Help with car purchase?

[Ofi]

I am thinking of buying a BMW 3 series. I am ok with the purchase price but I keep hearing that the maintenance will kill you.  I heard that a flat tire could be almost $200!!?? Can anyone tell me their experience with maintenace and some of the costs for required services such as oil change, tune up, rotation of tires, etc....?  Also, feel free to share your overall experience with the car.

[cardude]

if you are buying it new, you will get 4 years/50,000 miles of free maintenance with it, (everything except tires), and you can extend that to 6 years/100,000 miles. if you are buying a certified used one from the dealer, it will come with the 6/100, coverage as part of the price. we just bought our '07 328XI and i'll have to tell you that it is the best car we've ever owned, we'll never go back to american cars, they're not even close to the same quality. we had an '01 buick regal gs that turned out to be our biggest $32,000 disappointment/mistake ever! it started to use a quart of oil between changes before we hit 40,000 miles, even though we had it changed every 3,000! and GM's stand on that was that that is acceptable!!! i guess that explains why they are struggling these days! we ordered our bmw with the premium and winter packages, manual transmission and went for the extended 6 year/100,000 coverage. we've just hit 5,000 miles, it is so much fun to drive, driving the back roads are a joy and the highway is a blast. just watch your speed, you ARE going faster than you think! hope you go for it, i know that you'll love it if you do, good luck.

[ZCT]

If you buy a new one, everything is covered for the first 50,000 miles including any maintenance required.



The run flat tires are expensive to replace if they are punctured, but what I did is pay $27 a year to an insurance company who will buy me a new tire if my old one gets damaged.



But a BMW is a luxury car, if you have no warranty and it needs a service, it is going to cost you, just like any other luxury brand.

[325ix]

the maintenance of these cars is expensive. Although' there is a bunch of things you can do to lower down those charges.

Like, buying a maintenance book.

Changing the oil your self.

the tires, they can cost about 200, but it all depends in what kind of tire you get.

you can pretty much get one for $80. a decent one.