Upside down on a BMW - sell it?

[RollingGreen]

My sister has a 2009 BMW 328 ix with 124,700 miles on it. The engine had to be fixed when the car left her stranded on the highway last month; now it continues to misfire after it was fixed. I'd like her to get a new (cheap) car as she's commuting on the highway to school, and the car is pretty unsafe. It's worth about $1,500, but the worst part is the loan she has on it still has $5,200 left to pay.

Seems like a pretty dead-end situation, but I'm checking to see if anyone of you out there has better advice out there of what she should do. Of course, if you need more information, please let me know.

[norajean]

Get an independent local BMW mechanic to diagnose the problem, then decide what to do. If it can be fixed without an engine swap or something, seems like the car should be worth $6-7k.

[rothwem]

I’ve actually owned a 2009 328xi. And a 2011 328xi. And I now have a 2009 328i. I love this generation of BMW.  One of the reasons I like them is that the engine is pretty damn reliable, with only a couple failure points.

My guess for what stranded her is the water pump? If the water pump failed and the engine overheated, then your sister needs to make an insurance claim and total the car out. That would make a car misfire after a water pump failure.

If the engine didn’t overheat, then the misfire is very likely a bad coil, which is a ~$70 part.

You sister needs to fix the car, it’s worth at least 5400 in working condition, probably closer to 7ish, assuming that it’s not dented up with a salvage title.

[Boofinator]

Other posters have covered the maintenance options, but I wanted to highlight that how much somebody made or lost or owes on an asset should have little to no relevancy in the decision to sell (or buy) that asset. (Not that you explicitly stated this was a factor in your decision, but it seemed to be implied.) The exception would be if your sister did not have the money available to make the bank whole after the sale, in which case she's stuck, but maybe as the Mustachian sibling that you are you could offer a short-term loan if selling the Beemer was the financially wise thing to do.

[RollingGreen]

Taking all these suggestions and all the info into account. Thank you for the responses.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk