Agree. I also lost a key and BMW charged me $200 or $250, which was cheaper than getting a replacement key. In my experience, BMWFS is super lenient/reasonable towards lease return damages. Even if they charge you, its probably cheaper than what it would cost you to get it fixed yourself.
You won’t get charged $700 for this. Don’t bother with the respray and return as is. Or sell the car as you mentioned.
A good buffing would likely make that much less noticeable. As the shops had said, it won’t disappear completely though.
Should we make guesses?
I’m guessing you get charged $400 at inspection for the scratches. That’s the fee I ate for the deep scratches when I turned in 2 months ago.
Them swirls though… not sure about those.
The weird thing about swirls is that I’ve never washed it an automated car wash. In 3 years, I only used the brush once. Once. Stlll there are swirls, weird
OP should have lease end inspection. Inspector will itemize the charges. Then you can decide. Do I pay excess charges or fix the items. OP would be surprised. Sometimes BMW will totally overlook the scratch or quote a significantly lower number for the damage.
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Are you going into another one? If so they should waive it
No, im not getting another BMW for now (they don’t have anything in the line-up that fits my bill)
Prices are nuts now I don’t blame you I may just buy my lease out
Have you tried selling the car back to a BMW store instead of lease returning?
2 of them didnt wanna buy it. One of them wanted me to pay $500 instead ( I don’t know if they thought I was dumb or something). One of them eventually said I’l give you a gas card for it, but I don’t know if they were being serious. This was about a month ago. I still needed a car so I wasn’t really interested in a gas car. Might be more motivated now lol
Yea just sell it to them, even if you’re $500 negative it’s better than paying $700 for the scratch+Disposition+whatever the hell else they find
Sorry this happened OP, but those swirls really are insane
Swirls don’t really show up unless in direct sunlight. And I dont know how they got there. I never took the car to an automated carwash. Only once did I ever use a brush. Otherwise, always wash with water only
Does your dealer send cars to an automated carwash after a service?
You could buy one too. 
Happy Update:
Just had the inspection done. The guy almost almost missed the scratch but eventually did catch it. Asking for $400 for it , thats it.
Interestingly, it’s all verbal and nothing down in writing. I wonder if I take it to another BMW dealer, maybe they’l miss it?
Trying selling it to 3 different dealers too, got wildly different quotes, but all them under payoff by larger than this amount.
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When the inspector initially missed the scratch:
When you don’t say a word about the scratch to the inspector.
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