[gbkd80]

So my wife and I bought a 2013 X3 in March of this year and we loved it so much that I finally decided, after many years of wanting one, to get myself a 328i. I ended up going with a 2013 F30 xDrive, CPO. Same color and interior as the X3 (black exterior, black and beige interior). So far, the drive is great. I've only ever test driven an E90 at a CarMax once so I can't really compare the whole hydraulic vs. electric steering debate but it seems just fine for me. This car gets ON it, too. I don't think I expected a 4-banger to go this fast, even with a turbo... but again, the short CarMax ride I once took around the corner with the E90 really did nothing to show off the inline-6 so I'm still impressed with what I wound up with. Plus, the dealership I bought from (Mauro in North Haven, CT) has been great to work with so far... Both cars were purchased here.

I bought the extended maintenance on both cars. I'm still within factory warranty on the F30 for another 10k miles or so. I had brought it into the shop a few days after taking delivery of it because the drivers seat was squeaking and scrunching every time I moved or went over bumps, etc. They ended up removing the seat and replacing some guide thing and putting it all back together and it seemed fine after. Then, I smelled gas in the car whenever I was stopped and it was starting slower. Had to bring it in again, this time they replaced a broken gas line and fittings. Ok, this problem is resolved now. I'm thinking, better be a picky bas*ard now while the warranty is still good and fix all the stupid crap. Now I go in a parking garage and as I'm turning the wheel I hear clicking in the drivers side wheel. WTF now? I also hear a lot of those clicks and clunks when I back out of my driveway and go over a bump, usually when the car is cold I think but it's definitely coming from the front end. Then the seat starts squeaking again! Ugh... made yet another appointment for next Thursday so I can actually get a loaner...

If you were in my shoes, which I'm sure many have been, you bought the car of your dreams and then started having stupid problems with it and started questioning your decision. I come from many Volkswagens... I mean I was a Jetta nut from day one, and every one of them that I owned sucked so hard I don't know what the attraction was. In between I had a Honda Civic which gave me no issues but it was bland. Then just recently before the 328i I had purchased a 2013 Acura ILX which again, nice enough car but bland as hell. Not what I wanted and ultimately traded it in. I can easily compare the ride of the BMW to the ride of a VW, only at a much higher level or premium for sure. So I'll digress and ask a couple questions:

1 - if this was happening to you and you were hearing creaky noises and stuff, would you complain to the dealer and try to have it fixed or just deal with it? I'm one of those believers that a 3 year old vehicle shouldn't make noises like a 13 year old one.
2 - in the front end noise that I hear, is that common with these to hear like suspension creaks and clicks?
3- when these guys CPO a car, are they really checking all of these things or are these what we would refer to more as superficial annoyances?
4- also, when they CPO a car and then it sits on the lot for months (like mine did), I'm assuming they don't check it over again to see if everything's cool?

Also, I heard about this software update that 'fixes' the steering to feel more like the hydraulic steering. Is this different than the software update you find on the website and load via USB? Or is this more like a coding thing? On that same note, I cant get the car to recognize the USB key for software update anyway... I also have that aggravating problem with my iPod classic disconnecting when it feels like it but, from what I've heard it's just an outdated, unsupported hard drive-based player that has trouble interfacing to iDrive consistently so, that's on me...

Sorry for the long-winded post... I'm just doing that whole questioning-myself-in-the-background thing where I'm hoping I made the right decision, because they're not cheap cars, and I love what it is for what it does but I hope it's not going to keep giving me grief...

[jmg]

I've only owned one CPO car before and I was kind of in your shoes. Yes, I would nitpick everything. The inspection of a CPO car, at least in my experience, is very superficial and more statistics based. Miles, appearance, no accident, original paint etc. Those are the real points that make them CPO a car. I discovered so many little annoying things in my CPO Audi S4 that they CAN'T have done a detailed inspection. They would either be incompetent or blind to not see the problems I found within the first hour of driving. Bring it in for EVERYTHING. Get that loaner and make them fix it. This is SOP for CPO cars. A lot of the dealers let the new buyer find the problems for them and bring it in rather than waste the time and manpower to find and fix them in the first place. I have a feeling that they are betting that the customer will not mind the squeaky seats and that's one less thing they would have had to fix and waste money on. The clicking sounds like they need to check the brakes and suspension. The seat might be causing abnormal wear and tear on the guides. Unfortunately, unless something is broken, squeaks are low on the priority list. They are most likely to say nothing is wrong with it. Depending on your relationship you could have them fix it anyway. Good luck!!

[gbkd80]

Excellent, thank you. I don't want to be "that guy" but yeah, I even said to my wife, let them fix all the crap now before the warranty expires. At first I kind of felt like I'm being a pain and I should just live with it, but then I realized that they probably deal with pain in the a$$ customers like me all the time.. this is a BMW / Mercedes group dealer after all. You kind of have this expectation with higher-end vehicles that you are treated better at those dealers than your typical run-of-the-mill. The fact that they get you a loaner vehicle is a huge plus, but then again I'm sure that a big percentage of customers are business-oriented people that cannot afford to be without a vehicle during service so this makes sense.

The seat guides and stuff were replaced last time it was in and it definitely was silent afterward. And he guaranteed me that it would stay that way. But here I am hearing it again - this is a minor complaint but when you spend a lot of time in your car that gets old real quick.

Again, my salesman did disclose to me after I bought the car that it had been sitting on the lot for quite some time, which usually that means good for me because I get a better deal, which on paper I did, but now I have to hunt and peck and find these little nuances that I don't believe should be present on a 30k used car that, with the packages it has, probably sold originally for 55k..

[swainbmw]

i have been down this road before with a land rover. That where used trust me trade it back in soon for a new one .