[toxaris71]

Hi Everyone,

Last year, my 230i's lease expired, and I wanted to buy out my car. It was a no-brainer decision because the used car market was still pretty crazy, my car only had 32,000 km (20,000 miles) after 4 years, and the buyout price was only $20,400 (~15k USD). Obviously the dealer would have preferred if I left the car with them since they could have easily gotten ~35k CAD (~25K USD) for it (manual, M-sport, fully loaded, low mileage) at the time. This is why I think the following experience I had with them was intentionally done to get me to not buy out the lease.

To buy it out, I had to do a safety inspection. However, to my surprise, my car didn't pass. They stated that there was too much surface rust on the brake rotors. There was ~45% surface rust, but their limit was ~20% (see pictures attached: one is of the rear wheels, which happens to show the brakes, and one is from the invoice). I know rotors rust, especially since it was early spring and very rainy, but, to my knowledge, all you need is to brake hard a few times to remove the rust. However, they told me all rotors and pads must be changed (even though the car had 32k km/20k miles, and the rotors were not even half worn out). My service manager was very adamant that all rotors (and by extension, all pads) must be changed ($2000). Moreover, one of my rims (BMW OEM) had a slight bend, therefore, I apparently also needed a new set of wheels to pass inspection.

Needless to say, I took my car to a reputable independent BMW shop, who told me the brakes were indeed corroded because I didn't drive often enough. He recommended I change the brakes and rotors, however, if I didn't want to, he could pass me anyway, since they weren't that bad. I opted to be safe and change the rotors/brakes, but the rims turned out to be perfectly fine. They were not bent or curbed (I'm very careful with my rims).

With the safety certificate in hand, I was able to buy out my car from the dealership. I was lucky that they accepted an independent shop's safety certificate, because only a few months later, they reversed this policy.

I feel like these two issues were superficial (or even non-existent in the case of the bent rim). I think they just wanted to either:
a) squeeze out a few thousand dollars from me before I bought out my lease, or
b) for me to give up on buying out my car, so that they could sell it to someone else for $15k+ more than the lease buyout price.

Does anyone have any thoughts? Am I being overly suspicious of them, or do you think they just wanted to take advantage?

In any case, I am never leasing a car that I know I will want to buyout. Luckily it did work out in the end, and I'm still enjoying the 230i, but I never thought buying out the lease would be such a hassle.

Thanks for reading.