Marcus Hellberg

Review of BMW of San Francisco

tl;dr: Beware of BMW of SF. Even if you buy a CPO ...

tl;dr: Beware of BMW of SF. Even if you buy a CPO car, have it inspected by a third party. Make sure you get both plates. If you don't, you may end up with a big bill for repairs and fees/tickets like me.

I bought a Certified Pre-Owned 2015 BMW 328i a short while ago. I found the car through the official BMW site and checked that it was still available. I got a prompt email response and set up a test drive.



After the test drive, we went to do paperwork. I had a financing offer, but the dealership was able to find me an even lower rate nice. By the time I was done with all the paperwork, it was already dark. They had washed and cleaned out the car, and I got a walkthrough of the electronics and was on my way home. So far so good.

The next day, the sun was shining and hit the windshield straight on. Now that the car was clean, I realized that much of what I thought was street dust turned out to be a severely chipped/sandblasted hood and windshield.

The condition of the windshield is very distracting, so I probably need to get it replaced (around $2,000). The only way to get the front of the car looking nice is a repaint (another $2,000).

The car only had a rear license plate attached, and after looking through the car, I realized that it only came with one license plate. I had to go to the DMV to get a second plate to drive my new BMW legally.

The car also had faulty electronics: front 9V socket didn't work, although they did fix that. CPO inspections seem very superficial.