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I purchased my E92 335D SE from Bluebell BMW in Wilmslow, Cheshire.
This was the first time I'd ever bought a new car and was interested to see how I got treated by the various luxury car dealerships. I was pleasantly surprised how well we were looked after. BMW, Lexus and Mercedes were all very, very helpful arranging accompanied test drives and then extended test drives as required. The worst of all were the local Audi dealer! They just couldn't get the A5 in that I wanted to drive saying it was with a business customer and after a couple of weeks messing about and then calling me during the working day they had it there and then, I just told them not to bother!
I had searched the internet for the best price for the 335D with the spec I wanted (nearly fully loaded). I was buying with finance and in the end Bluebell nearly matched the monthly figure I had been offered on the web. It was a little bit more, but thought it would be easier to do it with a local dealer. We went in and ordered the car (approx 10-11% discount) and was told we would sort the finance out later. In the end the car was available sooner than they said but we held off for an 08 plate. Of course, after a bit of badgering they finally got round to sort out the finance only to find they could no longer honour the quote I was give due to change in residuals and interest rates. At no point did they say that this would happen, even though thinking about it, it was to be expected. I felt they had let me down badly.
Anyway, I sourced some finance through and online broker (without the hand back option) and saved quite a bit of money over the original agrreed monthly payment, so in the end all was ok.
Overall dealer has been good. I'm having problems with their bodyshop (run as a separate company) after repairing some suspension damage (ride height is wrong and pull slightly) but the service manager has got involved and I'm hoping that will do the trick.....
Overall I would recommend them.....will be interested to see what trade in they will give me in 2 years time.....the big discounts may cause residual issues, though I was told that from 2008, BMW dealers will no longer be able to sell via brokers and therefore discounts will never be as high again!
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