How/What To Check When Buying a Used BMW | E90 E92 328i 330i 335i

do y'all want to buy a used BMW just like this one without getting ripped off well then listen up what's up guys welcome back to the Channel first things first if you're not subscribed go on Smash subscribe button hit that notification Bell so you can stay in the loop on all the videos to come so as you guys can see I have this 2009 BMW 328i this is the E90 so it's a four-door it is also the face lifted LCI model and we actually just bought this for my father so today it's going to be showing you all my exact process and basically how I walk through a car and make sure that I'm not going to get ripped off and I'll show y'all all of the little things along the way to help you all save your money and make sure that you buy the right car let's go ahead and get right into the video we'll go ahead and show you around this E90 and what to look for on all of these BMWs and guys I'm going to shoot this entire video basing it off of the exact process I would do as if I was walking up to someone I've never met before and buying the car so I'm going to show y'all exactly what I would check for when I would check for it all in order so yeah let's go and turn around show you guys the E90 and so we bought this vehicle off of Facebook Marketplace but we basically want to check it out for ourselves and find little key points that we can highlight to get the vehicle a little bit lower in price now you don't want to show up and blatantly lie to someone in low balls on this not what you want to do but you do want to keep in mind on the vehicle what you're going to have to replace in the future and factor that in to the offer that you throw out to them and so Facebook Marketplace Craigslist all these different websites can be you know hidden gems to find some great vehicles but there's also a lot of Clunkers and a lot of people that are trying to get one over on you so that's the negative so you have to be an educated buyer basically when it comes down to it so using this video even though it seems a little bit long right now I promise you after watching this you'll be able to pick up these things instantly with any car that you look at and basically tell what type of owner you know has it and if the car is worth buying at all but right off the bat what you want to go ahead and do is line up the VIN number and check it it on Carfax now the VIN number on the vehicles in a few different spots but right here under the windshield is the most obvious spot and easiest to find by doing that we can basically pull up the entire history of the vehicle and see basically what all has been done to it what has been changed what has been replaced and what has not I do want to do that before you even meet up you know as soon as you text them hey I'm interested get that information check everything over that way when you show up you have that information to go off of so you want to do that before you even get there but assuming Hey Now We're Here we showed up we're gonna go ahead and go from there and I'm gonna show you my exact process that basically I use to buy any used car so let's go ahead and get into that now and as you guys know these are extremely bulletproof engines n52 I have a e92 coupe with the same engine and so that's why we opted to get him this car basically overall it's extremely reliable the first thing I would do I would get the key fob right so this is the exact process and what I would do I would test to see if the key fob works so walking up to the car the unlock button unlocks the car the lock button locks the car and the trunk button walk around to the rear the trunk button works because the trunk lifted and now that's just something super small you can check when you're walking up to the car so now we're here so the first thing I would check is the exterior of the vehicle and we're checking the overall condition of the paint of course it's going to have a few little dings it's going to have a few imperfections but we're making sure it doesn't have any oxidation oxidation on these cars can be a huge Telltale sign that the car sap or was mistreated by the previous owner so if you see severe oxidation it can only leave you believe that the previous owner didn't take care of it or that the car sat for a long time this is the most prone part to sun damage will be the roof and the hood as well the trunk area is pretty prone but you can see there's no oxidation we have a couple little ill dents which is actually why this buyer sold it to us for a cheaper price but overall going around the whole car the paint overall is extremely clean it's going to have a few imperfections and Etc like I said but overall we're not seeing any crazy oxidation on the vehicle's pain while we're checking the exterior we're going to make sure that all of our little trim pieces and everything like that are on we have our grills nothing is missing it's usually not a great sign if the grill is missing from the car I feel like most owners who would care about the car in any type of way would replace little trim pieces if they broke or fell off so make sure these were all on all throughout the bottom fog lights Grille everything else while we're doing our little exterior run around I'll basically just make sure that the tires are all not deteriorated to condition you can actually see the brake pads not on camera but you can see the brake pads and see if the vehicle is going to need new brakes so we got so that moves us on to number two the second thing I would check while you're checking the overall condition of the paint is all the body panels for dense or misalignment because this can be proof that the car was in an accident or something has been replaced for some reason and basically what I mean by this guys is you're going to come along to all the panels and they should all be even you shouldn't see any crazy misalignment like a huge gap here in a small Gap here so we're checking right here that actually looks very flush looks OEM so we're checking all the panel lines to make sure everything matches up we're checking the hood line to make sure it doesn't go big to small it stays consistent the whole way through and that is proof right there that the hood has not been tampered with nothing's been replaced now more importantly we're following these body lines down the fender these fenders get replaced often guys because they are plastic these are not metal listen hear how that one sounds these are plastic so they're more prone to Breaking especially at the brackets so we're checking these Body Lines making sure going down and around the car going to the door the door hasn't been replaced or anything crazy and how you'll indicate that is like I said you see how this Gap right here is even the whole way down if something's been replaced or tampered with it'll be big here and it'll start to get smaller or maybe it'll be small and narrow and get wider but this looks uniform the whole way down around the car the rear quarter panel checking all the body lines and overall everything's matching up the trunk everything's matching up no dents no dings nothing crazy and if there was you can use that as a bargaining point of course to uh haggle down on the price even more because if you see you know you have a little Nick here on the front bumper and you're thinking about replacing it either way in the future you know bring that up as a bargaining point that we can knock some dollars off the price and the most critical Parts here that you look for the bumpers because those are what bump into things so you're gonna look at the front bumper the rear bumper walk around the car and basically make sure there's no crazy damage the rear bumper usually people reverse into things pretty often but we can see that it's all good on this one I love how the LCI tail lights look so nice all right guys so now we've done a quick surveillance of the outside of the vehicle we just walked up to the car and met the owner looked around the outside of the vehicle now what we're going to go ahead and do is Hop on the inside and check out the interior and the interior on this one's actually in really good shape but what you're looking for here are tears you're looking for Tears cigarette smoke the smell of cigarettes you're looking for staining all across the headliner but mainly what I would be concerned about this is a car for me would be tears in the leather because then you have to replace these seats no one likes having tears and these ones are actually in pretty good condition we're going to come on here to the passenger side and basically make sure that everything's good here we don't have any tears we don't have anything missing here the little cup holders work as they should that's always a good sign because these fail oh yeah yeah there's the one there's the one same exact thing for the rear seats which we can see are all in really good condition honestly cool and now from here we're gonna go ahead and do is punch the key into the ignition and what we're going to be checking for now is that there's no lights on the dashboard we're basically into an overall run of the Interior we're gonna check that there's no lights on the dashboard and we're gonna go ahead and plug in our code scanner and scan the whole car systems to basically make sure there's no errors or fault codes and so I don't have my OBD2 Scanner with me but what you would do is plug it into here scan the whole car system and make sure there's absolutely no code if you have an updated scanner you can also check temperatures of the transmission and engine as well I would highly highly recommend that and so I don't have my code scanner with me at the moment but if I did what I would do is plug it up and check all of the temperatures I would check the coolant 10 temperatures the engine oil temperatures the transmission temps all of that stuff and I would check that as I'm driving the car to ensure that there's nothing that's overheating I don't have my scanner with me at the moment I forgot it but for purposes of this video that is what you're going to do next you're going to plug up a scanner and check the whole car system something that you want to check for that you think is common sense but a lot of people kind of Overlook sometimes make sure the mileage matches up with the previous service record so we actually came into this issue where a vehicle we wanted to purchase came across and said hey this might not be the actual mileage it was not this vehicle it was another one but it said that possibly the odometer got rolled back so you want to make sure the Carfax or whatever you use matches the mileage make sure the mileage matches the owner says and the title so make sure it all kind of goes together and makes sense also you want to make sure there's no tamper dot there's a tamper Dot and I believe it's somewhere I believe it's right in between here but if it shows a tamper dot that means that the odometer has been rolled back you do not want to purchase that car most likely so now assuming everything things good there we're gonna go ahead and pop our key into the ignition and we're going to go ahead and turn the electronics on and start the vehicle but there's no lights on the dashboard it's completely clean and clear you don't have the little illuminated triangle showing that there's an error here if there's some sort of error no matter what even if it's just a little bulb that's out it's going to show a little triangle right over here what we can do is go through our systems menu by flicking this Arrow up now I'll say check control we'll go ahead and punch in the BC just like that see that we have a check okay so that's showing that basically all the car systems are good to go there's no errors now what we're going to do is go through that same menu and we'll check the oil level and the car has not been running so let it run and idle for about 10 to 15 minutes and the oil level will populate but we're going to make sure that this thing has not been running low on oil so you want to make sure that it populates here in the middle and now this model is equipped with the iDrive unit so what I'm going to go ahead and do while I'm inside the car is basically make sure everything in here works because whatever doesn't work is more money down the road let's go ahead and make sure our AC works that's the most important thing recycle cold nice cold air so we know the AC works so now we'll do the opposite and we'll check the Heat put this little knobby over let that sit for a little bit oh yeah that's good heat coming out of there that is hot sweet so now we know all of this works we'll go ahead and put it back bam bam we're gonna make sure all of our switches work so obviously lock unlock we're going to turn the radio on make sure all the speakers work we have heated seats equipped so we're going to fire those up see if those actually do their thing overall we're basically just making sure that everything on the interior works all these features work and so far they do so now getting out of the car the next thing I would check since we're already on the interior portion and everything's checked out so let's assume that we have no codes we've checked all of that everything on the interior Works we're gonna check all of our lighting outside of the vehicle so for this go ahead and pop your hazard lights on and once you've popped your hazard lights on we're basically going to do a run through the outside and make sure all these different lighting components work sweet so we're going to flip our hazards on let's go and pop our headlights and fog lights on sweet so as you guys can see side indicators work turn signals headlights Angel Eyes work fog lights work and we're just going through the outside of the vehicle basically making sure all of these lights work because whatever doesn't work we basically use it to haggle down the price as you guys can see until lights are good and on to the next side everything works and if you really want to you can punch it in reverse and if you have a second person make sure your reverse lights work but I don't have a second person and I already saw mine work so we're good to go sweet so now that we know all of our lights and everything work I like to pop the hood on the vehicle while the car is running just so I can hear or see if anything's wrong while the vehicle's engine is actually in use so let's go ahead and do that pop the hood and overall I'm basically seeing if I can smell anything weird which right now I do not I do not smell any weird smells whatsoever if you can see it down there check the drive belts uh see if you can hear or see anything weird I don't smell any weird smells no oil no oil again on the oil filter housing gasket or seeping here the alternator actually looks in impeccable condition all of these hoses look extremely good I don't see any coolant bubbling over the valve cover right here I don't really see any oil going back obviously it looks like there's some debris and stuff on the metal but I don't really see any oil seeping out and liquefied form so that is good so now we're going to do is check all of our fluids located within the vehicle now go ahead and pop off our oil cap or basically popping this back to look inside the engine see that we don't see any crusty like crud on here look at this this is an extremely good sign that there's absolutely none on there because it shows that there's no deposits or anything built up we're not seeing any like white or brown like milkshake goo that is a great sign that means that the head gasket is not blown or anything like that if it was you would see like a milkshake goo that'd be like a white or brown so this is all in good shape that is really good thing with this cover here that we can pop off it's just a couple little push tabs here and here we can pop this off and expose our brake fluid reservoir and we can wiggle it around and see right here that there is brake fluid in there I'm not going to open it up because I already checked it we're basically going to twist this off and check the condition it should be a gold color not like a dark dark brown and now again we can basically go ahead and check to see if we see any leakage or anything not the vehicle is actually off and there's no leakage on the power steering and the coolant is extremely hot right now so I'm not going to open it up but you want to open this up and basically make sure there's no oil or anything mixed around in here indicating a blown head gasket also make sure it has the official BMW blue coolant not the the green because the green has to get flushed out make sure it has the official BMW blue coolant in here and it is at the right coolant level as well we can go ahead and pop open our power steering fluid reservoir and basically check the fluid condition first thing check the level and we can see in there that it is full if I tap it around but you want to check the condition of the fluid because you know if it's deteriorated it's something you want to know sooner rather than later but overall the engine on this vehicle actually looks extremely good I don't see any red flags at all I don't smell anything see anything hear anything so that is really good we're checking these strut Towers just to make sure everything's nice and tight nothing's been tampered with same thing here we're also checking for rust the whole way through check and see if anything's heavily rusted especially on the engine you want to make sure there's no rust at all so you're looking at the entire block of the vehicle seeing if you see any leaking or any rust down and anywhere and so far we do not like I said we've already checked all of this over um I'm just showing you guys for reference right now and then here as well this is actually extremely overlooked but important is the headlights and the bumper all these screws and Hardware should be OEM if they are not then obviously it tells you something's been removed or replaced so we're making sure that the headlights are all oems held in there nice and tight which they are so this has not been replaced same thing for the bumper bolts you can see it has not been removed and yeah overall extremely solid extreme extremely solid car and now something we can check for really quick is check under the car for any leaks and we're checking to see if you're finding any leaks at all coolant oil Etc you may find like AC compressor uh water but you're making sure there's no coolant or oil or anything like that leaking out so now I feel like I covered most of the things that I would check when buying one of these cars so now the last thing to do is actually take it out for a test drive you can't really check suspension just by looking at it so what we're basically going to have to do is hop in the car take it out on a 10 15 and 20 minute test drive and really get in the car and make sure it doesn't overheat check all your temperatures plug your scan tool into the vehicle while you drive and monitor all of those temperatures while you're driving check the suspension listen for noises turn the radio off turn the AC off turn it on like mess around with different things but really make sure you're having a Keen Eye and Ear to the suspension and how the car is actually behaving steering and Etc now something want to be extremely cautious of and cognizant of is how the car starts up and that was a perfect start on the vehicle so that is a good sign and now since we do have the iDrive unit where we can actually go ahead and do is go to the vehicle info and what the vehicle info does we can check the vehicle status so we can see our TPMS all of them work we have our engine oil level the car hasn't been running long enough so it's still measuring but we can check service required and see that brake fluid engine oil all of these components have been serviced already and there's nothing outstanding on the vehicle you can see all systems okay that's an absolutely perfect thing to see on these cars so now taking it out for a drive we really want to pay attention on the transmission Acts so you want to put it in Drive put it in reverse kind of shift through the gears and see how everything reacts cool so we'll go and punch it over into drive and as we can see no check engine lights or anything so yeah it's go time let's go and overall this vehicle drives extremely smooth I've already taken it out on the highway and Etc or basically just making sure that the suspension and all these components are in good shape try to go over a few of these bumps I'll have to see if we can hear any chatter in the suspension you really want to pay attention to how the car accelerates and responds you want to pay attention to the suspension how the power steering responds and so far very smooth uh the Rev bands are extremely linear so that is really good sign no lights spontaneously came on the dash we already checked all those over guys taking it out something you can check for right now is the alignment a lot of times the alignment can be bad just from uh worn out tires but it also can be indicative of suspension issues in the long run so we're basically going to check the alignment let the wheel kind of Center itself we can see the alignment's a tiny bit off basically holding it in the middle position and the car is veering off a little bit to the right not a huge deal like I said it could just be worn out tires or misworn tires yeah guys the car overall drives very very smooth very very nice suspension's good I don't hear any chat or any weird noises feel any vibrations I already took it on the highway but I had to put my phone away because I can't be on the highway with my phone out and driving that's probably one of the most important things take it out on the highway uh that way you guys can go like 60 miles an hour and really feel if anything's wrong yeah as you guys can see we are here back with the e92 go and punch it back in park use our parking brake all the time and yeah guys it passed the test drive extremely smooth car extremely nice overall I just wanted to show you guys what you want to look for in a test drive during your test drive you want to really take it out on the highway and go about 60 miles an hour because that's where a lot of your vibrations and stuff will really come into play so once you take it on the highway you want to take it in some City Driving run through the gears kick it in sport mode see how the gears react make sure there's no slippage throw it in sport use the manual gears as long as you're shifting at the right points and you really want to pay attention to any clunking noises any misalignment or anything like that because that's going to be indicative of bad suspension so the main things you're looking for is that the car is running smoothly it's not choppy and the transmission's sifting well and the suspension is in solid shape but uh yeah that's what I would check during the test drive because usually it's pretty brief it's 10 to 15 minutes so you really want to get the most out of it well guys that was a quick rundown on how you can stay safe and educated as a buyer and land yourself a very nice BMW really any car without the worries of you know getting ripped off or anything like that this BMW E90 is face lifted is equipped with heated seats I Drive Unit Etc 100 000 miles on the dashboard very very well maintained don't trust anybody out there that says oh I have a check engine light for this and that the car is okay I just don't have time but that basically is how you run through one of these BMWs really quickly to make sure you're staying educated and don't get ripped off if you found this video helpful then smash that subscribe button hit that notification Bell so you can stay in the loop on all the videos to come as always thank you all so much for the support we just doubled on subscribers in less than a year so I love each and every one of y'all and I really do mean that as always thank you all so much for watching and we'll catch you all in the next video peace out foreign [Music]

Channel: IzzyE9X

Views: 54,385

Keywords: how, to, what, check, buying, used, new, bmw, car, when, issues, problems, reliabilioty, coolant, oil, suspension, e9x, e90, e92, e93, 328i, 335i, 330i, 428i, 435i, euro, audi, mercedes

Id: hUzqu3QDvdk

Length: 22min 7sec (1327 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 17 2022