Guide To Selling Your BMW M3 Online
The BMW M3 has been a beloved part of the BMW stable for over thirty years now, and it’s easy to see why. An upgraded version of a much-loved sedan, the M3’s reputation as fun, affordable and extremely fast precedes it. There comes a time when we all need to kill our darlings though, and parting with a much-loved car is just one of them. In this article, I’ll give you advice on selling your M3, whether it’s an E30 or an E93.
Finding a potential buyer
The internet is awash with places to sell your car: from eBay to Craigslist, and these can be fantastic, but there’s a whole range of other places you might not have thought to look. One idea would be to find an audience of BMW M3 enthusiasts. The M3 being such a much-loved car, there are numerous forums dedicated to the cars, as well as ones devoted to BMW as a whole, with many of these sites friendly to sellers. There’s two advantages to this: one, with a selection of potential buyers who would be interested in an M3, and an M3 only, you’re likely to find a higher concentration of interested parties, who would prefer your car to say, a Mercedes-AMG E63. Secondly, you’re also likely to get a fair price. These people know why an E30 is so valuable, for example, and won’t be put off by the price. There are also numerous listings sites available, including our very own Exotic Car List, with listing prices starting at $49.
Get It In Good Shape
Give your car a good checkover before you sell it to avoid any embarrassing incidents on a test drive. Research your model’s known issues, read buyer’s guides, and make sure this isn’t affecting your car. For example, as Jalopnik mention in their buyer’s guide for the E46, 2001-2003 models were recalled due to an issue with wrongly sized rod bearings that could lead to catastrophic failures. These were fixed in a recall, but the recall was non-compulsory. The buyer may well be looking for these too, so having any necessary work done could give you a much better chance of a sale.
Be Honest
The key to gaining a buyer’s trust is honesty. If your car has issues, come out with them upfront. If they take a look at your service history and see a lot of problems you’ve not told them about, even if they’ve all been sorted, they will lose any trust they had in you, and you’ll likely lose a sale. Be upfront and open about the car’s history — mention issues, solved or not. They will find out anyway: don’t be a dodgy dealer.
Price It Appropriately
A mint condition used BMW M3 for sale, can sometimes top $50,000, but make sure you take into account your car’s mileage, any scratches or dents, mechanical issues, or damaged interior. Research your model online and find what other cars of the same era are selling for. For an E30, you can expect to sell for anywhere from $60,000 upwards for one in excellent condition, $45,000 and up for a low-mileage E36, $20,000 for an E46, and back up to around $40,000 for the E90/92/93 generation.
