Hi experts,
Looking to purchase a 2020 BMW, I came across several vehicles with over 10K miles with their first Carfax entry at around the current mileage (10-15K).
Any ideas on what could be the reason for not having the first entries at low mileage?
For example:
Thanks!
Service loaner?
Carfax is hit or miss
And since this is obviously a loaner, all work was done on the down low.
Thanks!
What does it mean for warranty purposes?
This one is on sale on Carvana who probably bought it from the auction.
Manufacturerâs warranty starts from whenever it was punched or put into service.
Original maintenance (UltimateCare) is non-transferable so youâll need to contact a bmw dealership to either ârefreshâ the UltimateCare or purchase the UltimateCare+ package. Both have costs involved and youâll need to shop/compare for your own needs.
That makes no sense.
Loaners get serviced by the dealership usually at the 1yr/10k mark and dealers put it on carfax. It helps with resale and obviously avoids the worst case scenario of something going wrong on their watch and the Oem refusing to honor the warranty.
There is absolutely no reason for a dealership to not service one of their own loaners under their control.
Now if this was a brass hat car that no one took responsibility for, then itâs safe to conclude no service was performed. Like if a owner, GM or exec threw the keys to a spouse or a kid and that person was so entitled that they couldnât be arsed to drop off a free car for a free service for one hour in the entire year.
Bottom line: donât buy a car without some evidence that it had its oil changed at least once a year or at 10k whichever came first.
down low = Did not put on the carfax.
Hard pass and run far away. BMW has free maintenance and I have never heard of a dealer not reporting.
If you want, ask your local dealer(s) if they can pull up the BMW internal service records. No one wants to do this, but it is the only way to know if a BMW dealer serviced it and didnât show on the CarFax.
Iâve heard and totally canât speak from experience that a bottle of their preferred alcohol and asking politely is totally not the way to go.
Totally didnât do this for my M4, and I donât recommend it at all.
Thanks everyone!
What I gather from this conversation so far is that the main risk revolves around the fact that a 16K miles car (maybe) was never serviced.
I know that this might be a controversial topic, but is it really a ârun as far as you canâ situation? BMW used to recommend 15k oil change intervals in the past and the car will still be under warranty for at least 2 years after purchasing it.
The packages and options on this car are exactly what Iâm looking for and as you can understand, itâs hard for me to let go 
For a while Carfax was emailing me every couple of weeks telling me that I need to address the following items on my car:
These emails started after my car was at the dealer for a minor repair.
This was ~3,000 miles after the dealer who did the repair had replaced the tires when they CPOd the car before selling it to me.
The tires are fine, as evidenced by the tread depth measurements on the dealerâs inspection report from my repair visit (and my eyeballs).
I serviced my Acadia at a reputable local GMC dealership like clockwork, in addition to warranty repairs being performed there. There are zero carfax records. Maybe they just donât pay to participate or something? Itâs strange.
Some dealership groups simply do not participate in CarFax and will only report to Autocheck. I know Darcars is a major auto group in the DC metro + NJ/NY/CT markets that donât report to carfax. Can the dealership pull up any records on the car? I know Lexus has an internal system for maintenance records and I believe Volvo does as well.
My first thought was to run away but this does seem to be a pretty good deal in this environment - I found the car you are referencing on Carvana. If I was going to buy this car though I would want to extend the warranty for as long as I thought I would own car through either Carvana or BMW. Caveat, I dont know how Carvanaâs extended warrantyâs work but Iâd guess they just pay for you to get car fixed at BMW dealership or independent shop, but this is something you want to confirm.
This could easily turn in to a Doug Demuro CarMax Land Rover situation where you have 10K-20K worth of repairs over three years of ownership and you definitely want someone else paying for those.
Lastly, get a pre-purchase inspection. Even if you will be covered via warranty you donât want to buy a car with obvious issues.
Key word is used to. BMWâs engines are notorious for engine oil leaks and routine maintenance helps prevent this. Walk into your BMW service department, give them the VIN, and ask if they can pull the service records. If any BMW dealer performed them, they will show in the system.
And also âor every 12 months, whichever comes first.â
Is this still happening? I saw a video where the leaks around the valve covers are notorious because BMW skipped the âpolishing stageâ after painting and went right to apply gasket stage.
However, no warranty (extended or otherwise) protects the buyer from the worst case scenario, where the engine seized due to oil sludge and the warranty claim is denied because a required oil change was not performed.
People need to remember there are conditions to a warranty.
And an invoice from an Indy (if one can even be found) is no good if dealer maintenance is required when itâs free.
Thatâs true re going through BMW for warranty.
But if you buy car from Carvana and you get an extended warranty from Carvana, can they really then turn around and tell you they are actually going to deny all warranty claims because the car they sold you wasnât eligible for said warranty? I think that would be fraud in the inducement.
There are a lot of things that are legally dubious at best (ie plausible win for plaintiffs) but not necessarily cost-effective to litigate.
