Man Buys BMW X6 Sight Unseen for $3,000, His Wife Tried To Stop Him

So, once the family holiday was over, he went down to see the BMW he had just purchased. Alex Palmeri is a former Mercedes-Benz technician. Now, he buys cars, fixes them, and flips them. He buys them even when he is on holiday.

His latest purchase is a 2009 X6 50i xDrive, which came with an $85,000 sticker when new, which was 15 years ago. After a decade and a half on the road, this Coupe SUV has 113,093 miles (183,006 kilometers) on the clock.

It is a BMW X6 xDrive50i that he now has to deal with. This variant rolls off the production line in Spartanburg, South Carolina, with a 4.4-liter twin-turbocharged V8 engine.

That's the bad news. Codenamed N63, it is BMW's first turbocharged petrol V8 and the world's first engine to use the "hot-vee" layout, with the turbochargers located inside the "V," as opposed to the traditional V8 design, in which the intake is inside the "V," while the exhaust manifold sits outside it. The first model to get it was the X6 xDrive50i, back in 2008.

The N63 engine, the king of recalls

The N63 is also BMW's first V8 engine with direct injection. However, over the years, the infamous N63 was hit by major recalls. Those were meant to fix an endless list of issues: timing chain stretch, fuel injectors, mass air flow sensors, battery, engine vacuum pump, low pressure fuel sensor, and crankcase vent lines.

So, it is not exactly the king of reliability. All these issues built it the reputation of BMW’s worst engine ever, a nightmare for owners and mechanics alike.

However, Alex Palmeri accepted the challenge. In fact, he just couldn't stay away from it. Too late to turn back. Now, he is trying to figure out what is wrong with this X6 with a "cracked" engine. When he touched the engine cover, it was still hot, a sign that the vehicle had recently been driven.

The listing on the auction site said it was a run-and-drive car but that the engine was "cracked," whatever that means. That was enough for the insurance company to label it as a "write-off."

Alex checks the V8 to understand what was "cracked" about it. But the only thing that he finds cracked is the plastic engine cover. He turns the key in the ignition and the V8 starts with no hesitation. It sounds like it misfires, and there is an oil leak, but that is fixable, and so is the coolant leak.

The car also sits strangely low at the back, so there might be an issue with the air suspension. Alex finds ultra-sound photos of a baby in the glove box. So, someone got very good news while owning this BMW.

It looks like a very well equipped BMW X6. It's got every option available at the time. Seat massage function at the front, heated rear seats, a center console at the back, and even a ski bag are on board. It's all beige leather in there, and it looks impeccable.

Sixty-four error codes, "fixed" with a tap

Alex drives the car to the trailer, which is already a bonus. Once in the shop, he lifts the BMW X6 to look underneath and everything seems to look fine at a first glance. Back under the hood, he finally finds something cracked. It is a blowoff valve, which is easy to replace.

He gets 64 error codes, so he starts to understand why the engine misfires. He "fixes" everything by erasing the codes. He checks the spark plugs and those are all right as well.

The oil level, however, is below minimum, is the warning that shows up in the dashboard and draining it confirms the information. But the oil filter looks good. After the oil change, just one code pops up, indicating an exhaust camshaft error. But the Check Engine light is back on.

There is no sign the vehicle has ever been involved in a crash and it looks every inch like a car that was very well taken care of. However, he finds documents that show that, at some point, someone bought the car and returned it, because they probably found some undisclosed issues. So, someone else decided that it was too expensive to fix.

The new owner was hoping to get it fixed and flip it. A good running condition BMW X6 would go for as much as $16,000. And the only paid $3,000. So, he is till hoping he can fix it for cheap.