M140i

[damianke]

Hi, BMW people. My stepson and I are looking at a M140i this weekend. 15 months old, about 6,000 miles. Anything he/we should be looking at in particular? Main dealer car. This will be his first BMW, and I've not had one since a 535i back in the 80's (great car; manual box, loved it), so i'm not at all up to date on them.

Thanks

[Smuler]

I’d want to check whether it’s had any unscheduled maintenance / repair / problems work which given age and miles could suggest a “lemon”.
Given its age it would be done under warranty , so BMW would know.

I’d ask to see Approved Used Report to see what if any work they did on it to ensure it was AU standard. I’m assuming it’s a trade in or they bought for stock ?

If there was any reason to have any wear and tear items replaced given low mileage (unlikely besides rear tyres) that might suggest car was driven very hard or even tracked.

That could put some buyers off , though these are performance cars

If you were asking of any common faults I don’t know of any but unless a check on maintenance history shows a dodgy past that’s surely all speculative anyway and you’ve got 21 months of warranty to cover it.

Most important thing is a good test drive so step son happy it’s car for him.

[PTF]

If it's a fairly base spec car i'd be looking at buying new rather than approved used.

Base price for it after discounts through someone like TRL at Berry's BMW is around £28k.

If it's loaded with options then maybe it's still a good used buy assuming you're not taking their 10.9 APR.

[damianke]

Thanks; helpful replies. We'll have a look at it and see what we think.

[LocoBlade]

The only minor things I can think of to check are see if the valve in the silencer rattles/vibrates during the 30 second cold startup routine, it's an annoying known issue and BMW have in some circumstances been replacing the silencers (with M Performance versions on some occasions) to fix it. The only other thing I can think of is to check the coolant level as some early ones in particular seem to lose coolant over a few thousand mile periods (a Google of "B58 coolant loss" will highlight the theories why if you want more detail).