A Used F10 BMW M5 Now Costs Less Than The UK’s Cheapest New Car
Great news! If you’ve got a budget of £14,715 to spend on a car, you can get yourself behind the wheel of the UK’s cheapest new car – the charming little Dacia Sandero. For that, you’re getting a 1.0-litre turbocharged supermini with 91bhp, quoted fuel economy of about 53mpg and a three-year warranty. All very pleasant things.
For that money, though, you know what else you could have? A 552bhp, 4.4-litre V8-powered German super saloon. Welcome to what is probably a terrible, wonderful idea.
The F10 BMW M5 was introduced in 2011, swapping the previous E60 M5’s much-loved, much time-bomby-5.0-litre V10 but gaining about 50bhp in the process. Produced until 2017, the F10 is arguably a bit of a forgotten entry into the lineage of the M5.
At the time of its release, it was applauded for offering some pretty impressive performance figures, but often criticised for not being intense enough at the limit, not a far cry enough from the more sedate 5 Series it was based on. Perhaps it’s most memorable for being on the cover of the collector’s edition of Forza Motorsport 4, although that may speak to this author being 15 years old at the time the F10 came to market.
Perhaps we can partly blame that for prices now being so low. When new, a base F10 M5 would’ve set you back a touch north of £70,000 – and now with around £14,715 in your pocket, there are quite a few to pick from.
The cheapest non-write-off, non-questionably remapped car we’ve found in the classifieds is a 2012 car at £13,990 with 98,000 miles on the clock. We’d probably look to stretch the budget to £14,995 for this more tastefully-specced, 85,500-mile example from the same year, though.
The other reason they’re so cheap, though? Well, it’s a now decade-and-a-half old German super saloon, and that means the threat of decade-and-a-half old German super saloon repair bills.
Just to name a few well-known issues, early cars are known to have fuel pressure sensor and pump issues, pretty much all model years with brake sensor failures, excessively high oil consumption… Something will go bang and cost a fortune at some point, in short.
Worth the risk, or is that Dacia three-year warranty sounding pretty good right now? Let us know how brave you’re feeling today.
Ryan serves as Editor of Car Throttle, having joined in 2023. On top of making sure everything is ticking over, you can read his takes on the latest new cars, some ways to spend your hard-earned cash in the used market, as well as the occasional JDM deep cut feature.
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