I've owned E65's & E66 (E65 = short wheel base, E66 = long wheel base) for the last 4 years now & must say they are a lot of vehicle for the money but it is getting harder & harder to find a good one on the used market (almost impossible for an E38 now). I have owned a 2002 & 2005 model, the later model year is much better as the computers that drive the cars main systems are noticeably faster, especially when using iDrive.
The main reason why the 7 Series fails to hold their values on the used market compared to a say a 5 or 1 series is simply due to the lack of demand. Most people simply do not want a large luxury european sedan that guzzles fuel (same applies for the flagships from Mercedes & Audi, the S-class fares worse in depreciation). The 7 series has always had lower sales numbers and dare I say is much a rarer vehicle as there is small demand for them new especially in NZ, I recently spoke to Team McMillan & they advised me that they sell fewer than 10 7 Series vehicles per year, they don't even have a demo vehicle anymore. This is also why most of the 7 Series out there on the market are used imports. My advice to anyone that decides to purchase an E65/E66 7 Series is to get the vehicle checked & only buy one if your going to keep it for a long time & are prepared to spend money on it, parts are expensive and you'll often need to import them yourself (have had to do this so many times!) as the dealers charge way too much. Be prepared to either pay a dealer or for you to start an electrical engineering degree, jokes. But almost! It is astonishing to realise how much the 7 Series depreciates from new but it's just the life cycle of a large high end luxury vehicle. Once a 7 series hits the used market, the price plummets to meet the affordability of the general population & continues to drop as the vehicle goes from one owner to the next. Also $6k - $10k is very low for a 2002 E65/E66 7 Series & definitely does not reflect overall used market value for a 2002 E65/E66. The price structure for a used E65/E66 would look like this: $8k for a basket case (no service history, 3-4 owners & may require substantial mechanical/electrical work) & then $20k+ for a prime dealer-maintained example that has been checked (market value taken from 7 classifieds on TM), but in saying that you can sell anything at any price you like, doesn't necessarily represent market value (however we must stick to the rule of working out an average). The one mentioned above is in rough shape with high KM's & most likely is a basket case, the owner has stained the beige carpets which speaks volumes to how they must maintain the vehicle itself. The alloys are also not OEM ( those are replica an 18" replica of the OEM 19" E65 'Style 95' alloys). Here's how the cycle of luxury car depreciation works, lets take a used 2002 7 series as an example such as the one above. So we can assume the first owner of that 7 Series is going to be wealthy, the car from new is maintained to a very high standard by the dealer. The first owner then flicks the vehicle off to the second owner that is going to pay roughly 50% of it's original price say 3 years later, we can assume this person has a good amount of money behind them & they will make an informed decision as to their purchase meaning they will know what a 7 Series is, most if not all of it's features & have rough idea as to the costs to maintain/repair. Now 3 - 5 years later the vehicle is now 6-8 years old & this owner then flicks the vehicle off to the third owner at a price that will meet the general market. At this point the vehicle would be now worth 20 - 30% of it's original value. Now the third owner most likely won't make an informed purchase & not know anything about a 7 Series besides the fact that it's big, looks good & has the BMW badge then spend all of their money buying the vehicle with nothing left over to maintain and or repair it (which at this stage of it's life, will require a lot of maintenance. This is why a lot of large luxury european sedans start to die off & end up on TradeMe for $7k on auction! it's quite sad to see this happen but everything has to end up in the bin eventually & this happens to all luxury cars. At least then only the good ones shall remain as future classics! Also in regards to the Singapore comment, there's nothing wrong with a Singapore imported 7 Series. I owned a Singapore E65 in 2010 & had not a single issue with it, mechanical maybe (to be expected) but never electrical! The electrical wiring disintegrating myth was only an issue on older 90's european vehicles. In fact the E65/E66 systems communicate over a fiber optic cable that runs in a loop between all of the vehicle's systems. There are still many technical innovations in these cars that continue to surpass any new vehicle from almost any japanese car manufacturer. I will say though costs to repair & maintain aren't that bad but certain things are expensive to replace eg. suspension components, transmission (air suspension, standard in long wheel base E66). Any and all E65/E66 owners out there get at me! I know this vehicle inside & out, I need to post more mods I've done to my 7 I just don't have the time like I used to. My conclusion on the E65/E66 is that it will make a phenomenal classic in the future, awesome forward thinking design for it's time (still looks futuristic inside & out!) & the quality is actually surprisingly very good. I like the yacht like interior layout & the use of more wood trim, especially the wood trim on the rear parcel tray (yes BMW wood trims are real wood!). My actual fully loaded long wheel base 7 Series, so many 7 Series owners have no idea what this truly means!
