BMW Selling Laundered Titles

Originally Posted by quackbury

BTW I just clicked on the OP's name and the "read all posts" feature. Surprise, surprise: all 32 posts she has made (I'm assuming from the sig the OP is a she) concern her problems with her vehicle, and her over-arching vendetta against BMW.

Oh, the drama!

Time to let this thread die then. OP will never admit to or understand the legal difference between a lemon law buyback and a voluntary "trade assist" buyback.

I know the difference, I also know that BMW sells outstanding autos... when they are not in "limp mode"

Originally Posted by SARAFIL

BMW will not CPO a car that was repurchased under a state lemon law. Once it is repurchased under the lemon law, it is also "branded" in BMW's system which makes it ineligible to be enrolled in the CPO program.

They can CPO a car that has been traded in under the "trade assist" program, which is not the lemon law.

So your next question... do they sneak cars into the "trade assist" program to avoid branding them as lemons? The answer is definitely NO. I know that the first thing they check on every trade assist package (and they tell every dealer to check this before even thinking about doing a trade assist) is that the car does not meet state lemon law requirements. If it does, they will not approve the trade assist and will require the dealer to go through the lemon law.

This is consistent with an experience I had last year. I visited a dealership near Baltimore that had a low mileage M3 for sale at a very attractive price. I asked if the car was a CPO. The salesman said no and that they would not CPO it. He then said BMW bought the car back from the original owner because he claimed the adjustable suspension did not work. The salesman claimed that BMW could not find anything wrong with the vehicle.

At the time I didn't think much about it but now I think the car was repurchased as a lemon, which would explain why they would not CPO it.

Originally Posted by RBinDC

This is consistent with an experience I had last year. I visited a dealership near Baltimore that had a low mileage M3 for sale at a very attractive price. I asked if the car was a CPO. The salesman said no and that they would not CPO it. He then said BMW bought the car back from the original owner because he claimed the adjustable suspension did not work. The salesman claimed that BMW could not find anything wrong with the vehicle.

At the time I didn't think much about it but now I think the car was repurchased as a lemon, which would explain why they would not CPO it.

If the car is repurchased as a lemon, there will be a title restriction that identifies the car as a lemon law repurchase (at least in California). The title restriction will show up in the Carfax report.

This is extremely common in the 135i's. In fact, i've heard they're so common in the 135's that BMW will replace the HPFP no questions asked. Seems like you're better off getting the 128i due to the fact that they have no HPFP.

Originally Posted by maof2girls

Is BMW Selling Bought-Back Lemons as 'Certified Pre-Owned'?

ABC News reported on Oct. 26 that it had an 'exclusive' report on problems with BMW (BAMXY) vehicles that could suddenly lose power due to defective high-pressure fuel pumps (HPFP). That's a story I broke over three months ago on DailyFinance. But no matter, at least the ABC story appears to have sparked BMW into announcing it would recall 151,000 vehicles affected by the HPFP problem and replace their fuel pumps and add new software.

(I hope that solves the problem, but two BMW owners I spoke with for my original reporting on this problem in July had their fuel pumps replaced, and it didn't fix the issue. Both owners eventually sold their vehicles back to the manufacturer. Perhaps BMW has a solution now that will work.)

While BMW has finally admitted the need for a recall (earlier, it had not done so despite numerous customers' complaints about the fuel-pump problem), the ultimate-driving-machine-maker now also faces a related charge: that it's buying back these vehicles from owners and reselling them without disclosing their sordid history. That's according to Robert Silverman, founding partner of law firm Kimmel & Silverman in Ambler, Pa., who's representing many current and former BMW owners.

Silverman alleges that BMW has been buying back these vehicles and reselling them with titles that don't reveal to the new buyers that the cars were bought back and the specific reason why they were bought back. Silverman says that results in a so-called laundered title.

Read full article - http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/is...wned/19669684/

Good story, but I'm finding it hard to get over the fact that you are "maof2girls" and your first name is Peter. I'm sorry; things like that distract me from the intended message. Okay; I'm done.

Peter wrote the article, I posted it. Mystery solved.

Originally Posted by RBinDC

This is consistent with an experience I had last year. I visited a dealership near Baltimore that had a low mileage M3 for sale at a very attractive price. I asked if the car was a CPO. The salesman said no and that they would not CPO it. He then said BMW bought the car back from the original owner because he claimed the adjustable suspension did not work. The salesman claimed that BMW could not find anything wrong with the vehicle.

At the time I didn't think much about it but now I think the car was repurchased as a lemon, which would explain why they would not CPO it.

There are a few reasons that the M3 could not be CPOd, one of the more common is that a new M3 is sold with "break-in" oil and must be changed at 1200 miles, though you do have up to 2400 miles to do this break in oil change. If this oil change does not take place then the M3 can not be CPOd ever.

Many a CA neglects to inform the buyer of a new M3 about this and while it might have a negligible effect on that buyer, any future buyer loses out.

Originally Posted by quackbury

Why is everyone getting their knickers in a knot?

A CPO is a USED CAR that the manufacturer is warranting. If you are buying a USED CAR, you are taking the chance that it has a "story" - crash damage, repo, trade assist, whatever. Can you imagine anyone making a stink because the used Hyundai they bought at Swifty Soprano's Used Cars had a problem? At least the CPO comes with a warranty - good luck getting Swifty to stand behind the iron he's moving.

There is a problem if - and ONLY if - BMW is laundering titles and misrepresenting a car that under the relevant state statutes is deemed to be a "lemon". There is a lot of bluster here, but I have yet to see any EVIDENCE that BMWUSA wittingly or unwittingly laundered the title of even one vehicle.

Sounds to me like a bunch of sleazy lawyers trolling for business. And second-rate journalists hungry for a splashy headline.

Any mass-produced human-made product is going to have variations in quality (Google Edward Deming). It is inevitable that a sample of new cars will have problems that are challenging to fix; and regular 'Fest members have certainly seen examples of this, not just with the F10 but in vitrually every other BMW model. I give BMWUSA huge props for standing behind the product they distribute (not manufacture), via the trade assist program.

+1

I will add that a car becomes a "lemon" when settlement under the terms of the statute has been completed. It does not automatically become a lemon when the requirement of the individual state statute or Magnuson-Moss Act has been reached. In Illinois, for example, the statute requires that the owner first has to go through an "informal" settlement procedure with the manufacturer. Only when the owner is dissatisfied with the outcome of the informal procedure can they then initiate a civil action to enforce their rights under the statute.

So at anytime the manufacturer can buy back or trade assist the defective vehicle and circumvent the car being branded a "lemon". There is nothing illegal or imoral about this. A buyer of any pre-owned vehicle should do their due diligence to determine the history of the car. Caveat emptor.