-Ralph-

Never mind the price, don't buy a 3 series BMW, or any BMW for that matter. A 3 series is the only car I've ever had that needed something looked at under warranty at EVERY service, plus at least one trip to the dealer between each service to sort something that was more than just an annoyance, leaks, broken mechanisms, electrical gremlins, you name it.

Then at 80k miles and 1 week out of warranty the turbo collapsed whilst ticking over at the side of the road, it revved it's nuts off uncontrollably the oil from the intercooler and blew holes in 3 of the pistons.

I say this because though other models may not be as crap (I don't know), the dealers are awful. When you have a 9 month list of people waiting for a new car because it has a blue propeller on the nose, then you have no incentive to keep the customers you already have, if you loose a customer or two, who cares.