This morning, I was surfing the web as normal, with Facebook open in one window and a BMW parts catalog open in the other. These are my two favorite masochist ways to put things off. While I sipped my coffee, I winced extra-wide. Surprisingly, someone in the Oppositelock Facebook group found out that a gas pump for a 2006–2009 BMW 760 costs a whopping $15,000. Some parts of the cars may have lost value, but the cars themselves may not have. I own an E46 (a BMW 3 Series car from the 2000s) and an F31 (a BMW 3 Series wagon from the 2010s), but I haven’t needed any of the incredibly expensive parts yet. They need constant care, so I use the internet in chunks as part of my routine. The 760 is a rare V12, which makes it the only one of its kind in BMW’s range. A quick check on RealOEM, a website with a lot of parts catalogs, shows that this fuel pump (BMW part number 13517560364) is only found in a few other cars, all Rolls-Royces from the same era. The price of $2,225.33 on that page was probably the MSRP for the part when it was first made 20 years ago. Euro car parts stores like FCP Euro, Pelican Parts, BMW Parts Now, and an Atlanta dealer’s parts page now charge between $12,000 and $15,000 just to look around. At first, I thought that one of those listings was wrong or a replacement for an item that wasn’t in stock. Things that are no longer available, on the other hand, are identified as such. The few of these pumps that are still around are very expensive. eBay sells many refurbished and used items for less money, but it is hard to find the original item. If you haven’t noticed, it’s also hard to find a BMW 760 for sale. I’ve only seen a few in my whole life. But I did see an ad for one in Nebraska that was well-kept and had very little mileage on it. The price being asked is $12,749. Since this car needs a new gas pump, you would be better off buying this whole car and getting rid of the old one. A little more. When I searched on Autotrader, I found four V12s from the E65/E66 frame era spread out across the country, all priced below the gas pump. In addition to being a slightly funny look at the used car market, the main point of the story is that cars often lose worth more slowly than the parts that make them up. When a car gets old, it’s likely to cost more to keep up than it did when it was new. A 760Li that runs is a lot of car for $13,000, even if you have to throw it away after a key part breaks.
