My 2023 BMW X4M got stolen recently - I’m still in shock and processing how to move forward.
I have a few questions and would appreciate some feedback.
The car was leased, I only had the car for 5 months (out of a 36 month lease). I put a significant down payment down to lower my monthly costs. Since the car was stolen, would I be able to get the remainder down payment refunded? (Or at least a partial amount).
If my insurance settles the car with BMW and I owe nothing, I’m still down X amount of $$$ from the down payment. That means I either get that down payment money back and put it towards another lease OR I have to take more money out of my account for another down payment on a new car?
Does anyone have any experience or knowledge on this topic? Appreciate all the help…
I never put money down, and if you argue you should then you shouldn’t get that expensive of a car.
Personally a max down payment of 2k is fine, but I always do $0.
When you say stolen you mean taken off on a truck right? Not driven away ?
Your insurance adjuster has a lot of power in this situation. When my 3 series was stolen earlier this year, the value of the car was higher than what I owed on my lease and I got paid a hefty sum for the difference. It will all depend on what the market value of that car is right now. It is unlikely to be higher than what you owe on the lease.
You may also have a specific coverage on your insurance which pays out the full msrp and if that’s the case you should receive a newer version of that car.
I had to re -read to get the the “lease”. Now I’m wondering why anyone would down payment on a lease.
Yeah but that would imply financial lease. In which ownership and insurance is with the customer. And in that case it would be settled between insurer and customer. Not bmw.
In the case OP provided is operational lease. Basically a car as a service for which you pay a monthly fee and all other costs are just fuel and perhaps a fee for additional miles.
Just wanted to say …. The way they are stealing all these cars …. Is there picking up your key fob when u use it with a machine and they save the signal to then relay to car and boom gone……happened to me in my Acura tlx 23’ …….so to help my fellow bmw people…… I only use my phone or the bmw key card…… haven’t used my key fob since I left dealership…… hope that helps when you get your new bmw…… faraday pouch works but the moment you pull your key out to use…… they taking the signal……… I put 4 AirTags in car removed the speakers in the AirTag so they can’t find…… steering lock…. And a owl cam so if they do get in the car I get alerted…. And it’s gonna take sometime to take the steering wheel lock offf…. Don’t rely on bmw gps …… use AirTags cheapest best way…. They know how to remove all that bmw stuff…… but they won’t know wth you stuck them airtags
How does an airtag prevent theft? In my area the cops won’t pursuit this.
Lol, who puts a down payment on a lease?
Those are scary numbers, 8k due at signing, 1200 a month…a lease…wow. Not sure what your Numbers were, i see that on their site… But that is one hefty down payment.
Damn. That’s a lot of money to borrow a car.
Did you set up the “my BMW” app? It has the gps location and can take photos of the surroundings as long as the battery is in the car.
Exactly why you don’t put money down on a lease.
Yeah, unfortunately this may be an expensive lesson. There are already good suggestions here, the only thing I’ll add is if you have cash to put down on a lease and want to reduce your monthly payments, you can either use that money to put down security deposits which reduces the payment and you get that money refunded at the end of the lease (in this scenario, those would be paid back to you now), or if those aren’t available you can put that money aside in a safe HYSA and just make the larger payments to BMW but take draws off that account into your main account to make up for the difference. You’ll make some interest on that cash in the meantime and if the lease ends that money is still safe and sound in your account.
I know this doesn’t help your situation now, but might be useful for your next one.
are you sure your car didn’t get towed by mistake?
This was my first thought too the second they said they were in a parking deck. Did you call every tow lot around?
Isn’t it a bit weird that you get screwed. You have a deal with BMW for a car. Which got stolen and they are insured for. So they just can’t get off the hook of their side of the contract by having the car stolen. I’d say they still have an obligation to actually deliver you “a” x4m. Realistically it could be a slightly used one, and not a new one.
Contracts work both ways.
I’m don’t think that’s how this works though. They already made the deal and delivered the vehicle. BMW is not on the hook here, the buyer is, and that’s why buyers are bound by the terms of BMW financial contracts to maintain insurance on the vehicle until it is paid off or leased returned. Contracts do work both ways, but it seems in this scenario BMW has fulfilled their obligations up to this point. That doesn’t mean they will just provide another vehicle. Certainly the contract would not require that, and they certainly aren’t providing another vehicle out of goodwill.
So you can find it cuz the cops ain’t gonna find it …. They couldn’t find my brand new acura tlx 23 special edition ……. Smh
Same thing happened to me with vw finance and I lost the down payment