasts dedicated to and fully aware of the common faults and costs. People selling the really ropey ones absolutely full of obvious expensive faults, 150k+ miles and absent/conveniently "misplaced" histories etc however...

nct001 said:

Finding someone sensible who understands what they are buying is difficult

...but not impossible. I'm one of them and were it not a LWB and had I not got one currently, would be making enquiries about Judas's one - listed faults notwithstanding - before any of the other iLs currently listed on AT, facelift and M Paras or not (prefer Style 32s & gingercators anyway).

They're also a car to buy direct from the owner, not from the trade, the need for a profit margin negates the likelihood of significant pre-sale preparation/money having been spent.

IME, as with M5s, the good ones just don't get PX'd in, just borked ones to traders who'll hopefully do little more than look at CAP and not be aware of the big bork items it's hiding...

[judas]

nct001 said:

That's all well and good, but the harsh reality is if it requires rear shock absorbers along with front suspension work, from memory the rear shocks are something like £400 each and its a very big job to do the work.

I can see there are some crossed wires here. It's not the electronic dampers - they all work fine - but the accumulator spheres at the rear. The internal membranes eventually gives way. It's not a particularly big job and the parts aren't that expensive, but it's not a job I considered vital compared to the other work I had done. It's easy to say if it's not that big a deal I should get it done, but the reality is I've spent a lot of money already on the more important things and I wouldn't see the money back from having this work done.

Given the misunderstanding this has generated, I should update the ad to clarify this.

And I still think it's a fair price

[derin100]

nct001 said:

derin100 said:

I agree with all of the above. I think that's a very fair price.

The pool of potential buyers is small...but so is the pool of decent E38s. In fact, having looked recently, the pool seems to have dried-up dramatically of late.

I'd stick to your guns. What traders say in this niche market has little or no relevance. When I was selling my E34 540i a couple of years ago I had some "trader" openly slag me off on an internet forum over the price. He tried to convince me (but more annoyingly everyone else on the forum...which wasn't exactly helpful or gentlemanly) that my car was worth 500-quid because he'd bought one just as good for that amount ("groan"). I sold it for £8500.

That shows that his knowledge and opinion was worth...erm, er, let me think a sec....

Well, exactly minus £8000 by my reckoning!

That's all well and good, but the harsh reality is if it requires rear shock absorbers along with front suspension work, from memory the rear shocks are something like £400 each and its a very big job to do the work. So all of a sudden its a £5k BMW 750 and there are more appealing colour combinations out there, plus this is and pre facelift car and has none of the desirable m extras such as polished parallel alloys.

I have had some beautiful e38s that have come in px, sold an early 740iL for £1100 I know its worth more than that but it wouldn't go! Last 750iL we had was a 1999 done 154k, mechanically no faults and a new mot. let it go for £1995... it was the right thing to do as there were two similar cars in stock at another dealer and three months later they were still for sale.

Reason why I commented on your car is you stated it was a good buy for someone, well it may be but with faulty electronic rear dampers are priced at retail money it is not.

People that will buy a car like yours will either be some ageing gangster who is now on the dole and will only buy if its a bargain or at the other end some institutionalised chap, imagine a polytechnic lecturer in advanced woodwork. Or an Eastern European who speaks no English, so your advert is lost on them, who will test drive the car then open the coolant bottle and think your car has a head issue as the coolant explodes out of the tank. They will be mental fussy and its because of these people that we buy any car exists. Finding someone sensible who understands what they are buying is difficult.

I never said you car had a particular trade price, I just mentioned what I paid for the last one in px... if you can sell that car for more than £2500 in the next three weeks you will have done better than anyonelse with a 750 for sale all things considered.

Erm...let's just be clear, it's not my car or my ad.

However, there are fundamental differences here:

Firstly, you are a car trader. As far as I know this vendor isn't. By the very nature of your business and livelihood therefore you need to sell cars. Unless you are working on very big margins (and I suspect by the nature of the price bracket of cars you are talking about they aren't) you therefore need to sell them quickly and in some volume? Nothing wrong with that at all. But I suspect the "No sale...no eat" doesn't apply to this vendor. He doesn't need to sell it quickly to maintain an income.

Secondly, as many of us on this thread are fully aware, spending more on a car that was once circa £100,000 when we're buying it for £3K in the first instance simply goes with the territory. In the grand scheme of things, an extra £400/damper isn't really the thing that's going to stop us buying a car. Often the initial purchase price is viewed as an incidental cost in the grand scheme of the whole package. None of these sorts of cars is ever going to be perfect right "off the shelf" and so saying, for example, "Ouch!" to a £200 ECU repair on a car that despite it's purchase price today was once a £100K car means one is really seeing things in a very different way to most people here. I can fully appreciate that it would be an "Ouch!" to a trader working on very narrow margins because if the car were bought for £1K to be sold for £2K that would be 20% off the profit instantly.

Thirdly, I've sold quite a few "non-mainstream" cars over the years and what I can say is that you can never tell just what sort of person is going to be the one to turn-up and put their money where their mouth is and buy these sorts of cars. The stereotypes you describe as being the only potential buyer for this vendor's car are just nonsense. Personally, I've never imagined "Zwolf" was either a Gangsta, Wordwork Professor or that he's from behind the former Iron Curtain.

Finally, please find me a good example of a car such as you describe for under £3K i.e a facelifted E38 750i with M-Parallels etc. All I can find are two pre-facelift cars. One has dodgy replica M-Parallels and the other has significantly more miles and no mention/evidence of the large amount of work/rectification that this car being sold has had done. In fact, find me one for let's say double that...£6K! The only good one I can find to meet the above criteria is actually another £2K on top of that at £8000. Please do....because I know someone actively looking for one right now!

[nct001]

derin100 said:

Erm...let's just be clear, it's not my car or my ad.

However, there are fundamental differences here:

Firstly, you are a car trader. As far as I know this vendor isn't. By the very nature of your business and livelihood therefore you need to sell cars. Unless you are working on very big margins (and I suspect by the nature of the price bracket of cars you are talking about they aren't) you therefore need to sell them quickly and in some volume? Nothing wrong with that at all. But I suspect the "No sale...no eat" doesn't apply to this vendor. He doesn't need to sell it quickly to maintain an income.

Secondly, as many of us on this thread are fully aware, spending more on a car that was once circa £100,000 when we're buying it for £3K in the first instance simply goes with the territory. In the grand scheme of things, an extra £400/damper isn't really the thing that's going to stop us buying a car. Often the initial purchase price is viewed as an incidental cost in the grand scheme of the whole package. None of these sorts of cars is ever going to be perfect right "off the shelf" and so saying, for example, "Ouch!" to a £200 ECU repair on a car that despite it's purchase price today was once a £100K car means one is really seeing things in a very different way to most people here. I can fully appreciate that it would be an "Ouch!" to a trader working on very narrow margins because if the car were bought for £1K to be sold for £2K that would be 20% off the profit instantly.

Thirdly, I've sold quite a few "non-mainstream" cars over the years and what I can say is that you can never tell just what sort of person is going to be the one to turn-up and put their money where their mouth is and buy these sorts of cars. The stereotypes you describe as being the only potential buyer for this vendor's car are just nonsense. Personally, I've never imagined "Zwolf" was either a Gangsta, Wordwork Professor or that he's from behind the former Iron Curtain.

Finally, please find me a good example of a car such as you describe for under £3K i.e a facelifted E38 750i with M-Parallels etc. All I can find are two pre-facelift cars. One has dodgy replica M-Parallels and the other has significantly more miles and no mention/evidence of the large amount of work/rectification that this car being sold has had done. In fact, find me one for let's say double that...£6K! The only good one I can find to meet the above criteria is actually another £2K on top of that at £8000. Please do....because I know someone actively looking for one right now!

Don't buy e38s, ok bought a 1998 728i last week for £100 from a customer for parts / scrap.

Any e38s have had in recent years have come in px against which have generated a fair margin.

I do NOT buy and sell e38s as imo there is no demand for them.

Have sold four 760li in the last three months and the last one was £32995 so don't worry I'm not on the breadline, neither was the chap who pxed the 750 for the £995 cap is irrelevant to me in this situation, in effect anything over £0 is gravy on the px. Just the same as the main dealers do and to say main dealer part exchanges that are sent through auction or trade are inferior or no good is immature and smacks of a lack of experience... that said I'm not here to educate you!

[Zwolf]

nct001 said:

To say main dealer part exchanges that are sent through auction or trade are inferior or no good is immature and smacks of a lack of experience...

Only fifteen years in the trade, a third of it for myself alongside dealership experience and getting on for 40 ten+ year old BMWs bought, run and sold in my own capacity.

[derin100]

nct001 said:

Don't buy e38s, ok bought a 1998 728i last week for £100 from a customer for parts / scrap.

Any e38s have had in recent years have come in px against which have generated a fair margin.

I do NOT buy and sell e38s as imo there is no demand for them.

Have sold four 760li in the last three months and the last one was £32995 so don't worry I'm not on the breadline, neither was the chap who pxed the 750 for the £995 cap is irrelevant to me in this situation, in effect anything over £0 is gravy on the px. Just the same as the main dealers do and to say main dealer part exchanges that are sent through auction or trade are inferior or no good is immature and smacks of a lack of experience... that said I'm not here to educate you!

Please stop misquoting me.


However, given that you've apparently sold four 760s over the last three months for those sorts of figures and by your own admission, in so doing, kept yourself handsomely off the breadline by the profit margins you've so accrued from your customers, such that we don't need to worry about you, I'm intrigued as to why you felt you needed to come on to a thread that limits itself to cars in the £1-5K bracket and openly undermine the sale of a private individual's £3K car with the opening line (and here I quote you verbatim):

"Oh come on it's a crock"

???

Edited by derin100 on Monday 25th August 18:38