My wife’s 125i and been swapped for an E91 330i touring and I’d found myself using the back seats of my 335i less and less. The original plan had been to buy an E90 M3 this year but life conspired to kill that idea off. I then decided that I’d be able to get away with a two seater now we have an estate car for family duties. A Cayman was by first thought but they’re more than I wanted to spend and I decided I wasn’t brave enough to live with the potential issues. Which bought me to the Z4, a car I’d always liked since launch and they met the main criteria of six cylinders, RWD and manual. It would need to be a coupe so I could fit a sea sucker for bike carrying.
Spec was soon an issue as I started to look into them because BMW were mean with the spec and not many original buyers seemed to tick many options. The minimum requirements were heated seats, xenon’s and Bluetooth (more on the latter later). I didn’t really want black paint or leather which further narrowed my options but one car did stand out, a 2006 coupe with a nice spec.
It’s Monaco blue with champagne nsppa leather, CCC nav (comically bad, even worse than in my 130i), heated seats, Bluetooth, xenon’s and style 108 wheels.
I picked the car up a few hours after selling my 335i. My initial impressions were that it’ll be a good base car but does need a few bits doing. In no particular order:
- paint needs a really good polish
- crappy Dunlop tyres need to be replaced
- beds front wishbones because the front end is busy and it tramlines
- leather needs a deep clean and repainting
- hinges for the central storage flap are broken so that needs replacing