Well I finally got around to writing up this report. I can’t even count how many of these reports I’ve read on this forum and others, so I hope my report can be as helpful to future EDers as previous reports were to me when planning this trip.
I previously had a 428i lease that I got back in 2014. At the time I really wanted to buy a CPO E92 and it was a hasty, unsearched decision to lease an F32 instead. 2 years in, it was time to think about my next car and the M235i (and then M240i) soon became my target. The 4 series was far too big for me, and I loved how for around the same price I could get a 6-cyl engine, M-sport and Track Handling packages, and a more sporty , unique car (This was before the M2, but barely). When it came time to ordering the car, I contacted about 10 dealers in both northern and southern California. The dealer I went with initially offered me invoice - $600 so of course I jumped on it, but we later came to find out that there was with a $1500 market allowance which wasn’t around when it came time to rate lock / contract. It was a messy and unfortunate situation, but because of the uniqueness of the ED program my car was already built and my flights were booked for that next week so the usual “just walk away” adage did not apply. In the end, I ended up at $400 over ED invoice, base MF, and black kidney grills thrown in and installed for free. I locked in April and that ended up being the best program when I signed in July since MFs and residuals only got worse. I miss my F32 lease for the 63% residual and 0.00129 MF. The good thing about signing in April was that April was the last month of the multiple security deposit (MSD) program, so I got to roll over my existing MSDs from my F32 lease into the M240i.
Ordering was a breeze, and aside from the market allowance / pricing issue (which didn’t manifest until the day of contracting when my car had already been built) everything else with the dealer went smoothly. My car ended up being built in the very last week of model year 2017 production at the Lepzig plant. Initially I had contemplated waiting for the LCI, but it wasn’t clear if I could do ED of a 2018 before September and now that I know how dismal the residuals are for the 2018, I’m glad I stuck with the 2018. Touchscreen iDrive means nothing to me (I think touchscreens in cars are a huge safety issue) and the new interior trim design is just odd. The new cluster and headlights would have been nice, but I’m not a fan of the LCI taillights so in the end I don’t think I’ll regret not waiting for the LCI too much. My full build ended up being this:
