[IanM3]

Morning all,

I've been lurking for a few days reading the posts, great site! I have been a massive BMW fan since birth and have owned quite a few in my time. However, I currently own an Audi A4 Avant having defected from an e46 330d Touring, don't ask me why!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I am about to order a 335d M Sport Touring and I had a question. The dealer tells me that the car will be worth diddly squat in 3 years if I don't order Pro Nav. Is this true, do I really need to spend the extra £2k to safeguard my investment?

Thanks, Ian

[silverbmwz3]

I tend to think that when you spend the kind of money that car is going to cost on a car these days you'd expect it to have sat nav. I think he was being a bit overzealous with "diddly squat" though. Some cars are more spec-sensitive it seems - as an example my local dealer had an X5 without sat nav on its forecourt for probably 4 or 5 months ! Others with sat-nav were being snapped up. I think the X5 is a lot more spec sensitive in that regard than the e90 series however you have to think:

i) You will get the benefit of it
ii) From estimates on here you should get half the cost of it back (although I
suppose that remains to be seen - do dealers really give 1k extra for nav
equipped e9x series ?)
iii) It will probably make it easier to get a sweeter deal at the other end or find a willing private buyer if you go that route.

The fact that you are asking the question makes me think you are a bit take-it-or-leave it about (i) so it really depends if the combination of (ii) and (iii) are worth it to you. I'm no expert by any means so will see what others add.

[Raggie]

how about this as an idea.

Get a PCP quote for the car you are buying with and without pro-nav, and compare the garanteed final values.

IMHO This is the only way to guess the future value of the car based upon its condition now.

much more will depend on the milage and its condition when its time to sell.

I bet you will find the differance between with and without nav to be the sub £1K mark. (it was when I did this some months ago) meaning the you will lose half the value of that one option.

You should spec the car to your needs, not the salesman idea.. I think its much more imortant to get the colour and leather options right.. as its that which will sell the car in the future.

Rags

[IanM3]

Thanks guys. I'll check out the pcp quote and see what the difference is. I also need to have a play with the i-drive etc. to see if it'll be of any use to me.

Cheers

[BC4J]

Originally Posted by Raggie

how about this as an idea.

Get a PCP quote for the car you are buying with and without pro-nav, and compare the garanteed final values.

IMHO This is the only way to guess the future value of the car based upon its condition now.

much more will depend on the milage and its condition when its time to sell.

I bet you will find the differance between with and without nav to be the sub £1K mark. (it was when I did this some months ago) meaning the you will lose half the value of that one option.

You should spec the car to your needs, not the salesman idea.. I think its much more imortant to get the colour and leather options right.. as its that which will sell the car in the future.

Rags

What are the best colour options (paint and leather) for resale?

[silverbmwz3]

Originally Posted by BC4J

What are the best colour options (paint and leather) for resale?

I don't think there is a real 'best' is there?

I know my dealer had my car spec'd as le mans blue with lemon leather (which seems quite popular) but I changed it to the 'safe' option of black & black. I think anything too garish might be tougher to resell. You don't see many e90s with the terra leather in UK although I was tempted momentarily.

I suspect Red (paint) is a bit of a no-no for cars other than the coupe, but that's just my opinion. Maybe its a different red now but my dealer has a name for the E46 BMW red - they call it DDR. I'll give you a hint - the D stands for Dog's.

[bob mushroom]

Originally Posted by IanM

The dealer tells me that the car will be worth diddly squat in 3 years if I don't order Pro Nav. Is this true, do I really need to spend the extra £2k to safeguard my investment?

Thanks, Ian

TBH I think he is being rather presumptious. I would agree that buyers may be more attracted to it but I am convinced it would sell. Bluetooth on the other hand in 3 years I think tht will be the norm. Pro Nav is old technology in new cars and in 3 years it will be even older.

To give an idea walk around a dealer and look at the crs most do not have the pro-nav all seem to have bluetooth.

This is only my 2penny and in no way can any loss of profit on resale be attributed to my post!!!

[NFS]

Originally Posted by IanM

Morning all,

I've been lurking for a few days reading the posts, great site! I have been a massive BMW fan since birth and have owned quite a few in my time. However, I currently own an Audi A4 Avant having defected from an e46 330d Touring, don't ask me why!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I am about to order a 335d M Sport Touring and I had a question. The dealer tells me that the car will be worth diddly squat in 3 years if I don't order Pro Nav. Is this true, do I really need to spend the extra £2k to safeguard my investment?

Thanks, Ian

I spent quite a bit of time looking at 2 yr old 330i's before eventually buying new.

My experience was that pro nav adds up to £1500 to the re-sale price. So it's reasonably valuable, but you don't get back what you spend.

I do think that it makes the car more attractive to dealers though ... which will help trade in considerably.

In the end I think it's more about desireability than hard value.

[rjs]

If it adds 1500 to the resale value & makes the car desirable then it sounds like a good idea. (and not that expensive)

I wasn't going to order it but was swayed the idrive & integration of the phone/entertainment/car settings/parking sensor/etc.. as well

you also get some funky shortcut buttons on post-week 10 built cars.

[silverbmwz3]

Has anyone taken any pics of those shorcut buttons? Don't think I've seen any on this forum.

[- Paul -]

It's definately a benefit for the dealer as it will be easier to sell on - if you don't want or need it - don't get it. I may be in the minority here but if I was to buy a 335, Nav is not important to me at all. I'm buying the car for its handling /performance /looks etc. BTW - welcome to the site and don't forget to post pics when it arrives!!!!

[rjs]

Originally Posted by silverbmwz3

Has anyone taken any pics of those shorcut buttons? Don't think I've seen any on this forum.

look at the last pic of the first post here: http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58937

there's 8 of them in between the disc slots.

I've never seen any in person, but apparantly just touching a button displays it's function on the screen & pressing it obviously activates it.

You can assign them to anything, radio stations, navigation destinations, phone someone etc...

[silverbmwz3]

Ah, gotcha. Don't know why but thought they were around the idrive controller. Just trying to think how I'd use them now....wouldn't voice control usually be easier? I guess if you can program a post code in for a favourite destination that's a lot easier than redoing with the idrive controller.... perhaps they are to get around criticisms of idrive.

[NFS]

Originally Posted by silverbmwz3

Ah, gotcha. Don't know why but thought they were around the idrive controller. Just trying to think how I'd use them now....wouldn't voice control usually be easier? I guess if you can program a post code in for a favourite destination that's a lot easier than redoing with the idrive controller.... perhaps they are to get around criticisms of idrive.

If I had the extra buttons I would probably program them as shortcut keys, for example to quickly switch to:

1. aux input
2. radio
3. map view
4. a to z phone list

On the old version you can get the phone list from the programmable steering wheel buttons, but switching between radio and aux in is a pain. You either have to press several buttons on the idrive or use the clunky voice input.

Personally I see this as a retrograde step compared with an 'old fashioned' e46 where you just had to press the FM button.