Dodgy as hell...?

[mig25_foxbat2003]

Would I be right in saying that this is the dodgiest car currently for sale on eBay?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2005-55-BMW-325i-ES-Tour...

Facelift front end, amber repeaters and rears, strange wheels (from an early 318i?) wheel from an E38 I believe, and it's apparently a 55 plate?!

Cool story bro etc, but wondered what others thought.

[E38Ross]

definitely not right. loads of parts saying pre-facelift, and the plate and front lights saying post-facelift. interior is also a pre-facelift i'm very sure. the wheels look like very early 318i wheels too.

very, very odd. i wouldn't touch with a barge pole. it's not tooooo far from me. tempted to pay him a visit

[CDP]

I wouldn't have spotted any of the spec differences but it does look suspiciously cheap.

[halo34]

Looks pretty dodgy!

I found an E90 last night that had all sorts of mismatched bits on it - including a respray in white which was dirt cheap on e-bay. The front bumper didn't even line up with the wings in the photo's!

[Mr-B]

Quite possibly a clone. Seen a clone first hand and they look good to the uninitiated but delve deeper and you will spot the mistakes. The cloners rely on the cheap sale price to complete a quick sale as they disappear into the night.

[mig25_foxbat2003]

Mr-B said:

Quite possibly a clone. Seen a clone first hand and they look good to the uninitiated but delve deeper and you will spot the mistakes. The cloners rely on the cheap sale price to complete a quick sale as they disappear into the night.

This was what I was thinking - especially as the plate shows on the DVLA as a blue, 2494cc BMW registered in 2005. I reckon someone is missing a 323i Touring, and the real VX55KOB is out there somewhere, unaware...

[kentmotorcompany]

I think its a basic spec Import. They often have very odd specs. The Steering wheel makes me think that.

[DavidHM]

kentmotorcompany said:

I think its a basic spec Import. They often have very odd specs. The Steering wheel makes me think that.

Agree.

If it's a clone ... front lights are wrong for a 323i. Steering wheel is wrong for a UK car. Facelift cars for other markets still used orange lights, front and rear, on low spec models. Possibly it hung around for a year or two before someone gave up on ever selling it in its original market (maybe somewhere with a registration tax based on engine cc) and punted it back to the UK through a supermarket.

It could also be older than the plate and the DVLA messed up. The wheels might be original for the weird foreign spec, or they might have been the cheapest way to get four Euro-marked tyres onto it to get it registered in the first place.

Still don't fancy it much.

Edited to add - here's a base spec, German 325i from 2004.

http://www.autoscout24.de/Details.aspx?id=wammxev1...

Same wheels, orange lights front and rear, the same interior, twice the mileage and nearly twice the price (but LHD).

Edited by DavidHM on Friday 16th March 11:27

[mig25_foxbat2003]

Ah! That's interesting - you've taught me something there. The fact that the wheel matches probably confirms it. They look so much more dated with the ambers and on the wrong wheels IMO - compare that to a 54 plate 325i Sport Touring on MV2s!

[mig25_foxbat2003]

DavidHM said:

Still don't fancy it much.

Nor me! I just thought it was a curiosity.

[Jobbo]

Looks perfectly consistent with being an unofficial import (from Cyprus or SA perhaps?) or maybe originally a police car.

[DavidHM]

Jobbo said:

Looks perfectly consistent with being an unofficial import (from Cyprus or SA perhaps?) or maybe originally a police car.

Could be Cyprus or SA, but it matches German spec so it's just as likely to be a Euro import that someone specced very badly.

It's almost certainly not ex-police though as it has a factory head unit and as far as I know, police spec was always a 330i or 330d, not a 325.

[Jobbo]

Mileage would also be low for a police car, admittedly. Perhaps it was A BFPO order? The obvious reason why it's not just German spec is that it's RHD.