3.24.2008

The difference between a porcupine and BMW of Lincoln

I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty details of this, since it's blowing up all over the innertubes, but I'll give a Cole's Notes version, and a link to the forum thread for you to read through at your own Easter Monday leisure.

A gentleman was looking to purchase an E90 BMW M3 sedan. Can't blame him ... it's going to be a great car. Said gentleman, Mr. "dooma350", found a listing on eBay for the car he wanted, with a starting bid of USD$60,000. He arranged financing (of up to USD$61,000) and bid on the car. Nobody outbid him, so he got his dream car for the opening bid, right? Nope ... not so much.

BMW of Lincoln, Nebraska is refusing to honor the sale, saying they made an "honest mistake", even though they reviewed (and changed) the auction listing page 3 times in 3 days.

This story is "blow<ing> up like the World Trade" (© Notorious B.I.G.), and has been posted to any and every car forum you can think of (including Autoblog) and the Consumerist. As of 0909 PST (GMT+8) the dealership has sent Mr. dooma350 an email saying they will not be honoring the auction price of USD$60,000. I'll keep following this story, and update as I feel necessary.

The original post is at the BimmerPost forums, here.

UPDATE: BMW of Lincoln is agreeing to sell Mr. dooma350 the car for the agreed-upon price of USD$60,000 (with certain conditions). No word on what those conditions may be, but Mr. dooma350 will find out tomorrow in a meeting with the dealership.

UPDATE 2: BMW of Lincoln is now saying that Dooma (aka Ken) can't/hasn't produced funding, and with a rapidly approaching deadline (04/01) the deal is expected to fall through.

UPDATE 3: I just realized it's been a while since I updated this post (or any part of the blog), and Ken has now received his car, and is loving it. He's posted plenty of pictures on the forum (see link above; p.122 of the forum post), and she's a beaut!
















































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