Selling a car you love is hard enough. It gets harder when the market says it is worth far less than you hoped. That is what happened when a longtime customer brought his tuned 2012 BMW M5 to a Toronto dealership to sell it.
The sales team behind @torontoautobrokers5900 filmed the whole deal. The owner runs an exhaust business, and he says he has bought and sold cars with this dealer for about 15 years.
A Tuned BMW M5 He Had Owned For Months
He says he bought the M5 privately in the spring and traded a 7 Series toward it, so he had owned it for less than a year. It was already modified when he got it. According to him, it has charge pipes, an intake, a catted downpipe, resonator deletes and a tune. He also says it made 700 horsepower at the wheels on a dyno.
On top of that, he says he just paid about $1,800 in labor for new injectors and spark plugs to cure a lag under hard throttle. The odometer shows about 133,000 kilometers, which works out to roughly 82,600 miles. The dealer runs the history report, and it comes back clean.
Still, the owner sets his terms early.
“So, listen, Gidi, I don’t want to sell, so you got to get good with me with the price here.”
The Offer And The Auction
First he jokes about a huge number. Then he says about $17,800 would work for him. However, the dealer points to the mileage, the tires and some wear on the seats, and he settles on about $14,900. The owner argues that the rare color should count for more.
So the dealer suggests a test. With the owner’s OK, his team lists the M5 on an online auction platform where other dealers can bid. Meanwhile, the owner takes a salesman for a drive and says he will keep the car if the number is wrong.
About 40 minutes later, the dealer checks the bidding with three minutes left.
“Guys, we are not doing well.”
Nothing changes in the final minutes. When the timer runs out, the top bid sits at about $10,000. That is roughly $4,900 below what the dealer had already offered. In fact, he says his own offers usually beat these auctions.
“I’ve been paying attention lately that our offer usually seems to be much better than these auctions.”
Back To The Table
Then the dealer walks outside and shows the owner the result on his phone. The owner does not hide his surprise.
“That’s way too low.”
Even so, the dealer keeps his original offer on the table instead of lowering it. The owner asks for about $15,600. After some back and forth, they meet at about $15,300, as long as a quick inspection checks out. A mechanic drives the car and finds only that the front brake pads will need replacing soon.
“Still a bit low, but I came here to do a deal today.”
We converted the prices in this story from Canadian dollars to US dollars at the European Central Bank rate of November 6, 2026, and rounded them.
What Sellers Can Learn From This BMW M5 Deal
An online auction is a fast way to see what dealers will really pay, and this one was humbling. Here is what we took from it:
- Get a firm offer before you test the market somewhere else.
- Expect modifications to add little to a trade-in value, even when they cost real money.
- Keep receipts for recent work, since they help a buyer trust the car.
- Know that high mileage and worn tires come off the price first.
- Remember that a rare color may matter more to you than to a dealer.
Where Things Stand
The owner signs the paperwork and heads home with a check, an Uber ride and his dog. The dealer admits the auction result made him nervous. Still, he says he believes in the car and expects to find it a new home.
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