Buying a 5 Series

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
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Mon 25 Oct 2004 17:42
Buying a 5 Series - MichaelR
Hi guys,

Had a theory. It should, in theory, be possible to purchase a facelift E39 5 Series on around an X or a Y plate, in excellent condition, from a BCA Top Car Auction for around £10k.

You could run this car for a year-18 months, putting no more than average mileage on it, and then sell the car privately for the price you paid at auction - around £10k.

You could then use this £10k to buy a replacement E39 5 Series, say, on an 02 or 52 plate by this time. A year-18 months later, you do the same thing again.

Net result is that you always own a 3-4 year old 5 Series, but depreciation costs are minimal and when you decide to do something else you sell the current 5 and pocket the £10K you originally started with.

No profit, but crucially, no loss either.

Thats the theory. In practice, would it work? What time period would one need to sell an auction sourced 5 Series at in order to receup the money privately, again assuming initial budget of £10k?

Hopefully some of you can see where I am going with this. Is it feasible?
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Mon 25 Oct 2004 19:04
Buying a 5 Series - Chad.R
It would certainly work in theory...as long as in theory

a) Other than wear and tear and routine servicing, you never suffer a major repair bill - this will eat into your £10K capital.
b). The used values for 5 series remain steady - or in other words, depreciation remains constant between E39 and E60 models & years etc.
c) The differential between auction and "private/retail" price remains the same.

Probably a lot more factors involved, these are just the ones of the top of my head.

Chad.
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Mon 25 Oct 2004 19:07
Buying a 5 Series - MichaelR
It's not exactly a big deal if it does go 'wrong' in that residuals crash or something - we'd never loose as much as we did on the 10k 2.0 Mondeo bought a few years back, and we'd get a quality car for the cash.

It would just be an added bonus if it could be changed yearly for a newer one with no additional cost outside repairs and servicing.
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Mon 25 Oct 2004 19:47
Buying a 5 Series - midlifecrisis
Slightly different class, but I bought a 2000 'W' Renault Clio, 30000m, FSH, for the wife, two years ago for £3200 from BCA. Sold it six months ago for....£3200. Less the cost of one oil change and an MOT, as good as it gets.
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