I was wondering if you could give me your opion on a mini I was thinking of buying. Its an 2007 S with just under 3k miles on it. I am buying it from a used car dealership in NH. The car is a buy back car. I guess their was a problem with the auto tran. in manual mod and the dealership the car was bought at in florida couldnt figure out the problem. I guess bmw bought the car back from the customer and shipped the car to south carolina to be repaired. It was all fixed and this dealship bought the car from bmw along with 2 other buy backs (all three came from the same dealership in florida).

Is this comon and are the cars safe to buy or are they lemons? Or could it just be the dealership in florida does not have good techs and after tryn to be repaired several time the lemon law kicked in? The vin is WMWMF73587TL89637

 

How can I phrase this politely?
YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE OUT OF YOUR MIND TO BUY THIS CAR!!!!!!!
It's been bounced from state to state, has a dubious repair record, and is a known buy-back. It's also not from a MINI dealership, so, no pre-owned MINI warranty of any kind.
Also, a VIN or CarFax search is fairly useless, as all sorts of nasty things happen to cars that never get reported, and salvage titles get "cleaned-up" all the time, especially for out-of-state vehicles. This MINI may even be a totalled car that's been bought as scrap, made cosmetically presentable, and put on the used car lot. If you want to buy a used MINI, buy from a local MINI dealer, or from an in-state private owner who can show you the car's history and repair records.

 

RUN AWAY FROM ANY BUYBACK CAR!!!!

Seriously, unless the price is half the value you will forever regret buying a buyback car. Anything could be wrong with it. Any Mini dealer will be able to tell you what the problem was and how many times it was in. If it's a buyback it was in A LOT for the same problem.

There are plenty of Mini's out there. Go find one that you'll love and not have to worry about.