BMW from America

The first thing about an American BMW is the drivetrain, and it costs more than anything else. In Europe we assume an X5 or an X6 is all-wheel drive and that every second 3 Series is an xDrive. In America BMW sells sDrive — rear drive only — across the range, and especially in California, Texas and Florida. The auction listing says only "X5" or "330I". A rear-drive car is markedly harder to sell here and loses value, and the difference is invisible in the photographs — it is in the badge and the VIN.

The large piece of good news runs the other way. The American B48, B58 and N63 of these generations have no particulate filter. There is nothing to clog, the engine sounds deeper, and the car passes the Bulgarian inspection without trouble provided the catalysts are in place. This is a rare case where the American specification is mechanically simpler than the European one rather than more complicated.

Equipment does not work the way it does in Europe. There is no standard equipment there — there is a sparse base car and paid packages. Two cars of the same year that look identical are different cars and sell for different money. M Sport gives the aerodynamics, the wheel and the firmer suspension. Luxury Seating replaces the hard base seats with comfort seats, ventilated and massaging. Executive brings the laser headlights, the head-up display and the Sky Lounge roof. Dynamic Handling adds active anti-roll bars and rear-wheel steering. Which packages a car has decides its resale here more than the engine does.

Three things belong in the registration budget and are known in advance. The rear indicators light red and have to become amber: on the F generations that means taking the lights apart to solder in amber LEDs and coding them, while on the G generations European units are often a direct swap. The radio tunes only odd frequencies and needs reconfiguring to the European region, plus maps. And the SIM module in the roof works on American carrier bands, so the car raises an emergency call fault — cleared in software.

Diesel barely exists here and that is a difference from Europe which misleads. The American market is practically all petrol; the rare diesels are different machinery from the European ones — the F15 35d uses the single-turbo N57, not Europe's 30d or 40d. If you want a diesel BMW, the American import is not the route.