This Guy Bought A Problematic BMW M3, Then Saw His Car Had Been Abused By Top Gear
No matter how careful you are when checking a used car’s history, it’s impossible to know exactly how difficult its life has been. For example, just because your car has been regularly serviced, it doesn’t mean it was never drifted around an airfield by a bloke who had literally no interest in being careful since he got to give the keys back at the end of the day. At least, that would be impossible to know, unless, say, it was drifted around an airfield by the bloke who hosts the world’s most watched television show.
Rob Willis, 27, encountered exactly this problem recently, after buying himself a lovely looking Yas Marina Blue BMW M3. The IT operations manager told The Sun:
“When I bought it, I was told it was an ex-demo which one of the managers had been driving. The brakes were constantly squeaking and the steering wheel made a clunking noise every time I came off the motorway.”
Then, about a month after picking up the car, Rob was watching an old episode of Top Gear, when his girlfriend spotted that the M3 being hooned by Clarkson was wearing the same number plate as the car he’d just bought. Obviously unimpressed by the fact he’d been sold a car that had been abused in such a way without disclosure of that fact, Willis took his M3 back to his local dealership: “The dealers told me it was a mistake and the car should never have been sold as it was unfit for the road.”
The life of a press car is a rough one. The cars are handed around from publication to publication, and driven by people who grow no sense of attachment to the car. Most of us are careful to treat cars properly, but there will always be those who use and abuse their privilege. Furthermore, making cool content often involves driving these cars hard, repeatedly for the camera; no matter how careful you are, that’ll take its toll - and occasionally these cars come with delivery mileage, and we simply don’t have time to get the engines run in before enjoying them. So when these cars exit service and are sold off, it’s no surprise that occasionally they might seem a little rough around the edges.
Fortunately the cars are looked after and serviced by dedicated teams, so there’s very little chance of people encountering an issue like Rob has. Still, I’m not entirely sure I’d want to drop big money on a car the likes of Chris Harris or Jeremy Clarkson have had on camera, no matter how carefully it’s been serviced in the meantime.
Comments
I bet he’s never been this proud owning a broken car. Cough Clarkson’s bum Cough
When you don’t know if the value will go up or down
His problem is with the dealership he bought it from, not Clarkson.
Came looking for this comment. Leaving satisfied!
Sell it for much money because Clarkson drove it ;)
The real win is having a girlfriend that watches Top Gear
LOL
Comment of the week! I’m offended I had to scrole so low to see this!! Truth!
Mine does. :D Usually while i’m at work :(
I’d rather have a girl that eats assholes than one who watches that one on tv.
You’re telling me a Bimmer can’t handle a few tricks on the track without breaking a few parts? :/
Surely that’s what warranty is for? Get steering, brakes, clutch, gearbox swapped out for free and a bit of money back since the dealer lied. All sorted and you’ve got a beast car that’s been a celebrity
I don’t understand why people find this car so amazing just because Jeremy has sat in it. If he took a crap in it and it would still be there, would that make the car even more expensive?
I’m going to rebuttal. First off, if the car had been correctly inspected and repaired by the dealership in the first place, the hooning and abuse would not have mattered. The car had most likely been passed on to several journalists, as this article states, meaning that eventually, wear and tear would have put a toll on some very important parts. Secondly, it doesn’t matter what Clarkson, Harris, or other journalists did with the car. Many modern cars are designed to take this kind of abuse, but they do need to be inspected and repaired after some time. It seems that this press car had some very important repair skipped just to have someone else review it. Lastly, this is not BMW’s fault, but it is the fault of agencies renting out the car and dealers for not meeting road safety requirements. You can’t just continually abuse a dog and expect it to be the nicest animal on the planet, so why would people expect a constantly abused car that has skipped maintenance to be in good condition?
Sounds like he bought a BMW. They need lots of care and feeding regardless of how they’re treated.
This may be comparing apples and oranges, but the xB I bought in 2007 at ~60k miles was a dealer demo for the first 8k miles of it’s life. Now at 252k it’s still completely fine. Original clutch, original A/C, only burns 1qt of oil every 2500 miles, sure I’ve replaced a few things recently, but I literally replaced nothing until well over 200k miles.