The site
What's free, and what the full report adds.
Every score, guide and car report on this site is free to read and use, and nothing asks for an account. The full report, for a buyer ready to make an offer on one car, is the one thing that costs money. An email address is always optional.
Free, with nothing asked
- A Guide Score and a ranking for every BMW M and M Performance generation sold in the US, with how each score is made.
- A buying guide for each one: its known issues and what they cost to fix, the best years, running costs and what to check before you pay.
- Check a car: paste a listing's link or a VIN for a report on that one car, with a verdict, the Guide Score, its two-year budget, its costliest known faults with prices, its ownership risk, the warranty likely left, the free fixes and what the listing left out.
- Compare any two cars, and the best cars at your budget.
- Prices near you: set a ZIP once and car pages, budget lists and reports show the asking prices of cars listed within 100 miles, with the cars themselves. Your ZIP stays in your browser.
A report lives at its own link, which carries the facts and never a VIN. Nothing about it is stored or tied to you.
Check a car, or start from the rankings.
What an email gets you
- The M Index, once a month. Score changes with the reason, new guides, new recalls on M cars, and one thing to check before you buy.
- Listing alerts, coming soon. Tell us the car, a ZIP code and a top price, and we will email you when one is listed near you. They are not sending yet; ask now and yours starts the day they do.
One address for both, unsubscribe anytime. We never sell or share it. What we keep, and why.
How the site is paid for
Where a buyer needs one, some pages suggest a history report, an inspector, parts or the FTC's guide to warranties. None of those links pays this site today. If one ever does, it says Paid link beside it, and no score or verdict ever moves for money. There are no ads. The full report is what pays for the site.
The full report
For a buyer ready to make an offer: $49 for one car, $99 for three, or a 30-day pass. It adds, for that car:
- Its price against comparable cars for sale, with the cars listed and where its asking price sits.
- An offer sheet to print: where to open, what is fair and when to walk away, in dollars.
- Two years of likely work, item by item at its miles, with where each figure comes from.
- An inspection sheet for the shop: every known fault for its year, how to check it and what a pass looks like.
- Questions for the seller, written from this car's gaps.
Checkout opens soon, and nothing can be charged yet. It is offered only for a car the report can price against comparable cars that day.