How concerned should I be? (2003 320d)

gimpotronitus

Hi There,

I am heading over the the UK to pick up my 2003 320D SE 4 Door. I am paying 10,695 sterling for this car. The car has 40,000 verified (well, with full BMWSH) miles.

I got Dekra car inspections (http://www.dekra-vi.co.uk/) to do a FULL check on the car and the results came in last night. Basically he said he could not fault the car, it looked great, everything was in order.

The kicker is that he said that 3 of the panels have been resprayed. He could not tell this from looking at it, he said he used an electronic paint depth detector to detect that the depth of the paint was different on three panels to the rest of the car - hence the respray. He said he carefully examined these panels to try and detect if they had been replaced or damaged and he could not see anything to indicate this. He said in his experience it was most likely a respray to get rid of scratches and such.

Opinions? He said the car was perfect other than that (well, they dont use that kind of language but you get the idea).

Should I be overly concerned? There are loads of 2,3,4 year old cars out there that defintely get resprayed prior to sale....even my own car could do with a respray.

The garage claim they dont know anything about it of course...

thanks,

- Paul.

whippet

if the price seems to good to be true it is.

I know of two people recently who bought BMWs from the UK and have had major problems .. one which was involved in a fairly big smash at some stage. Mind you he bought it privately with no checks.

But I also know of a few people who have got peaches of cars up north and on the mainland.

It boils down to how much you trust the guy who did the check and how cheap the car is being sold !!

MercMad

I wouldn't worry about it if it looks that good and all else is good !

TommyT

£10695 is not cheap by any means for a 03 320.
I wouldnt be too concerned about the panels having a coat of paint, it may have been only a scrape and a fussy owner having the 3 panels done. If you ring your local BMW dealer and give them the last 7 digits of the VIN they should be able to tell you a pretty decent history of the car, including if it has had any new panels or doors.

JHMEG

Spraying bonnets, bumpers and wings in commonplace in the UK to repair stone chips. I wouldn't worry about. Yer man says it wasn't crashed, which is the main thing.

BrandonBlock

Call me crazy but if it WAS crashed, wouldn't the panels have been replaced and not resprayed?

gimpotronitus

Yeah thanks for setting my mind at ease. I am a bit spooked at buying a car I cannot see and touch.

Rang the engineer again who I would trust totally, sound guy, and he said there is no way that car was crashed. He examined everything from crumple zones to everything else specifically looking for the tell tale signs and couldn't find any.

thanks again.

Owen

Well, if I trade in a BMW, and it has a scratch on a panel longer than an inch, I have to respray the entire panel. If there's a stone chip, same thing. It falls under the BMW Approved Used Car remit, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

milltown

Don't worry about it. If the guy was on the ball enough to detect a respray that he couldn't see, I would have faith in him looking very carefully for other evidence of a crash. And none was found.

As has been said, some owners are very fussy and will get a bodyshop to look after very minor cosmetic damage. My heart sank when a BMW dealer (not the one I had bought the car from) told me that my bonnet and two front wings had been resprayed. We did a thorough inspection too and couldn't find anything else amiss, just some stone chips that had been painted over.

milltown

ned78 wrote:

Well, if I trade in a BMW, and it has a scratch on a panel longer than an inch, I have to respray the entire panel. If there's a stone chip, same thing. It falls under the BMW Approved Used Car remit, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

That puts my mind at ease too. Cheers Ned.

TomMc

Having the odd panel repainted is not too strange at all. In some cases (like with lighter metallic colours) a perfectly good panel would have to be painted just for colour matching alone. Having said that, if it was the bonnet and both front wings or say the rear of the car and both quarter panels, I would treat any potential purchase with much more caution.

rebel.ranter

I read an article in BMW Car Magazine a year or two ago about cars arriving into the UK from the factory. They go through a lot of checks including bodywork. Lots of them need paint jobs due to damamge while being transported, that's before the dealer even sees them!
From the article they described how the set up was almost as well kitted out as the factory, including spray booths, paint baking facitlities etc.
The paint job that was done could even have been done before it was "new" to the first owner!
In addition to that people in the UK in general seem to be more consciencious about their cars so it wouldn't surprise me if it was purely a cosmetic tidy up rather than a accident repair. Especially if it was the original panels (thicker paint).
Interesting that the guy went to the detail of checking paint thickness though!

Stephen

OP: Sounds like a beauty, be sure to let us know how you get on. Where are you buying from? I plan to do this myself in a few months time.

Glanza V

As long as the panels are straight then i would not worry. I often spray parts of my car that mothers with stupid shopping trolly's scratch.

JohnCleary

It's the Turbo you need to be worried about, not panels! 2002-2003 turbo failure is very common.

I wouldnt have bought my '02 320d except for she had a brand spanking new engine and turbo dropped into her in 2004

patsyh

JohnCleary wrote:

It's the Turbo you need to be worried about, not panels! 2002-2003 turbo failure is very common.

I wouldnt have bought my '02 320d except for she had a brand spanking new engine and turbo dropped into her in 2004

Turbo failure is due to how they have been driven not how old they are. I had a 320d from new for 4years and never had a single problem with the turbo, a mate went through 3 turbos on his 2 year old 320d in a year because of the way he drove it, so you just cant base the turbos on the year of the car its all down to the previous owner, unless you've know the car from new its a lottery.

Make sure the car is an se model cause the std one is ****e around corners

JohnCleary

patsyh wrote:

Turbo failure is due to how they have been driven not how old they are. I had a 320d from new for 4years and never had a single problem with the turbo, a mate went through 3 turbos on his 2 year old 320d in a year because of the way he drove it, so you just cant base the turbos on the year of the car its all down to the previous owner, unless you've know the car from new its a lottery.

Make sure the car is an se model cause the std one is ****e around corners

I thought the Garret (sp?) turbo was 'revised' in late 2003? They'd hardly do it for the fun, there was clearly an issue with it. I'm no expert but it's what I was told.

Also the crankcase breather filter had something to do with it. Filter clogged up, over-pressurised the crank (Well, inside the crank casing, you know what I mean) and blew the turbo seals. BMW introduced a crankcase breather filter change at every Inspection II in 2004, I do it evey oil change.

Also, if it was purely down to the way people drove them, how come BMW were replacing turbo's free of charge under warranty if it was driver error? Surely if BMW suspected driver error they'd tell you to fup off?

All above info taken from www.bmw-land.co.uk

I have the SE, what's the suspension difference between the standard model and the SE?

Stephen

I thought they fixed the turbo issue in late 2002, not 2003?

cyborg

patsyh wrote:

Turbo failure is due to how they have been driven not how old they are. I had a 320d from new for 4years and never had a single problem with the turbo, a mate went through 3 turbos on his 2 year old 320d in a year because of the way he drove it, so you just cant base the turbos on the year of the car its all down to the previous owner, unless you've know the car from new its a lottery.

Make sure the car is an se model cause the std one is ****e around corners

suspension is the same on se as standard,do you mean the sport model?

even so the standard suspension is far from s***e around corners

JohnCleary

Stephen wrote:

I thought they fixed the turbo issue in late 2002, not 2003?

Stephen - I'm the same as you, I 'thought' it was fixed in late 2003...

Anyone got a definate answer on that?

Stephen

From honest john:

320d M47 150bhp models getting a reputation for repeated turbo failure, possibly due to extended oil service intervals. After replacing turbo, ECU needs to be reprogrammed. Also instances of injector failure. BMW says that only EU3 320d engines built before October 2003 are affected by the turbo problem. EU4s not affected.

Bugger. So what's the difference between an EU3 and an EU4?

JohnCleary

Stephen wrote:

Bugger. So what's the difference between an EU3 and an EU4?

Well for a start they don't have dodgy turbos!

Stephen

This would nearly persuade me to invest some extra money in going up to an '04 model just for peace of mind. My bank account is withering at the thought of it

JohnCleary

Stephen wrote:

This would nearly persuade me to invest some extra money in going up to an '04 model just for peace of mind. My bank account is withering at the thought of it

I think they also brought out a 6 speed box in 2004 - Maybe another addition with the EU4?

Glanza V

it should be on the chasis plate

gimpotronitus

I wonder if the turbo in the car I am getting blows will BMW replace it? I take it not so since its out of warranty (2003).

Stephen

Any idea of what month in 2003 it was manufactured?

gimpotronitus

April.

Also does anyone know what documents I need to bring back with me? I prsume the MOT cert and the V5C will suffice?

Owen

It depends on where you're buying it, from a Dealer, or Privately. If it's from a Dealer, and you get the 12 month AUC warranty, it's applicable anywhere in Europe.

JohnCleary

gimpotronitus wrote:

I wonder if the turbo in the car I am getting blows will BMW replace it? I take it not so since its out of warranty (2003).

Doubt it since it's out of warranty.

However some of the UK guys who had trouble and also had a FSH said they got a 'goodwill' gesture from BMW which ranged from free replacment, to cost-price replacment