Quote:
Originally Posted by Chek
johnung, thanks for the quick reply.
Do you happen to know if there is any significant difference in 2015 and 2016 5 series?
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Sorry. As the other guys pointed out, I jumped the gun assuming that you were talking about a 535 which has the N55 6 cylinder engine. (The 540 has the newer B58 6 cylinder engine and would be desirable also.)
As far as differences between model years, there are several searches that you can do to find information to know whether one year may be more important to you, or not! Search online for the BMW product literature from both years. Read them cover to cover to see what differences you spot. Go through the Bimmerpost forum especially any ordering information to see if the newer model year shows anything different. Search for any car magazine articles on those model years, like Car & Driver, Road & Track, Automobile, Motor Trend, etc. Those always mention new features/opinions for a new model year. Check the various used car search sites. They often have really good information that distinguishes changes between model years.
Once you do those things you should be very educated on the model years and also all of the potential features that were available. The most important thing you can do now is VIN lookups on any car that you are considering. There are many sites out there. I was playing with mdecoder the other day.
Don't just go by whatever is posted online about a car or even what a dealer has listed. It's often generic information about the model and not that particular car. You need to really understand the various packages and options. Otherwise you won't know how to recognize whether you are getting what you want or getting a good price on a used BMW.
When I got close to deciding on which one of three cars to choose I asked the dealers to print out the information that they had on the VINs that they were trying to sell to me. I discovered that one car had a bunch of options that apparently were added at the port or at the dealer prior to new car delivery. They didn't appear to have been factored when the used car offering price had been set by the dealer. So essentially my car unexpectedly came with an MPPK tune, M Performance Intake and Exhaust, and blacked out kidney grilles all for free because they were never factored into the price. Had I not done the above searches I wouldn't have had the knowledge to spot and to understand that one of the cars under consideration was by far a better deal than the others.
It's a bunch of work to search and read all that stuff. It all depends on how much it's worth it to you.
Hope this helps!