BMW demands R1.6m for car buyer says he never drove

A GAUTENG businessman is in a financial nightmare as BMW Financial Services have taken him to court to demand R1.6 million over a luxury vehicle he never collected.

- SINENHLANHLA MASILELA

The turmoil began in late 2019 when Farhaad Mahomed, riding high on the success of his business, made a significant investment into a brand-new BMW X3M Competition destined to enhance his fleet.

The 50-year-old from Lenasia in Johannesburg bought the brand-new car in November 2019 from SMG BMW Century City in Cape Town.

To secure the car, he stated that the dealership required him to sign an undated finance contract even though the vehicle was still at the port of Durban. Before the deal was completed, Mahomed said he paid a hefty R200000 deposit and BMW Financial Services financed the balance of over R1 million.

Mahomed arranged for the vehicle to be delivered to his local BMW dealership, planning to pick it up in January 2020 so that it could be registered as a 2020 model. Little did he know, this decision would plunge him into a legal nightmare.

"If I had fetched it immediately in December, it would have been registered as a 2019 model and I would have driven it for just 30 days, for me it didn't make sense. So we agreed that I'll be fetching the car on January 2, 2020," he said.

As he was still waiting to collect the car, he noticed the car was advertised on various social media platforms after it was displayed in the dealership's showroom. He grew concerned that prospective clients might be test-driving it and asked for the advertisement to be taken down, but his request was not fulfilled.

"I was not happy because this means anyone who came to the dealership had access to the car and would have potentially test-driven it if they were interested in it. This means the car was no longer new but a demo car and I was not going to accept it," he said.