BMW 750Li and Porsche Cayenne

The first test drive gave me a good feeling even if the car was not good enough to replace the Batmobile, BMW 645Ci, and of course I hoped it would go just as smoothly when I find the next contender… but it didn’t…

I found a 2008 BMW 750Li with good options and I contacted the car dealership that was selling this car.

I called and we agreed that I would come in about an hour to look at it and have a test drive.

It was about -15 degrees celcius, the sun was shining and a lot of snow, perfect winter weather. I arrived at the car dealership, walked in and found the salesman. The salesman said that he will go get the car. I went back outside to wait and saw the salesman walking towards the car that was under 20 centimeters of snow.

I also walked up to the car and there it was under the snow. It had clearly been sitting there for some time as the engine did not start. But with the help of a booster it started just fine. Of course it’s understandable that it need help to start after sitting for months in the cold without any driving.

Then the salseman said: oh, it has summer tires…

Goes beyond my understanding why they did not go dig it out from the snow, make sure it runs and make sure it has winter tires on when agreed in advance that I will come and have a look at the car and test drive it.

I left my phone number and the salesman said he will contact me when they have put the winter tires on (this would normally take 15-20 minutes… it ended up taking a week).

While driving back home I tried to remember other possible contenders for the batmobile and remembered a Porsche Cayenne GTS. I called the car dealership and we agreed that I will come and have a look at it and test drive it in about an hour. The salesman said they will take it inside and let it warm up. Sounded good…

About an hour later I walked in and took the elevator upstairs where the used cars are. There the Cayenne was waiting with the enginge running and 3 salespeople around it. They had driven it inside and told me that first they were not able to open the passenger side front door. And finally when they got it open they were not able to close it and when they were able to close it, it would not open up again.

We talked a little about it and the salespeople lifted the summertires out of the car, they had been stored on the backseats in plastic bags… on light colored alcantara-leather seats… Maybe someone should tell the salespeople that this will leave marks in the leather that won’t come off… The backseats of the Cayenne already had some marks from storing the tires on them, hopefully it’s not too late.

I drove out with the Cayenne and the dashboard was illuminated with a service light and a warning light for the drivetrain’s locking mechanism. The service light is an easy one, no service had been made lately, but the drivertrain’s locking mechanism warning light might luckily be just a sensor/electric problem from sitting in the cold for many months or it might be something worse.

At the same time I got the cars computer to show me the range because I wanted to check it as the gasoline gauge was near empty. The range showed 4 kilometers and turned into a line… I made a u-turn and drove back to the dealership and told about the issued and said that I don’t think it’s a suitable car for me.

The salesman asked about my budget and I said that I have not thought about it, only thing I said that in the first hand I’m trying to find a Mercedes S class or a BMW 7-series, with gasoline engine.

The salesman then tried to sell me a diesel BMW 7-series and when I said that I do not want a diesel, he told me that diesels are good… but it doesn’t matter if a diesel is good because I don’t want a diesel… Then he suggested a BMW X5 Hybrid, with low kilometers, a 2014 or 2016 model.

We made the test drive paperwork on the X5 and I took it for a spin.

I will write another text about the BMW X5 test drive, because in this text I wrote more about the customer service of car dealerships. And I’m a bit amused about the fact that when I go look at a car priced around 25 000 eur the salesman tried to sell me a 45 000 eur car…

I’m a bit annoyed because I would really wanted to try the Porsche Cayenne and see what kind of emotions it wakes up in me, but luckily there are a lot of Porsche Cayennes for sale, so I believe I will find a suitable one to test drive.