A little background. I bought my 57 plate 3.0Si roadster in July this year with 164k miles on it. It had been a demonstrator car and then owned by the same person for the rest of its life and looked after really quite well. Lots of receipts, past MOTs and proof of regular services etc. She had both front suspensions bushes and a wishbone replaced last year, the electronic water pump in 2016 and the other wishbone and one of the rear springs in 2016. The recent MOT mileage showed that it had done @17k each year since 2010. The driver’s side leather seat was showing its age and it wasn't as "tight" as I'd have liked but it pulled like a train and I loved, still do, the view in the wing mirrors! Those hips are just great and always make me smile.
As for costs she cost me £3,499 and I’ve put in £21.99 of oil! As for fuel the best MPG I’ve had was 37.63 from a tank of Tesco Momentum. I’m averaging 32.24 MPG from Shell V-Power and other high-octane fuels and 30.74 MPG from normal fuel. Not great but not terrible either.
Those are the good bits. The bad bits, the steering is a little vague sometimes, the front disks are slightly warped and it’s really noticeable that the rear isn’t right on the motorway! I had already guessed that this was due, mostly, to knackered RTA bushes. Also, the ride was terrible. It bumps and crashes over everything and isn’t as pleasant as I remember it being. Some of that will be the OEM runflats it has on and some of it is likely to be the springs and shocks being shot. It was always hard but it’s now just uncomfortable. Oh and the external temperature sensor thinks its -40 oC all the time and the emissions light has its own little disco thing going on!
So since buying it I've put nearly 10k miles on it and it is my ride to and from work every day, so I'm adding to that at about 2,500 miles a month! I finally couldn't put up with some of her more wayward traits and so it went into an independent garage this morning for them to have a good poke around and see whether it's worth me spending money getting this car sorted or if I should scrap this one and start again with something else. The verdict was really good. It’s clean and rust-free underneath, no signs of any previous damage and everything looks like it’s OEM BMW, cats etc. The engine came up clean, of anything major, on the scanner and sounds nice. The RTA bushes are shot, and the front outer ball joints need replacing but the springs are all good. There’s no evidence that the shocks are leaking but there are 2 small oil leaks. One is from the rocker cover gasket and the other from the oil cooler gasket. Neither is too serious but both need doing. Oh and the air temperature sensor in the MAF isn’t registering, which is what they think is causing the emissions light to come one and off. Overall a great place to start. She needs an Inspection 2 so I’ve booked her in next week for that, gearbox oil change, gaskets, outside temperature sensor and MAF air temperature sensor.
So, what’s the plan. Well she will always be my daily driver first and foremost so everything I do has to fit around that. However, I really used to enjoy trackdays in my Mk2 Golf GTi and intend to do a few every year in the Z, so that comes a close second. I have a basic plan, the first thing to get sorted are the RTA bushes and the front brakes / ball joints. Then I’ll think about the suspension and then, well who knows!
I’d already bought a spare set of 108s so I can have a winter and summer set and have now changed the runflats for the new ones. Well part worn ones and the old wheels are in the tyre fitters awaiting their new winter boots, £580 or so, I’ll find out next week when I go back to get them changed.
) is an lsd - I had a quaife unit which was awesome 
birds auto in Iver supply and fit them with a lifetime warranty - or there are very occasionally second hand units that turn up.
