Did you recently take on (or consider) a loan of 84 months or longer on a car purchase?
A reporter would like to speak with you about your experience; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com by 7/25 for details.
A reporter would like to speak with you about your experience; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com by 7/25 for details.
Options
Comments
Oh... a 325. Gee... swell.
I'll agree, the G35 is a better value. But let's not go overboard here. Bringing up the 325 in a comparison of current cars is just silly.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
My question is, would some of you change your "choice" of vehicle, if you were considering the vehicles in a lease scenario vs. purchasing. I ask, as the 335i currently has a much higher residual and lower Money Factor than the G.
For a 3 yr, 15k/yr lease, the 335i is about $30-40 more per month than the G. I looked at both vehicles farily well contented and ultimately decided on the 335i.
My choice was the 335i, but my choice may have been different if purchasing.
Sounds like a wash on the two leases when fuel is factored in.
Negotiate. Get the wholesale cost (found at bimmerfest) and then talk to a dealer about a 800-1200 over ED wholesale price. That's his profit. You order the exact car you want and pick the exact day you will pick up the car. They give you a build number so you can check progress online.
two weeks before pickup, you go in and pay for the car - or sign the lease.
fly to munich, take 2 trains to the ED delivery center for 8 euro. a guy in a funny suit and sporting a silly accent explains the car to you, you sign some papers and drive out of a narrow doorway and on to either drop the car at the redelivery center or to the autobahn for fun.
I did this April of 2006. Spent two weeks touring europe in my 330i.
Next time I'll probably try the quick turnaround - leave sunday, arrive monday, fly home monday. No hotel, barely any food and I'll use frequent flyer miles.
Never to be used? My god, man. Why even bother with a G35 if you don't drive in a spirited fashion. Get an accord EX and save the 10k.
What if I have a car to trade in? Do I have to leave it at the dealer when I pay for the car/sign the lease?
If I do then that's going to pose a problem since I have to do that 2 weeks before the trip and the car won't arrive until couple months after I drop it off correct?
Why would I want a few nights in a hotel on BMW? I stayed at the Munich Marriott for $50 a night when I did ED. I'll take 5k in savings and suck up the measly $100 I spent on a hotel in Germany for two nights.
Volvo's program gives you quite a bit. They're trying to move a product that is a salesperson's nightmare.
The car will arrive in 4-6 weeks. West coast is 6 weeks. East coast cars sometimes arrive in 3 weeks.
Having owned both, you can't say (without your tongue in your cheeck) the G has as good fit/finish/feel as the BMW. Period. It doesn't. And that's why the G will always be priced less, because Infiniti can't command the money BMW will easily get.
The G has power, but is a little rough around the edges and the brakes wear out VERY quick. I do like the new interior tho. BMW has gotten so ubiquitous tho. Still a great choice.
Could it be that you were comparing the seats between Journey and Sport version of G35? I would think the seats in both Sports versions (auto and 6MT) are the same.
For ME, since this is my only car, if I opt to do ED 4 years from now I then have to pay for a rental car possibly up to 2 months. Guess what, that's extra money add on to ED + air fare + lodging as well.
Okay, here the thing, I am not trying to bash on the whole ED concept but just trying to point out that it is really not designed for EVERYONE.
I'm used to living in households with more cars than bodies. Hell, my parents have 5 cars and there's only two of them!
Plus, I lease. So I schedule the next car to land here before my lease ends. Missed it by 4 days this time.
That said, I agree that the price difference between G35 and 335 becomes very little in a leasing scenario, especially doing the ED program. You then factor in the free maintenance and higher resale, I believe BMW comes out on top.
To eliminate the other possibilities, which are the 9-3, the C-Class, the CTS, and the IS:
The CTS and IS are RWD. No good for my climate.
The C-Class with AWD is far too expensive.
The 9-3 has been taken over by the Americans, who have a reputation for ruthlessly poorly-made cars.
Which leaves me with the G35x and the A4 3.2 Quattro, and since the two cars are so wonderful, I would choose the A4 only by a hair, because of the revolutionary AWD system that Quattro has become, compared to the weakling Infiniti AWD system, only available in two of Infiniti's passenger cars.
Plus, the A4's much nicer looking, if it means anything.
WRONG!!
Both IS and C-Class offer AWD. Okay I see you know that the C offers AWD but you don't like the price.
You forgot the 328xi as well. Not sure if BMW would offer AWD on the 335i.
I have two little kids and a wife, but I am a newly convert to the ED program believer (thanks to blueguydotcom's analysis). True, it cost a lot to bring a family to Europe for travel. But if you are planning on a vacation anyway, then doing ED actually save you money on car rental. Even if you are not planning on Euro vacation any time soon, for your family just think of it as you going on a business trip. Like blueguy's plan, fly to Munich and back the same day, and save about $3k. Not too shabby for a day's work.
Just my 2 cents.
Has Infiniti finally propped up their leases enough to make that possible?
Dinan's parts are engineered to a standard, just like OE equipment. The "defective" part either meets the standard or not. I suppose anyone could try to dispute their culpability, but Dinan is a long-standing, reputable company. They have more to gain by standing behind their products, and a long tradition of doing so.
In reality, I think an owner is more likely to get the shaft from BMW than from Dinan. I think the transmission failure scenario I described earlier is a good example of this - if you buy a new BMW and 12,000 miles into ownership, the tranny fails, who pays for the repairs?
And sarcasm was my intent, thank you.
Rocky
Ummm, you do know that the E90 3-Series can be had with or without the iDrive system don't you? As such, there's no reason to eliminate the 3er from your list just because of iDrive.
Best Regards,
Shipo
That's funny. Why? Well, it was only a few weeks before I turned my 530i in at lease end that I found out that it even had cup holders (spindly and ridiculous though they were). When I go MiniVan shopping with Mrs. Shipo, I look for cup holders, when I go car shopping with myself, it would never even occur to me to look. ;-)
Best Regards,
Shipo
Wow, coming from somebody who is considering a A4 3.2 AWD, that is really an insult. I have been given such an A4 on 2-3 occasions when my car was in for service. Haven't tried the 6-speed manual, but the automatic is a pig in terms of acceleration. And a thirsty one at that - I averaged barely 16 mpg in 250 miles of mixed driving.
I'll take some of that $10K savings and invest in a really nice shotgun to blow my brains out someday when the going gets tough....or better yet pay down the equity line and invest for little ones' education so they, too, can one day blog about meaningless minutia.
Have you driven the Infiniti in deep snow, hard pack snow up a hill around corners at speed? If you had you wouldn't make such a foolish statement. The Nissan ATTESA AWD on the Infiniti is rock solid and has a long backround on their legendary super car R33 Skyline GT-R. It works like this: A 16bit microprocessor monitors the cars movements at 100 times per second to sense traction loss. Three G-Sensors mounted underneath the center console feed lateral and longtitudinal inputs into an ECU. The ECU can then direct up to and including 50% of the power to the front wheels. When slip is detected on a wheel, the system directs the torque away from that wheel to one that has traction. Torque is apportioned using a clutch pack center differential, similar to the type employed in the Steyr-Daimler-Puch system in the Porsche 959. This series of clutch packs is contained within the 'transfer case,' which is mounted to the rear of the gearbox.
Rather than locking the AWD in all the time or having a system that is "all or nothing", the ATTESA E-TS system can apportion different ratios of torque to different wheels as it sees fit. This provides the driver with an AWD vehicle that performs like a rear wheel drive vehicle in perfect conditions and can recover control when conditions aren't as perfect.
Wow that sounds quite inferior...
A writer named Mike Miller interviewed Steve Dinan and high level officials at BMW North America concerning warranty claims and problems.
http://www.dinancars.com/data/fyi.pdf
http://www.dinancars.com/data/fyi.pdf
In case the links don't work, the title of the article is: BMW of North America Clarifies New Car Warranties: Some Simple Steps Toward the Center (PDF)
These guys try to tell you how things are supposed to work. And even if everything works the way they say, there can be disagreements and denials of warranty paid repairs.
Warranty coverage repair payments are not always guaranteed. If you don't believe the interviewed people in the article, ask owners who have made claims for warranty paid repairs and have been left high and dry.
BMW clubs and BMW owners message boards are good places to start your investigation if you are interested.
You need to really read and take a closer look at the 08' CTS, before making such judgements. I can promise you this isn't the same old General Motors you might otherwise be use to.
Thankfully the Detroit Autoshow will be here in a few days so you can feast your eyes on perhaps the new "benchmark" in the ELLPS class. It will at least get close
Rocky
I don't disagree with you Joe. My point is simply that even on an unmodified car, BMW NA can deny your factory warranty claim.
What happens to your engine warranty if you change your oil every 5,000 miles instead of the recommended 15,000 miles? What if you use Mobil 1 0W-40?
If your paint becomes prematurely oxidized during the warranty period, will BMW deny you when they determine that your paint has never been waxed?
If you blow the tweeter on your left rear speaker after listening to your I-Pod through an FM modulator, can BMW deny you?
Joe, I can think of a thousand things (the list is endless, really) that BMW could theoretically raise a stink about. How are any of these scenarios different than installing a Dinan chip?
Has Infiniti finally propped up their leases enough to make that possible?
Infiniti's recent promotion excludes the new G sedan, although it does include the coupe. Most 2007 G35 sedan lease posted on the G35 board were still in the mid $500. So far, the best deal I saw was $469 per month with $833 OTD (which I assume is for 1st month plus DMV fees) for the Journey. Unsurprisingly, that deal was in So. Cal.
volvomax would certainly disagree with your assessment from a salesperson's perspective, by the way.
In any case, what I later thought of was the fact that, while volvo offers you the trip included, I don't believe their ED discount is as great as BMW's. So its probably close to a wash. It's often that one can get close to or even lower than ED pricing at a volvo store, while the same can not be said of BMW.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
Porsche is in a league of their own. They charge you MORE for the privaledge of picking the car up at the factory. And yet I know of several enthusiasts who have done it multiple times.
I would be hard pressed to buy a new BMW in the US knowing what I found out about ED. Unfortunately, the discounting doesn't apply to the M3 or M5. But the savings on a 550i 6-speed would bring it to pennies more than a 530i in the US.
At 16 I bought an 83 Ford EXP as my first car. Two years of repairing that thing every weekend convinced me to never buy American again. Our Volvo is the same way - turn it on and something new breaks.
If I opt for a VW GTI instead of another BMW in 08, I feel confident that it can't be nearly as awful as my American/Volvo experiences. I had the high expectations of Japanese makes when I moved to German cars but I had totally forgotten how bad American cars can be. I've been reminded. German's make fun but not great cars. Japanese make great but not fun cars. And the americans/volvo - they make cars.
I have my experiences with both brands, too. I just didn't feel it at all necessary to bring it up when talking ED.
let's move on.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
dafreak, I don't think the 335i, sedan nor coupe, comes with AWD yet according to www.bmwusa.com. However, the lower trim 328i does. I don't know what's BMW's plan for an AWD 335i, is there going to be a 335xi in the future?
At this point, I am done trying to justify whether the Bimmer worth the premium or not. If you must have a BMW (or really like the BMW) then I say you should just make peace with yourself and pay the extra bucks. Because if you don't you could easily have buyer's remorse afterward. For me, $10K is definitely not worth it, not even $5K.