Quote:
Originally Posted by maestrogustav
Well, I stumbled in here to this forum and this thread, about 14 hours after putting a $500 deposit on a 2013 328i with 73k miles on it; purchase price is $13k from a BMW dealer. Not sure if my guy is there on Sundays; I'm supposed to pick the car up Monday evening after detailing.
I will ask about the timing chain issue. My guy is straightforward, but he certainly didn't mention that I am conveniently 3k miles outside the warranty zone.
Can it be demanded to be changed preventatively, or must there be some "evidence" of a problem before they do it?
There were literally two customers lined up after me on Saturday afternoon to buy the car; I imagine they'll let me off the hook, or I could transfer the deposit to another vehicle. Advice anyone? I think this is my second or third post, and this would be my first BMW in the states since moving from Germany 10 years ago.
The car that brought me into the dealership was a 2015 335i with 44k miles, but it's 11 grand more. Ironically, my research on that vehicle concluded that the inline 6 had reliability issues. . .
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Just ask to see the service records, and if it doesn’t show replacement of the timing chain then walk away. Also there’s no widespread reliability issues with the N55; it’s pretty solid since it’s an evolution of the N54.
With regards to the folks saying to get a 2015 model N20 (328i), IIRC it’s more nuanced than that. The change was rolled in to the various N20 engines for different models (X3, 3-series, 4-series, X1, etc) at different times. So you’ll need to google something like “N20 timing chain extended warranty” to see exactly which month the N20 was updated in the 328i. For example you might find that a 2015 328i built in August 2014 has the old parts, while a September 2014 build has the new parts (just making up those dates as an example of course)
Personally when I was looking at used 4-cylinder 2-series, the whole thing was such a confusing mess I decided to just make a 230i my baseline and skip the whole N20 mess.