[cgillio]

Has anyone done bmw select? I searched the forum and there was very little info on it. Any input on bmw select would be great.

[cgillio]

Anyone?

[nmulax]

I'm curious about this as well.

[raleedy]

Years ago someone explained to me that this was a substitute for leasing in jurisdictions where leasing was -- for legal or tax reasons -- problematic.

[2manycars1]

BMW select is a loan with a balloon payment. It is basically the same as a lease except your name goes on the title and registration. Your payment may or may not be lower than on a lease. You may still purchase the vehicle, but you are responsible for completing all payments including the large balloon which would be your last payment (often very high).

I live in Pa. where the state charges some sort of monthly fee to leasees so here a balloon may make sense.

The down side is that the interest rate is generally higher on a balloon than on traditional finace agreements.

If you owning the car rather than the leasing company is preferable to you, you might consider it. Sometimes the numbers work better than the lease depending on how big of a balloon you have at the end. You always have to remember however, that your payments only pay a small part of what is owed on the car. The balloon makes up the difference.

You will also find that many dealers do very few, or may have never done a balloon so they shy away from them. I did a balloon once on a BMW and the dealer had to manually work the numbers since they had no computer program setup to do the numbers for it.

Look at all avenues and then see what the deal is really costing you before you decide.